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In my humble opinion, with a Masters degree in criminology and criminal justice, prisons should remain part of the state responsibility and should never be wholly privatised. They deal with criminals some of the toughest and most excluded people in society, who need the support of the state to get on the straight and narrow.

The main problem with privatized prisons is that, being run by private companies, they will be looking to make a profit. While state prisons don't aim to run up debts, it is more manageable for individual prisons to run temporarily at a loss or for the Government to balance the books elsewhere. This can never be tolerated in the private sector.

In Britain at least, the private prisons operated on a minimal number of staff in an effort to maintain efficiency. Wages in private prisons were generally lower and conditions worse than in state prisons. In the early days of privatization, this resulted in a lower proportion of experienced prison staff and also a higher turnover of staff 28% (40% for the worst prison) compared to 6% in the state sector.

According to the Prison Reform Trust, this meant that the private prisons were characterised by an unsafe and unstable environment. As their running costs depend on the number of prisoners, private prisons are also often more overcrowded, which compounds the problems.

On a more positive note, private prisons will take the burden for administering justice away from the state and is likely to produce a more efficient system for doing so.

Private prisons should also have to adhere to the same standards as state prisons, so there really shouldn't be much difference between them. They should both administer justice to the same standard and maintain the same high standards of safety and security.

It may also be that private prisons are looking for newer and more innovative ways of rehabilitating and working with prisoners to reduce reoffending (recidivism). With their budget constraints, any new techniques to save money and resources would be beneficial and these could then be passed on to other prisons.

But I think that one of the main problems with the privatization of prisons is the distrust of the motives behind it. Politicians are not renowned for their honesty and whether they believe that such institutions should be contracted out for the best of the prisoners and the judicial system, or whether it's because it saves them money, is something which will always divide public opinion and keep any problems in private prisons on the front pages of the newspapers.

Sources

(1) http://www.prisonreformtrust.o rg.uk/subsection.asp?id=389
(2) http://www.newstatesman.com/20 0707090002

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