By Geoffrey Binder
Privatised prisons are already a reality in Australia. There is a new government-built remand centre leased to a private corporation in Brisbane. A new private prison is being built in Junee, NSW, and another in Alice Springs.
In the United States, private prisons have been widespread for some time. Last year, Fr Peter Norden, SJ, the director of the Catholic Prison Ministry in Australia, completed a report (unpublished) on the privatisation of prisons in the US and possible applications in Australia. This report favoured more privatisation in the corrections system here. In particular, Norden made some specific recommendations for Victoria, including:
- the privatisation of a yet to be constructed remand centre;
- the privatisation of the juvenile correctional facilities;
- contracting out services to NGOs for counselling and preparations for release;
- to "give serious consideration to the potential contribution that private correctional organisations ... could make in the more effective delivery of correctional services within the state of Victoria".
The Norden report promotes the privatisation of prisons although it is actually fairly critical of corrections in the US and the facilities run by Norden's hosts for his visit: the Wackenhut Corrections Corporation and the Corrections
Corporation of America (CCA). Both corporations have contracts in Australia today.
For instance, Norden points out:
- The US has six times the imprisonment rate of Australia.
- Because of poor prison conditions, there is a lot of pressure on the state, via litigation on behalf of prisoners and through civil rights groups; prisons have been closed as a result. "CCA boasts ... that it acts as a liability shield for ... (Hernando) county."
- At Bay County Jail Annex there is a planned increase of beds but no increase of recreational facilities. Recreational facilities were generally limited. There was a "limited level of involvement in programs and education" and "inappropriate classification of mentally disturbed inmates".
- There is a danger of building too many prisons too soon: this provides an incentive for greater sentencing.
- Privatisation reduces numbers of prison staff. "The profit factor in the operation of any correctional facility is in the cutting of costs, and the greatest cost in such organisations is in the area of salaries ... many institutions left up to fifty inmates in a dayroom adjoining cells areas or dormitory space for up tp 22 hours per day, with only one or two custodial staff supervising three or four of these pods."
- "...the availability of health and medical services and the provision of chaplaincy services were clearly areas where savings were being made".
So, all is not rosy in corporate corrections. But,
Norden says that the private institutions are relatively better than public: "Our observations suggested that the standards achieved by CCA and Wackenhut were higher than government institutions, but in the US, for the most part, this is not difficult to achieve". He is saying that the state run institutions are so bad as to make the privately run ones look good. All this comparison says to me is that the state system needs improving.
Moreover, Norden fails to address adequately his own criticisms of the wider implications of privatisation. In particular, he does not deal with the problem of the increased incentive to imprison. An increase in prisons removes, or at least lessens, the pressure on the judiciary to be less draconian and to consider non-custodial options.
Better than public?
Norden's preference for privatisation is primarily ideological — private is necessarily more efficient than public. He says: "There is no question that private enterprise can run most organisations more efficiently and with a greater degree of accountability".
His position on accountability is expanded:
"It appeared to our observation and from our repeated investigations about this matter that private institutions were more liable to scrutiny from a range of different public and private monitors from the public sphere."
Apart from limiting services, the only way efficiencies can be made is by streamlining bureaucratic aspects of operations. However, whether public or private, bureaucratic systems must be used to run organisations. Inefficiencies can exist in both. Both can be run efficiently; neither is inherently wasteful.
As for accountability, by definition private organisations are not open. In the United Kingdom information on private prisons is not available through freedom of information legislation because of commercial confidentiality considerations. (Mind you, neither are many supposedly public organisations.) However, they can be regulated and monitored by government. Obviously, privatised prisons would have to be regulated (as all sectors of economic activity are).
Norden finds that the privatised prisons are more closely monitored than the state prisons. Is this a function of the "free market"? No. The privatised prisons are more closely monitored because a lengthy public debate on the issue produced enough political pressure to force government to establish such systems of accountability. There is no logical reason that excludes the state from similar accountability; we just need the political will to enforce it.
When looking at the relative costs of public and private correctional services, we must also include the cost of these monitoring systems. Public monitoring costs the community, and private monitoring is notoriously lax.
Secondly, I think Norden is attracted to privatisation because he thinks that organisations like his will be more involved in the provision of services to prisoners. By way of example, Norden tells how the Bay County Jail "facility involves 160 volunteer workers, from church organisations, drug and alcohol workers, and counsellors. The volunteer coordinator told us that with a County Jail run by the government authorities, there is little interest in the provision of programs ..."
Volunteer labour is another cost that is hidden by privatising. This erodes paid workers' conditions and means that the organisation gets a giant freebie — work for no wages, Workcare or
superannuation. Any organisation that has 160 volunteers working for it should be providing more services than a comparable state institution. If it were not, something would be very amiss.
There is a real need to provide better services to prisoners. But the best way to do this is not by providing the privateers with a no-cost work force that gives the corporation a facade of efficiency.
Privatisation does not remove the cost to the public sector. The public still pays, but with privatisation we license a corporation to take a slice of the public money as profit. How this surplus cost can be considered to be cost effective defies logic.
Who pays?
If a private prison were to fail, who would pay? The simple answer is that the public would. The government would not be able to walk away from a bankrupt or unmanageable institution. You can't just abandon a prison as you can abandon a commercial business.
This security net means that the privateers could hold the state to ransom come contract renewal time: "If you don't increase the level of funding per bed, you can have the prison back" or, in the case where the building is owned by the corporation, "We will release all of the inmates". While such blatant arm twisting may not happen, there is nevertheless a subtle relationship that will affect the decisions of both parties. Once a public operation has been privatised, it becomes very hard to "republicise" it, and this fact acts in the interest of the privateers.
Norden is able to support the privatisation of prisons for several reasons. One of the most salient is the poor condition of the existing prison system. Services have been cut and in some
places, NSW in particular, draconian policies have been put in place. Current management provides ammunition for the pro-privatisation view.
Secondly, there has to be a need that the state cannot meet to justify the construction of private prisons. The prison population is increasing. There is no reason to expect a change in this trend, especially with the push for "real time" prison sentencing. Also, in an economic climate of recession, it is easy for the state to argue, if it wishes, that it doesn't have the money.
There needs to be a critical look at the notion of criminalisation in general. The most progressive means of dealing with the current pressures on the corrections services is to deinstitutionalise non-violent offenders. This would immediately relieve the pressure on the system — reducing numbers and freeing resources.
These freed resources should be used for crime prevention measures such as adequate housing and income security and to fund community-provided and -controlled services in the areas that are identified by the community in question — prisoners.
[Geoffrey Binder is a member of the Essendon Legal Service and a student at Latrobe University.]