Private prison

This page lists some examples of private punishment.

Examples

In the US, almost every aspect of corrections in publicly run facilities, including food services, counseling, industrial programs, maintenance, security, education, and vocational training, is under contract with private firms on a piecemeal basis. In addition, contracting out for provision and management of entire correctional facilities is common. The Federal Bureau of Prisons contracts out all of its halfway-house operations. In 1985, thirty-two states also had nonsecure, community-based facilities (e.g., halfway houses, group homes, community treatment centers) under contract. In that same year, approximately 34,080 juvenile offenders were held in nearly 1,996 privately run facilities nationwide. The first privately operated high-security institution in recent history was an intensive-treatment unit for juveniles at Weaverville, Pennsylvania, that RCA began running in 1975; by 1983, there were seventy-three privately provided secure juvenile facilities. No privatized secure adult facilities existed yet in 1980, and indeed, no jurisdiction other than perhaps the federal government had express legal authority to contract for such a facility. By the end of 1994, however, about one-half of the states had legislation establishing such legal authority, and all three federal agencies that run prisons had the clear authority to contract out. Privatization of major adult detention facilities began in the early 1980s, when Behavioral Systems Southwest provided a minimum-security Immigration and Naturalization Service prison. This market is expanding rapidly. Corrections Corporation of America, Inc. (CCA), formed in 1983 and now the largest private supplier of secure adult facilities, received a contract from New Mexico to design, finance, construct, and operate a prison for all of the state’s female felons, becoming the first private minimum-through-maximum-security state prison in recent history. In 1994, twenty-one different firms shared eighty contracts for adult prisons with 49,154 total beds.

Imprisonment is only one form of punishment, of course, and many of the alternatives are also contracted out (e.g., drug treatment programs).