prison privatisation in south africa issues, challenges and ...

management environment and the controls in place to prevent such activity than it does with the
public or private nature of the enterprise. The greatest control risk is in the actual process of
awarding the contract and the financial agreements contained therein. This is the case
whenever the government contracts with a private company, and is yet another reason why the
procurement process should be as transparent as possible, and the contracts themselves
should be made available to the public.
The debate over prison privatisation has been fuelled by antagonism
between public employee unions and private corporations. Each side has its
own self-interest to protect when it comes to prison privatisation, and this
bias is clearly evident in literature on the topic. In the state of Florida the
Florida Police Benevolent Association (FPBA), which represents about half
of Florida’s 18,000 correctional officers, have consistently campaigned
against prison privatisation. In 1997, the FPBA filed an ethics complaint
against Dr. Charles Thomas, a professor at the University of Florida and a
leading expert on prison privatisation. In addition to being the director of the
University of Florida’s Private Prisons Project, Thomas worked as a
consultant for the state’s Correctional Privatisation Commission (CPC), the
government body which contracts with private prison companies.
Since 1990, private prison companies have donated hundreds of thousands
of dollars to the University of Florida Research Foundation. Although an
exact amount has not been agreed upon, some estimates are as much as
$400,000 between 1990 and 1996. Thomas’ salary was paid by the university,
but his expenses and summer salary were covered by corporate gifts and
donations. He also owned stock in several of the private prison companies.
However, Thomas has never kept his stock ownership a secret, and has
explained that he did not participate in the evaluation of proposals
submitted to government agencies.
In 1997, the Corrections Corporation of America announced that Thomas
would be paid to serve on the board on the company’s newly formed Prison
Realty Trust. In 1998, he received $3 million in consulting fees from Prison
Realty Trust for his work on the company’s merger with parent company
CCA. The FPBA argued that Thomas’ financial interest in private prison
companies compromised his independence and that his consulting with the
CPC should be discontinued.
Thomas initially dismissed these charges as politically motivated, but
eventually admitted to three violations of the state’s ethics laws. He was
forced to resign his university post and pay a $20,000 fine. The
commission’s report concluded that Thomas’ relationship with Prison Realty
Trust created a conflict of interest in which he could have altered the
findings of his research in order to increase his financial benefits. The
Attorney General specifically pointed out that "there is no evidence that [Dr.
Thomas] has ever actually disregarded his public duties for a private benefit.
However, violations are based upon the fact that a conflict exists, not
whether or not [Dr. Thomas] succumbed to the temptation."9
Thomas is considered an authority in the prison privatisation debate, and
has published numerous articles and books on the topic. Should his
academic research be dismissed as biased and unreliable because of the
interests served by his funding sources? Or was the FPBA only working to
suppress information which is detrimental to their own anti-privatisation
campaign? Both CCA and Wackenhut have spent thousands of dollars each
year on ‘independent research’. Any company that wishes to survive must
invest in research and development within their industry. Public sector
employee unions in Canada and the US have also paid for research reports,