Private Prisons in Perspective: Some Conceptual Isues

In: The Howard journal of criminal justice, Band 37, Heft 1, S. 82-100

Abstract

This article deals with several conceptual issues concerning the privatisation of prisons. The focus is on the private operation rather than the financing and the construction of facilities. Typically, the issue of correctional privatisation is debated on utilitarian grounds, the main supporting argument centring on cost effectiveness, while such issues as ethics, symbolism, motivation, and accountability are neglected. The article highlights problems of separation between the determination and administration of punishment, the adoption of the free market model to the provision of human services, the symbolic messages of private prisons, corporate ethics, and organisational accountability.