Private Prisons and Public Accountability

Abstract

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- 1 The growth of private prisons -- The numbers of private prisons and prisoners -- Security levels at private prisons -- Financing arrangements and types of contract -- Summary -- Notes -- 2 Accountability and the political context of privatization -- Factors underlying contemporary moves towards privatization -- Moral conundrums and the impact of privatization upon penal policy and practice -- Penal policy implications -- Tenets of accountability -- Summary -- Notes -- 3 Accountability, monitoring and capture -- The basic theory of 'capture' -- Examples of capture in regulatory areas other than prisons -- Refining the theory of capture 3 -- Private prisons and the question of statute-based or contract- based monitoring arrangements -- The process of capture in private prisons -- Acknowledging the risk of capture: a new theoretical paradigm for private prisons -- Notes -- 4 Accountability mechanisms in public sector prisons and their applicability to private prisons -- Constitutional and parliamentary mechanisms -- Legislative and judicial mechanisms -- Inquisitorial and administrative mechanisms -- Summary -- Notes -- 5 Letting the contract and setting the terms -- Inputs and outputs -- Secrecy -- Evaluating bids -- Summary -- Notes -- 6 Prison personnel, the administration of punishment and the impact of privatization upon penal policy -- Personnel -- The allocation of punishment and its administration -- Penal policy and the profit motive -- Summary -- Notes -- 7 Financial accountability and control -- Capital outlays in DCFM contracts -- Management contracts -- External and internal accountability mechanisms -- Market forces -- Summary -- Notes -- 8 Comparing public and private prisons