Apples-To-Fish: Public and Private Prison Cost Comparisons

Fordham Urban Law Journal, Apr 2016

By Alex Friedmann, Published on 04/06/16

A PDF file should load here. If you do not see its contents the file may be temporarily unavailable at the journal website or you do not have a PDF plug-in installed and enabled in your browser.

Alternatively, you can download the file locally and open with any standalone PDF reader:

https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2565&context=ulj

Apples-To-Fish: Public and Private Prison Cost Comparisons

Apples-To-Fish: Public and Private Prison Cost Comparisons Alex Friedmann 0 0 Human Rights Defense Center Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Law and Economics Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Law and Race Commons, and the Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons - Article 4 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj Alex Friedmann* Introduction .............................................................................................504 I. Background .......................................................................................505 A. Studies with Favorable Findings .........................................506 B. Equivocal and Adverse Research Results .........................507 II. Difficulties in Public-Private Comparisons ..................................509 1. HIV, HCV, and Other Specified Medical Conditions ........................................................................524 1. Per Diem Increases .........................................................543 2. Deferred Maintenance....................................................545 * Alex Friedmann serves as Associate Director of the Human Rights Defense Center, a non-profit organization, and Managing Editor of HRDC’s monthly publication, Prison Legal News (www.prisonlegalnews.org). He also serves in a non-compensated capacity as President of the Private Corrections Institute (www.privateci.org), which opposes the privatization of correctional services. He served ten years behind bars, including six years at a CCA-operated prison in Tennessee, prior to his release in 1999. Special thanks are extended to the staff of the Fordham Urban Law Journal for their review of this Article and helpful critiques. Any errors are the sole responsibility of the author. 4. Bond Financing................................................................548 J. Fraud and Corruption...........................................................550 IV. Quality of Service Comparisons...................................................553 A. Violence Levels .....................................................................555 B. Staff Turnover .......................................................................556 C. ACA Accreditation ..............................................................558 D. Recidivism Rates Redux ......................................................561 V. Opportunity Costs...........................................................................563 Conclusion................................................................................................567 INTRODUCTION It sounds like such a simple question: do private prisons save money? The answer, however, is dependent on a number of factors— including how “saving money” is defined. Consider th at in 2013 , the nation’s largest for-profit prison company, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), made $300.8 million in net profit on gross revenue of $1.69 billion.1 Thus, the company achieved $300.8 million in savings over operational expenses at its prisons, jails, and other detention facilities. But how much of that $300.8 million went to taxpayers or reverted to state treasuries or county coffers? None. Those “savings” went to CCA in the form of corporate profit. Over the past three decades there have been dozens of reports and studies on and analyses of cost comparisons between public and privately-operated prisons—by academics, government agencies, and independent organizations—all attempting to answer the elusive question of whether private prisons save money.2 This is not one of those attempts. Instead, rather than trying to determine if prison privatization results in savings due to the shifting of costs from public agencies, this Article takes an opposite approach by identifying costs that are shifted from privately-operated facilities to the public sector. An examination of such cost-shifting factors is esse ntial when evaluating 2014 ] cost comparisons, to better understand how private prisons externalize expenses while internalizing profits. In short, public agencies want to save money while private prison companies have an inherent need to make money—and the latter necessarily comes at the expense of the former.3 Part I of this Article examines previous public-private prison cost comparison studies, while Part II discusses various factors that make such comparisons difficult. Part III provides an exhaustive look at cost shifting factors, whereby costs are shifted from private prisons to public contracting agencies, and Part IV examines quality of service comparisons—including levels of violence and staff turnover at private prisons, accreditation by the American Correctional Association, and recidivism rates. Part V addresses opportunity costs associated with privately-operated prisons, while the Conclusion proposes an alternative approach when considering whether prison privatization results in (...truncated)


This is a preview of a remote PDF: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2565&context=ulj

Alex Friedmann. Apples-To-Fish: Public and Private Prison Cost Comparisons, Fordham Urban Law Journal, 2016, Volume 42, Issue 2,