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This study examines the effects of capacity-oriented and institutional-based factors on the proliferation of prison privatization by extending the first generation of empirical research. This study found that correction expenditures, prison capacity, and regional identity are factors that significantly affect the magnitude of prison privatization, whereas political pressures, government ideology, and unionization were found not to have a significant influence on the growth of private prisons. The results imply that, once adopted, prison privatization became institutionalized over time and suggest that state governments should develop well-structured evaluation systems for private prisons to ensure and maintain effective correction management.

In a seminal statement, Emile Durkheim argued that punishment of crime has a salutary effect on society by reaffirming the collective consciousness. With few exceptions, Durkheim assumed that criminal punishment is done on behalf of society. With the rise of prison privatization, this assumption is increasingly called into question. For-profit firms carrying out punishment, though legally agents of the state, are motivated by private gain. This article asks: How might privatization modify the functional effects of punishment? It develops answers to this question by using insights from Durkheimian and neo-Durkheimian scholarship and the empirical case of modern privatized punishment in the United States. The article proposes three trajectories through which privatized punishment may (or may not) affect solidarity: Parity in Punishment, in which private and public punishers are seen as interchangeable; Public Interest, in which perceptions of greed and self-interest mar privatized punishment and sap it of its functional effects; and Sacred Transgressions, in which the private sector encroaches on sacred rites of punishment to the detriment of solidarity.

The Scottish Parliament recently considered proposals, which, if implemented, would lead to a considerable expansion of prison privatization. Both the Scottish Prison Service and the Scottish Executive used what they claimed to be an independently verified cost saving of £700 million as the major justification for these proposals. The way this figure was constructed and used provides an example of the increasing tendency on the part of government to quantify what cannot be quantified, to 'make the invisible visible'. This article uses several methods to interrogate this figure of £700 million, particularly the role played by 'net present value' in its construction. Its fuller significance emerges from an understanding of the contexts of the Private Finance Initiative and Public Private Partnership, the experience of prison privatization and the foreclosure of alternatives to privatization. This article is based upon an analysis of government documentation, interview evidence with key players and testimony given by them to a cross-party committee charged with investigating these proposals.

The paper analyzes the relationship between neoliberal penalty transformation and prison privatization as part of neoliberal market reform. The neoliberal political and economic project characterized by deregulation, individualization, privatization, and commodification has introduced competition, entrepreneurship, and economic efficiency in areas that previously belonged exclusively to the public sector. The alleged need for greater efficiency has led to an increase in private prisons, and the results of this transformation have shown that it is more about achieving economic efficiency at the expense of quality, competencies, and outcomes of services provided in this sector. In this paper, the starting assumption is that the increase in the number of private prisons does not imply the withdrawal of the state concerning the market. In contrast, it raises the question of the regulatory role of the neoliberal state that enables the market of new fields for profit. As a consequence of the tightening of penal policy, mass incarceration is a mechanism for resolving social conflicts caused by the transformation of social policy. Therefore, private prisons are aimed at making a profit by reflecting the spread of neoliberal rationality throughout society. Withdrawal of assistance and support from the social sector and transfer of exclusive responsibility from the social to the individual responsibility of prisoners as rational neoliberal subjects lead to a reduction of rehabilitation goals. In the context of prison privatization, this transformation leads to turning prisoners into a means of earning or cheap labor.

In 'Captive Market,' Anna Gunderson proposes a novel explanation for why states privitize prisons. Evidence from an original dataset and interviews with private prison companies, government officials, and advocacy groups suggest that growing prisoner lawsuits are a significant driver of prison privatization in the United States. With over 160,000 inmates currently held in private facilities across the country, it is vital to understand the causes of this rise and the nuances of private prison policy, one with significant consequences for the American criminal legal system. An eye-opening account of an industry that many are aware of but few know much about, this book will reshape our understanding of the fundamental nature of the American carceral state.

In 'Captive Market,' Anna Gunderson proposes a novel explanation for why states privitize prisons. Evidence from an original dataset and interviews with private prison companies, government officials, and advocacy groups suggest that growing prisoner lawsuits are a significant driver of prison privatization in the United States. With over 160,000 inmates currently held in private facilities across the country, it is vital to understand the causes of this rise and the nuances of private prison policy, one with significant consequences for the American criminal legal system. An eye-opening account of an industry that many are aware of but few know much about, this book will reshape our understanding of the fundamental nature of the American carceral state.

Market rationality suffuses many areas of modern criminal justice. Prison privatization is one area in which market rationality is particularly salient. This paper presents a case study of how market rationality was deployed in public discourse on prison privatization. It answers four questions: (1) Who shaped public discourse on prison privatization? (2) How frequently were market-rational themes invoked in the public discourse?, (3) Who employed (and who avoided) market-rational themes in the discourse?, and (4) Why did rates of market-rational discourse change over time? To answer these questions, the paper analyzes public discourse in four major American newspapers from 1985 to 2008. It employs a series of descriptive statistics and regression analyses, as well as an underutilized method—formal decomposition analysis. The research contributes to historical knowledge of the development of prison privatization, methodological techniques for analyzing textual data, and theoretical understanding of how public actors engage in discursive struggles over the meaning of criminal justice policies.

The recent growth in the number of privately operated and privately owned prisons in the United States focuses our attention on the nature of the privatization arrangements employed in this setting. This article argues that the privatization of correctional facilities is best understood as a combination of government failures, market failures, and political incentives. Using a case‐study approach to examine prison privatization in Mississippi, the article concludes that prison privatization not only fails to correct certain government or market failures, but also actually creates additional (hybrid) pathologies that combine elements of both government and market failures.