SAGE Journal Articles

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Hallett, M. A. (2002). Race, crime, and for profit imprisonment: Social disorganization as market opportunity. Punishment & Society, 4(3), 369–393. doi:10.1177/146247402400426798

Abstract

This article explores the racial dynamics of contemporary prison privatization in the USA from the perspective of social disorganization theory. It relies particularly on the concepts of ‘social’ and ‘human’ capital to suggest that, due to late 20th-century imprisonment policies, a renewed understanding of prisoners as commodities has emerged. While the nature of prisoners’ commodity-value has changed somewhat in modern times - prisoners are no longer profitable solely for their labor, but also now for their bodily ability to generate per diem payments for their private keepers - the historical pattern of racially distinct commerce in imprisoned human beings, most of whom are poor, non-violent, minority offenders, has returned. This article first explains the re-emergence of privatized control over prisoners in contemporary times, then moves on to examine the ‘social capital’ implications of prison privatization as it relates to public policy.

Perrone, D., & Pratt, T. C. (2003). Comparing the Quality of Confinement and Cost-Effectiveness of Public Versus Private Prisons: What We Know, Why We Do Not Know More, and Where to Go from Here. The Prison Journal, 83(3), 301–322. doi:10.1177/0032885503256329

Abstract

The movement to privatize correctional institutions has gained considerable momentum as the need to reduce the costs of incarceration to public agencies has become more critical. The empirical evidence regarding whether private prisons are more cost-effective and whether they provide a higher quality of confinement to inmates, however, is inconclusive. To help clarify this portion of the prison privatization debate, this article contains a systematic review of the evaluation literature comparing the costs and quality of confinement of public versus private prisons. In doing so, three issues are highlighted: (a) the conclusions that can be reached based on the existing literature,(b) the major methodological inconsistencies that have hindered researchers' ability to draw firm conclusions from the body of empirical studies thus far, and (c) the direction that future research in this area may take to advance a better understanding of the potential advantages and disadvantages of prison privatization.