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Why Are Private Prisons “Immoral?”
The Phoenix suburb of Mesa is Arizona’s third largest city, the spring training home to the Chicago Cubs, and, most famously, home to yours truly. Unlike most cities, our leadership is always looking for costs to cut, rather than expensive new programs to create. But their latest budget-minded initiative is angering the local powers that be.
For decades, Mesa has sent its misdemeanor offenders to Maricopa County jails, but that comes with a steep price tag. Over the past 10 years, the county has increased its daily housing prices by nearly 40 percent and its booking cost by more than 60 percent. So now the city is negotiating a deal with private contractor CoreCivic to house the inmates in a neighboring county. The move could save up to $2 million a year. Sounds like a win/win to me, but the county sheriff is seeing red ink:
[Sheriff Paul] Penzone was quick to condemn Mesa’s move, claiming it could increase county expenses and have a negative impact on his organization. To persuade Mesa and other cities not to search for better options, he said he would try to reduce costs and increase efficiency. He claims to have closed Tent City for just this reason.
The per-prisoner rate increases are due to reduced occupancy in the jails, according to his office. Since facilities need to remain open, they have the same hard costs regardless of how many inmates they hold. However, it’s hard not to wonder if the massive lawsuits from the Arpaio years could have something to do with it.
Penzone also is concerned about the free market interfering with government. “Any time we privatize housing inmates, there’s a profit element,” he said, suggesting that a for-profit model empowers lobbyists to try to increase the length of sentences and reduce diversionary programs. [emphasis mine.]
Profit? How icky.
The main complaint of private-prison critics is that, for some reason, profiting off prisons is immoral. Glance at the comments to my article above, and you’ll see “morals” tossed around more than Cotton Mather hosting a Puritan altar call.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris was blunter: “It is morally wrong for corporations to profit off the mass incarceration of millions of people in this country.” She doesn’t mention that vendors selling steel bars, uniforms, and fencing already profit from mass incarceration, along with countless other companies. Singling out private prisons for contempt shows a lack of understanding or honesty.
What’s left unexplained by Penzone, Harris, or lefty internet commenters is why private prisons are immoral. I know of no major religion that condemns the practice … outside of the One True Church of Progressivism. But it is stated as such a self-evident fact, I’m wondering if I’m missing something.
So I ask you, Ricochetti: Why is jailing prisoners in a public facility moral while locking them up in a private facility is sinful?
Published in Economics, Law
Let’s face it, all institutions are subject to corruption if we are not vigilant. If I were able to design the prison system from scratch I might have gone with private prisons who would have had to compete for business. But I would have put into place safeguards to make sure corporations were not involved in corrupting the criminal justice system to dig up more business. However, we have to deal with they system we already have in place and there is already enough corruption in the current prison system. Just look at California. The California prison guards’ union lobbied for the Three Strikes Law, opposed legalization of marijuana and provided funds to defeat Proposition 5 which would have diverted some criminals away from prison and into drug rehabilitation programs. I am not debating whether these laws or programs are or were a good idea. However the cynic in me believes that the union’s position is based mostly on supporting whatever will give the union more dues paying union members. Adding another layer of private prisons seems to be inviting a new layer of corruption to a system which already has a lot of problems. While I have little sympathy for criminals I do think the number of rapes and other crimes committed in prison is a disgrace. I would worried about corporations lobbying for longer sentences to get more profits, or giving money to judges they think will impose longer sentences etc. Right now I think we need to fix the corruption in the current system which may make it all cheaper in the long run
I think private prisons could lobby for longer prison time, but at a far lesser rate than government prison workers already do.
As I note in my op-ed, we are talking about Maricopa County. When Sheriff Joe Arpaio was in charge, he housed prisoners in desert tents, served them green bologna, and attired them in pink underwear all to cut costs (at least that’s what he claimed). There were also lots of deaths on his watch, escapes, and violent abuse was rife.
Being in jail sucks, public or private. I just don’t understand why a government-run facility is considered morally superior than a private option.
Because feeling morally superior to civilians is what being a government employee is all about.
Seawriter
It all depends upon what you want to pay for. By the time someone becomes a regular resident of any jail or prison facility they have a pretty extensive criminal history. So you can pay to keep them incarcerated, or you can pay the increased costs of your vehicle insurance, renter or homeowners insurance, or the retail prices you pay as merchants increase the cost of goods due to theft losses.
Sorry editing glitch.
I’ve known people who had thoroughly convinced themselves that government can do it cheaper, better, and more efficiently than private enterprise. And you can give them a kajillion examples of this not being true, and they will still insist it is.
It’s an article of faith, and that child-like faith in government cannot be shaken.
1.) It is not an unreasonable position to hold that the administration of justice should be done by government because the administration of justice should be done by those with proper authority -not delegated to the lowest bidder.
2.) This is, however, not historically the exclusive view. We have, at many times, had private law enforcement, private prisons (people, in fact, used to pay for the privilege of a prison sentence rather than the stocks or a flogging), and even private justice systems. So I do not accept the argument that government punishment is the way it should be because it is the way we do it.
3.) Nor do I accept the argument that private prisons are somehow more corrupt than government prisons. As many people have noted, the administrators and wardens at private prisons can be just as corrupt -over the table in terms of lobbying, and under the table in terms of extorting their prisoners and host communities.
4.) One community paying a neighboring community to house their short term prisoners is fairly common. I see no reason to restrict the practice just because a neighboring community uses contracted out prison guards.
5.) The studies of prisons I am familiar with all say the same thing: well run prisons require highly active wardens who can oversee the prison from top to bottom with extreme order, and root out corruption. If that cannot be done, the prison devolves into chaos. I have no reason to think governments are particularly good at staffing that way any more than the private sector.
I’ll buy the story of superior public sector public-spiritedness if the State will eliminate the Prison Guards union, or at a minimum prohibit that union from using dues to engage in any form of political activity, including lobbying and making campaign contributions in cash or in kind. Until then, I consider them just another corrupt and self-interested group of rent seekers.
I have spent my career in the business world, and I don’t think business people are inherently any better (or worse) than public employees. Human beings are self-interested and morally short-sighted. But the solution to the legitimate issues raised above isn’t to replace one group of rent-seekers with another. It’s to figure out the incentives and try to reduce the perverse ones. Process not people.
The private sector has better mechanisms to punish bad behavior and reward good. If you use two vendors, you can play them against each other for the best result.
This is truly the crux of the argument— but the county/residents should be vigilant about the quality of service provided by any private parties in the same way that I’d be vigilant about the quality of work if I hired a crew to paint my house.
Stating my opposition to same has gotten me dismissed from jury duty.
I don’t believe Cotton Mather ever did an altar call, that was not a Puritan practice.
Agree.
Imprisoning citizens— depriving them of their liberty— is a use of force. In a representative democracy, the government and only the government has the necessary and responsible authority for the use of force against citizens. A corporation should not be vested with the power to keep Americans forcibly confined in cages.
While I don’t find this view indefensible, I do think it needs justification.
Most prison guards are not sworn officers. What difference does it make whether we delegate the power to this group of non-sworn guards or that group? What difference if the Warden -who still answers to the state Board of Corrections or the Legislature -draws their salary from the general fund directly of from a private company with a contract from the general fund?
The government is the agency keeping Americans forcibly confined in cages. What difference does it make if their chosen method involves an extra intermediary of a private company?
Government is the lawful use of force. The military and the courts are the primary role of government. If government can’t do that, then what are they doing?
The difference between vendors that jail people and vendors that supply jails is that the supplied materials are usually on an open market and can sell to others. For example, toothpaste is sold elsewhere besides jails. Contractors build other things besides jails. There are exceptions but those exceptions are generally not controlling.
I want the legislature to spend its time managing the jail and less time telling me I can’t use plastic bags at the grocery store.
And however much you pooh pooh it, I don’t want someone profiting from jailing citizens. I want the jailers to be strictly neutral as to who is there and for how long.
In theory I would agree. Private prisons may have advantages. But they would still be monopolies, and subject to the same inefficiencies that government prisons have. So isn’t the issue good versus bad management rather than government versus private? Yes, there may be some advantages to a profit motive, but it’s probably not as much as you think, given government will insist on certain requirments. In some ways it might actually be worse because government will place all requirements it can think of while absolved of the responsibility of running it. Just like the Federal government shifts costs to the states, the governments above the prisons may shift costs they wouldn’t typically pay for if they ran the prison on to the prisons.
That’s persuasive. I agree.
Amen.
Even as a devotee of capitalism, I too am squeamish about private prisons. I think this comment sums it up concisely.
What @Skyler said!
Completely on board with this view. I suspect those who object to privately-run prisons aren’t using this sort of reasoning, though.
But there’s a profit motive to save costs!
– won’t that result in cutting corners for the care of prisoners?
Don’t worry, they have to follow all the regulations and will be monitored.
-If they have to follow regulations how will they save money?
1. Steal underpants.
2. ?
3. Profit!!
The main way? They have to follow state regulations, but not union rules. Additionally, they have more flexibility in deploying their work force -so guards can rotate through multiple prisons or be moved around when one prison needs more guards and another needs fewer. They can also be more flexible in their housing of prisoners, again moving them about to more efficiently fill existing prisons. In the area of prison care, they can have doctors and other specialists serve multiple prisons in multiple locations rather than having one at every location. Supplement with an Emergency Response Team and paramedics on site, rather than doctors. And all of this can be done without needing to get approval from the state legislature.
Though both are bureaucratic, there are reasons why corporate structures are still a little more efficient than government structures.
Indeed the California Correctional Officers Association is a massive political force here.
I fear your dream of flex is illusory. Where does this flex come from? Without government pension plans and stepping stone for a police career, where will they find jailers? Pay jailers less? Yeah, save money and increase corruption.
Given that government pensions are an illusion to begin with, and to my knowledge “jailer” isn’t a stepping stone to the police force without doing the same process -appointment and academy -that a private jailer would follow -I don’t think this is a problem. Nor are existing prisons somehow corruption free.
But more to the point, is there any reason to think these would be issues, or are you just speculating?
My read of the literature comports with Sasha Volokh’s -private prisons are not notably worse, might be a little better, are probably a little cheaper. But the data are noisy and we don’t really know.
I suspect you are right. The costs are not going to be much different, which was my point. Since there is no economic advantage, then the moral dimension should control. Puttting a profit motive into the equation for incarcerating people is immoral and an abdication of our government’s responsibility.
I strongly disagree, as I think the bureaucrat’s impulse to control under color of law is far more immoral than the profit motive. Even if the financials are identical, it should be as private as possible. Since I’m one of the conservatives that think infrastructure spending is an appropriate use of public funds, I think the middle ground is government-built prisons operated by easily-fired contractors.
Or, contractors that can’t be tossed out through election. I don’t like that additional remove from the will of the voters. It’s too easy for politicians to say, wasn’t my responsibility, it was those contractors over there. I can’t control them, they are guided by the terms of their contract.