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

9. By creating an alternative, private prison contracts encourage competitive evaluation, thus
raising standards for government as well as for private contractors.
10. Private prison contracts provide a surgical solution. If reform is needed, public
management is entrenched and inert, whereas a contractor is easier to replace than a
government agency.13
Against prison privatisation
One of the arguments against prison privatisation is that privatisation in general is "a concept
already partially discredited in the western world because of its association with inflated
profiteering and the abandonment of the public interest."14 Even the proponents of prison
privatisation acknowledge that "...private operation of prisons and jails can be seen as an
extreme test of limits of privatisation, because the administration of criminal justice, and
especially of punishment, is widely regarded as a core function of government and the exclusive
prerogative of the state. The lament of the opponents of prison privatisation thus becomes, "If
the penal function can be privately performed, what function cannot be?"15
The claims for cost savings are difficult to support and all but impossible to prove. Other
arguments that the private sector brings increased flexibility, innovation, and technology are
weakened by the reality that companies are not rewarded for performing beyond the
specifications of their contracts. The performance standards in the private prison contracts
serve more to limit the efforts of the private prison companies than to ensure minimum
performance. The company is penalised for failing to meet them, but is not rewarded for
exceeding them.
In addition, these contracts often stretch for up to 25 years. Even though the management
portion may expire in less time, the lease-purchase arrangements tie the government and
contractor together in such a way that it becomes both difficult and expensive to terminate. It
does not seem plausible that flexibility and innovation will be found in the management style of a
company with 25 years of specifically determined and guaranteed income.
Some of the arguments against private prisons are not specific to private prisons but are
actually criticisms of prisons in general. The problems encountered by private prisons are similar
to those faced by public prisons. Overcrowding, prisoner suicide, smuggling of contraband, drug
use, violence, and poor health are in no way unique to private prisons. Providing correctional
services is a difficult, and sometimes dangerous, business regardless of whether those services
are provided by public or private entities.
Particularly in the United States, the criminal justice system is increasingly relying on
incarceration and building more prisons. People who are opposed to the policy of mass
incarceration fear that cheaper and more efficient prisons will only increase the use of prisons in
criminal justice, when other community based correctional programs are more effective. These
people are not opposed to private involvement in community based programs, however, and so
their opposition to private prisons is actually misguided. The criticisms they raise have more to
do with prisons in general than with private prisons.
Private sector involvement in the prison industry may lead to increasing use of imprisonment,
but excluding the private sector is not likely to reverse this trend. Vested interests can be found
in any kind of organisation, public or private. The public interest is not necessarily allied with the