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Abstract
Overcrowding and scarce resources are among the most persistent problems besetting the correctional industry across the world. One approach being considered is privatizing prisons so governments can redirect resources to other areas in the society. The paper seeks to discuss this approach and establish the utility of such a practice.
Prison Privatization: Global Trends
Handing over operations of prison facilities to the private sector is a disturbing trend that is slowly becoming more and more commonplace as nations are aggressively looking for ways to reduce their spending. Though private sector businesses are recognized for being strict in adhering to efficient operations, and at times preferred in a number of sectors, transferring operations of a number of public sector facilities will endanger fundamental human rights.
This is due to the factor that this element will be placed on the level of expenses rather than objectives in the operation of privately-run prison facilities. In addition, a free market system is not the best structure for the operation of a facility that is outside the ambit of the operation of the laws of “supply and demand;” in this context, human beings are reduced to the status of mere manufactures, and since many of these come from disenfranchised or impoverished sectors, instances of abuse may go unheeded in the name of maximizing profits (Menendez 2010).
A number of people believe that the visitation of pain on an individual is wrong; punishment involves inflicting pain. Here, it is argued whether punishment then is wrong. Scholars digress on the issue. One side believes that the visitation of pain as sanction is basically different from inflicting harm on innocents, and in this context is not wrong. On the other side, there is the school of thought that sanctions are wrong and can only be legitimized if it produces in a “greater good,” as posited by Murphy (1995). The second approach is the utilitarian methodology of punishment.
The right of the society to inflict punishment is enshrined in the “social contract.” Though the concept dates back to ancient Greece, the “Age of Enlightenment” is where the concept gained its greatest importance. In essence, the contract states that “all people freely and willingly enter into an agreement to form society by giving up a portion of their individual freedom for the return benefit of protection. If one transgresses against the rights of others, one has broken the social contract, and society has the right to punish,” as given by Mickunas (1990) (Pollock 2005).
Jeremy Bentham, one of the prime proponents of Utilitarianism, believed that as men are regulated in their conduct by logical evaluations of the benefits as well as the harms of their actions. Here, the sanction must be proportionate to the act to generate to a loss for the person being punished (Ogwezzy 2011). The “social contract” therefore disallows the “turnover” of the responsibility of the State to another party; or in this case, the private sector. This principle of “non-delegation” has been protected by the courts in that all powers to sanction and other fundamental government functions must remain with government agencies and entities and must never be delegated to a third party such as the private sector (Peled, Navot 2012).
Privatization of penal facilities is not a novel concept. This concept finds its origins as early as the 16th century in England, and experienced a modern day renaissance in the United States by the 1980s. Supporters of privately run prisons stated that this will result in cost-efficient, high quality, imprisonment services; this guarantee comes at a time when government coffers were running low owing to deficient government revenues and erupting inmate populations (Mason 2013).
The expansion of the prisons sector has many positive impacts in the community. Some rural communities have opted to link their local economies to correctional facilities, seeing the building and extension of the facilities as “recession-proof” engines to growth. Local officials will often cite the benefits of the prisons to their communities. However, a wider body of literature attests to the findings that the prisons do not engender the magnitude and desired effects that the local jurisdictions seek; in fact, the presence of prison facilities may even hamper economic development in these regions.
Extremely high imprisonment rates can inflict long-term economic imbalances by advancing income disparities and more condensed instances of poverty. The issues are aggravated by the findings that Hispanics and African Americans face a higher possibility to be incarcerated than Caucasians (Kirchoff 2010).
In the global community, privatized prisons face rough sailing even in their respective legal circles. The Israeli High Court in 2009 ruled that privately run correctional facilities infringe upon the nation’s laws. The Israeli High Bench founded its decision on the position that the government has an unassailable trust in the dispensation of sanctions; here, the Court believes that privately run prisons run afoul with contemporary principles of democratic governance (Feeley 2013).
The need to generate equilibrium between the calls for retribution and advocacies to secure the freedoms of individuals was a primary subject in the 19th century. However, present day approaches to corrections in the United States and in Western Europe are increasingly coming under the domination of a utilitarian based methodology to punishment.
In this context, policies for “selective incarceration” attempt to establish the murderous, threat-prone repeat offenders and incarcerate these individuals. The acceptance of such policies as the “Three strikes” law and its purported effect in lowering crime rates in the United States is one that has caused considerable debate. Scientifically founded research results are difficult to source; however, what is known is that the negative impacts of these policies has resulted in the inordinate numbers of African Americans and Hispanics in the US correctional and penal system (Heitmeyer, Hagan 2005).
There is a critical assumption that correctional and penal facilities do not differ from other functions of the state that is being handed over to the private sector. Here, privatizing penal facilities are viewed as an economic issue and not a concern in criminal justice. However, it has been seen that privatizing prisons does not reflect an expanding trend that regards imprisonment as an economic issue and inmates as economic components of a financial agenda.
In this light, it can be said that prisons would be a logical expansion of the vision, where facility administrators outsource basic components of running the facility to reduce costs. However, in the traditional operation of businesses in the private sector, there is a disturbing tendency for these private sector providers to look for more inmates to justify the enormous price that society is willing to pay to keep those who violated the law in prison (Dolovich 544).
Bibliography
Dolovich, S., 2005. State punishment and private prisons. Duke Law Journal 55(3) p. 544
Feeley, M.M., 2014. The unconvincing case against private prisons. Indiana Law Journal 89(4) p. 1401
Heitmeyer, W., Hagan, J., 2005. International handbook of violence research. Berlin: Springer Science and Business Media
Kirchoff, S. M., 2010. Economic impacts of prison growth. [Online] Available at:<http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41177.pdf
Mason, C., 2013. International growth trends in prison population. [Online] Available at: <http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/inc_InternationalGrowthTrendsinPrisonPrivatization.pdf
Menendez, M. E., 2010. Prison privatization and prison labor: the human rights implications. [online] Available at :<http://www.humanrightsadvocates.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Prison-Privatization-and-Forced-Prison-Labor-2012.pdf
Ogwezzy, M.C., 2011. From reformation to deformation: an approach towards sustainable development of the defective prison system in Nigeria. Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa 13 (7)
Peled, Y., Navot, D., 2012. Private incarceration: towards a philosophical critique [online] Available at:<http://www.academia.edu/3402742/Private_Incarceration_Towards_a_Philosophical_Critique
Pollock, J.M., 2005. The rationale for imprisonment. [online] Available at:<http://www.jblearning.com/samples/0763729043/Chapter_01.pdf
