Does your library have National Lawyers Guild Review?

Matthew MulchCrime and Punishmentin Private PrisonsI. IntroductionThis article attempts to analyze the relationship between prison privatizationand society’s understanding of punishment and criminal justice theory.Simply put, how are our traditional notions of deterrence, retribution, rehabilitation,incarceration, and restorative justice served when private actors,rather than public institutions, are meting out punishment?Prison privatization has received a great deal of coverage and analysis overthe past decade. The majority of this analysis has focused on the budgetaryquestions. Can privatized prisons help streamline an extremely expensiveindustry? Will competition result in cost cutting, skimping, and dangerousconditions for inmates and prison personnel? And, of course, will privatizationin this sector reduce costs in the long run? Or is it merely a short-termsolution?These issues have been addressed numerous times in a variety of ways.My goal here is to provide a more theoretical analysis of prison privatization.Cost and economic variables will play a role in the analysis; however,the primary goal of this article is to discuss how privatization shapes theconception of the criminal justice system through the eyes of policy makers,inmates, private correctional providers, and society itself. Moreover, thisarticle weighs the economic interests of private prison corporations againstthe effects of this industry on society as a whole. Economic theory and thebottom line will continue to drive the prison privatization debate. Yet, in asociety with a growing number of inmates housed in private facilities it isimportant to ask how our basic conceptions of criminal justice and punishmentare changing with the introduction of new private actors.II. The history and contemporary understandingof prison privatizationFirst, it is crucial to note that the distinctions between a public, government-runinstitution and a private facility are not always clear-cut. 1 Accordingto University of Colorado Professor Ahmed White:To the extent that the state is not ubiquitous, and that the prison is not entirely__________________________Matthew Robert Mulch is a graduate of the University of Denver, Sturm College ofLaw. He is a deputy public defender in Grand Junction, Colorado.