Hallett , associate professor of criminal justice at University of North Florida, 2006
[Michael A. Hallett, director of the Center for Race and Juvenile Justice Policy, “Private Prisons in
America: A Critical Race Perspective”, University of Illinois Press, 2006, Google Books, pg. 134, CW]
In an ideal free-market system, numerous providers exist to serve customers’ needs — and customers enforce efficiency by virtue of their option to cease transacting with one provider in favor of another.
In conditions where competition among vendors is limited, however, so too are customers’ options. So, for example, in a case where only a limited number of private prison vendors are large or experience enough to handle a multilevel (minimum, medium, and maximum security) inmate population, then clearly the benefits of the free-market system become less powerful. One of the key justifications for privatization put forward by its proponents is that private contractors operate more efficiently than their public-sector counterparts because they are subject to the forces of competition . Proponents argue that because state-based service providers are often locked into contracts with other state or local service agencies, there is much less flexibility available to governmental jurisdictions in managing the facilities (Logan, 1990;
Fitzgerald, 1991). This “lack of flexibility” is put forward as a source of governmental inefficiency and excessive cost to taxpayers, because governmental bureaucracies have no incentive to downsize. Privatization proponents argue that private contractors have no such allegiances and are not bound by similar procurement rules, thus being able to “shop around” for competitive prices and workers.

McDonald et al , Ph.D and associate at Abt Associates, 1998
[Douglas C. McDonald, author of multiple books about prisons, “Private Prisons in the United States: An
Assessment of Current Practice”, Abt Associates Inc., July 16, 1998, www.abtassociates.com/reports/priv-report.pdf, CW]
For a variety of reasons, the belief emerged that contracting for services, including correctional services, was superior to direct government provision .
Private firms were said to be more efficient as they are not mired in the "red tape" that encumbers public agencies, especially in procurement and labor relations . Private managers can hire and fire without the constraints of civil services and restrictions on creating budget lines for new employees ; labor can be disciplined and reassigned with far greater ease in the private sector, especially if labor is not unionized.
Another purported advantage of the private sector was its greater efficiency in the face of competition.
According to this line of argument, public agencies have monopolies on services, and few incentives exist to discover and implement ways of improving efficiency . Shielded from the demands of the marketplace, public managers may not strive for greater productivity but for maintaining their positions by avoiding risks. Government positions and agency budgets, once established, are difficult to reduce because constituencies are created inside and outside government that press legislatures for continued funding. In contrast , competition in the private marketplace, and the risk of losing money or going out of business, supposedly stimulates the search for increased efficiency.
Moore , Vice President of Research at Reason Foundation, 1998
[Adrian T. Moore, “PRIVATE PRISONS: Quality Corrections at a Lower Cost”, Reason Foundation, April 1,
1998, http://reason.org/news/show/private-prisons, CW]
For-profit and nonprofit private organizations play a major role in providing services to correctional agencies .
Most correctional institutions use some form of privatization in such areas as medical services, mental-health services, substance-abuse counseling, educational programs, food services, and management of prison industries .
The use of private services by correctional agencies is most extensive outside institution walls. This reflects the fact that more than 80 percent of convicted offenders in most states are in community supervision, either on parole or on probation. Private involvement in community corrections (low-security work-release or halfwayhouse facilities) is a long-standing tradition in most states . In addition, state governments have traditionally let contracts for services such as counseling on abuse of alcohol and other drugs; assessment and treatment of sexual offenders; and job training and placement.

McDonald et al , Ph.D and associate at Abt Associates, 1998
[Douglas C. McDonald, author of multiple books about prisons, “Private Prisons in the United States: An
Assessment of Current Practice”, Abt Associates Inc., July 16, 1998, www.abtassociates.com/reports/priv-report.pdf, CW]
In the adult correctional system, private firms had long been contracting with federal and state governments to provide a variety of specific services to correctional facilities, such as food services, maintenance, education, vocational training, health care , prison industries programs, and counseling.
Such contracting received little attention because it did not seem to pose fundamental questions about the state’s authority to incarcerate prisoners. Nor were questions raised when the Bureau of Prisons began in the late 1960s to contract with private firms to operate community treatment centers, halfway houses to which federal prisoners were transferred prior to being released or paroled. These were outside the mainstream of secure prisons.
McDonald et al , Ph.D and associate at Abt Associates, 1998
[Douglas C. McDonald, author of multiple books about prisons, “Private Prisons in the United States: An
Assessment of Current Practice”, Abt Associates Inc., July 16, 1998, www.abtassociates.com/reports/priv-report.pdf, CW]
In 1987, the Texas State Legislature enacted a law authorizing the Texas Department of
Corrections to contract with private vendors and county commissioners to finance, construct, operate, maintain or manage correctional facilities . In June of that year, a request for proposals was issued offering the opportunity to operate four 500-bed prisons, to be structured as prerelease centers, with programming designed to reintegrate prisoners back into society upon their release. Such programming would include educational and vocational programs as well as counseling and treatment for drug and alcohol abuse, domestic difficulties, and other problem areas.
Contracts were ultimately awarded to the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) for two facilities, and to the Wackenhut Corrections Corporation for two other 500-bed facilities. The two facilities operated by CCA were located in Cleveland and at Venus, Texas. The two operated by Wackenhut were in Bridgeport, and Kyle, Texas. These facilities began receiving prisoners during the summer of 1989.

McDonald et al , Ph.D and associate at Abt Associates, 1998
[Douglas C. McDonald, author of multiple books about prisons, “Private Prisons in the United States: An
Assessment of Current Practice”, Abt Associates Inc., July 16, 1998, www.abtassociates.com/reports/priv-report.pdf, CW]
Generally unstudied in these few evaluations is the potential for either governments or private firms to control specific types of costs, such as spending for prisoner health care. Expenditures for prisoner health care has been rising at a much faster rate than for other non-medical correctional activities, in part because prisons are subject to the same inflationary pressures experienced in the broader health care marketplace. However , prisons have generally lagged behind other sectors in developing procedures for managing these costs.
Private firms that operate prisons are certain to implement “managed care” strategies to contain costs, all of which could also be adopted by public correctional agencies.
Montague , policy analyst for the Washington Policy Center, 2003
[Eric Montague, “Prison Health Care: Healing a Sick System through Private Competition”, Washington
Policy Center, August 2003, http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/Centers/healthcare/policynote/03_montague_prisonhc.html, CW]
The rising cost of health care is not the only factor threatening the viability of the state’s monopoly prison system . The quality of health services are also suffering as a result of overstretched facilities, inadequate staffing and an inflexible work environment common to government bureaucracies.
Faced with similar problems, prison officials in other states are turning to the private sector for quality, cost effective alternatives for managing the health care needs of the growing inmate population.
Unfortunately, the full advantages of private competition are not available to state prison officials. Jobs with the State of Washington are protected by strict civil service rules that outlaw private alternatives. While WSDOC regularly contracts with private medical professionals for some services, it is only an option of last resort. Prison officials continue to maintain a costly army of full-time doctors, nurses, psychologists, counselors and dentists to meet the demanding medical requirements of the inmate population. A modern prison system must provide adequate medical care to inmates. Elected leaders and prison officials must now decide the best way to provide that medical care . Changing state law to let prison managers contract with full-service private hospitals, clinics and doctors would lower cost and improve the quality of inmate care. Many other states are already using private contractors to trim costs and improve flexibility and performance , and the existence of a vibrant and prestigious local health care market offers a unique and promising opportunity for achieving similar results.

Private prisons solve overcrowding
McDonald et al , Ph.D and associate at Abt Associates, 1998
[Douglas C. McDonald, author of multiple books about prisons, “Private Prisons in the United States: An
Assessment of Current Practice”, Abt Associates Inc., July 16, 1998, www.abtassociates.com/reports/priv-report.pdf, CW]
Different dynamics created business opportunities for the private sector in state governments .
Beginning in 1973, the nation’s state and federal prison population began growing rapidly, and by
1986, it had almost tripled, growing more than fifteen times faster than the general population.
To accommodate the increase from 1985 to 1986 alone about 43,000 additional prisoners seven new medium-sized (500-bed) prisons were needed each month. Governments did not build facilities quickly enough to handle this flood of prisoners, and severe overcrowding became the norm . By 1986, all but seven states were operating their prisons in excess of 95 percent capacity;
38 were either full or above capacity; and seven states exceeded capacity by more than 50 percent. The federal prison system was also operating at somewhere between 27 and 59 percent above capacity. Throughout the nation, prisoners were sleeping in hallways, day rooms, gymnasiums, sometimes even in bathrooms, or were doubled up in small cells. Overcrowding exacerbated another serious problem: a large proportion of the nation’s penal facilities were outmoded and even obsolete by contemporary standards.
A government survey conducted in 1983 found that half of all state and federal prisons in operation at the time were more than 35 years old and a substantial number more than a hundred.
Only about one-fifth of all state and federal prisons had been accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Corrections. The confluence of these dynamics resulted in a spate of lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the conditions under which prisoners were being confined. By mid-1988, 39 states, the District of
Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands were operating prisons and jails under court orders to remedy unconstitutional conditions. Several states were even forced to release prisoners ahead of time to bring occupancy levels down to mandated levels.