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Show $ The Salt Lake Tribune, Tuesday, January 21, 16 All Prisons: Profit May Be the Answer By Charles H Logan Special to the Hartford Courant When we take a close look at how crowded, shabby, dangerous and expensive our prisons are, we are often shocked, but we should not be surprised. If a mandated public service is provided by a monopoly, legally protected from competition, what can we expect? Unmet demand, low quality and high cost precisely the conditions that now characterize imprisonment. It does not have to remain this way. While the demand for imprisonment must remain a legitimate monopoly of the state, it is quite appropriate to encourage competition on the supply side. Many states, including Connecticut, already supply most or all of their community correctional services through private contractors. What has begun in other states, but not yet in Connecticut, is the private operation of secure facilities. At the moment, private companies own or operate about 24 correctional facilities around the country, but the number is increasing rapidly. Recently, one company has even offered $100 million for rights to manage the entire state correctional system in Tennessee, for an annual fee competitive with the current departmental budget. The offer includes an additional investment of $150 million from private sources for capital improvements. Commercial prisons are significant not because they expand system capacity, but because they provide an altei native standard against which to measure performance. How can we be sure that the government is running our prisons in the most just, humane, effective and efficient manner possible? One good test is to see whether private enterprise can do it better. Commercial prisons introduce an element of competition that is as important to most of the processes of government as it is to private enterprise. As a mechanism of evaluation, accountability and control, it is unmatched. e, One advantage of private prist ns is that they can be more efficient and less expensive Available cost figures are limited, but they support an expectation of savings A review of current contracts shows that operating costs may be to less in a private prison than in its public counterpart. Even bigger savings occur with new construction because private companies can build faster, at better prices and pay off debt more quickly when the facilities are privately owned than is possible under the normal procedures for government construction. Private contracting also serves the public by distributing risks. This is especially important in the administration of public policy, where concentration of decision-making magnifies the consequences of ignorance, uncertainty and error. If a state launches a major prison construction campaign and builds an army of tenured civil servants, based on one-quart- one-thir- d Charles H. Logan is a professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. a long term projected trend that dues not materialize ur that unexpected y reverses itself, the cost will be minumental. But if several competing contractors are responding continuously to projected needs, it is unhkely that they will all mat e the same mistakes at once. Some contractors will predict better than others or be able to respond more quickly to altered piedictions. These companies will survive and prosper by being able to meet the changing needs of the state more effectively. Less successful companies will have to absorb and thereby contain the cost of their inaccurate predictions. The advantages of commercial prisons are not merely economic. Such prisons could also enhance justice. Many re cent reforms in the justice system, such as restricting plea bargaining, imposing mandatory or fixed sentences and abolishing parole, have been designed to curb abuses of discretion and thus make punishment more uniform and just These reforms, however, are being undermined by fears that they will produce further and more dangerous overcrowding of prisons. Fear of crowding inspires efforts to reintroduce discretion through diversion, sentence reduction, emergency release and "early community reintegration." The use of such discretionary mechanisms rests on a faulty assumption d that prison flow must be by the state because prison capacity remains virtually fixed. A penal system committed to doing justice, however, makes just the opposite assumption that prison flow is determined by the crime rate, which is largely beyond the control of the state. Therefore, prison capacity should be elastic; it should respond to the need. Simply to do justice a prison system must be able to expand and contract as the shifting demands of justice require. Some critics, however, fear that commercial prisons, out of vested interest, will lubby for longer sentences or broader use of imprisonment as a criminal sanction Aside from the fact that most of the public might approve of anyone lobbying for more and longer imprisonment, this fear reflects a misconception of the nature of business under conditions of competition. s Most do attempt to drum up business. On the whole, however, businesses succeed not by stimulating spurious demand, but by accurately anticipating both the nature and level of real demand. This is true whether demand is rising or falling, and particularly if it is shifting. The ability to predict and respond is far more important than any supposed power to artificially stimulate demand. Public policy is subject to lobbying by organizations and unions as well as by commercial fine-tune- profit-maker- non-prof- it public-employ- That last item is a sort of afterthought. companies. The interests of any of these groups may or may not coincide with the public interest. Allowing them to compete is a better method of protecting the public interest than is granting a monopoly to one particular type of service provider while excluding all others. In sum, elasticity in the supply of imprisonment can enhance both efficiency and justice. Commercial prisons, with efficient management, multiple vendors and renewable, adjustable contracts, offer an increased prospect of achieving this necessary flexibility. Profit Is a Dangerous Incentive for Operating a Prison By Edward Sagarin and Jess Maghan Special to the Hartford Courant The idea of operating prisons for a profit had its heyday after Reconstruction, when former slaves, other blacks and poor whites were rounded up for vagrancy and sundry crimes, and turned over in large numbers to private employers and Although the practice declined somewhat toward the turn of the century, brug tal prisons, public and private, continued to thrive. The American people were little aware of this situation until 1932, when a white prisoner, Robert g Burns, escaped and wrote a I Ama a movie, into made book, popular Fugitive From a Georgia Chain Gang! In a different but no less pernicious form, the new privatization movement offers society even less than did the one that petered out and then disappeared almost completely by the advent of World War II. profit-makin- best-sellin- Why the interest in reviving a discarded failure? Partly the deregulation mania. Partly the desire to see more criminals behind bars and to have them serve longer sentences. Partly the belief that if private industry does it, the public, reluctant to approve bond issues or increase taxes, will not have to pay. Partly a strong belief that private industry can do things more cheaply and efficiently, with greater innovation than government. But mostly we are surrounded by a lot of crime, with a huge number of people incarcerated and many more who ought to be, and there seems to be no answer to this frightening problem. On any given day in 1985 there were approximately 750,000 convicted felons in federal and state prisons, all serving terms of more than one year. The figure reaches about a million when we add those convicted but being kept in local jails and lockups to serve out terms of less than one year, and those awaiting trial in jails because they cannot make bail or have not been offered release pending trial. Now, there have been many suggestions to alleviate jail and prison overcrowding, in addition to the most obvious answer: to attack the social problems that create such a state of affairs. They include more funds for serious probationary and parole supervision, weekend sentences so that convicts can serve time and go to work, eekday sentences so that they can spend weekends with families already in dire distress, shock probation, restitution, halfway houses, therapeutic programs. With profit-makin- g prisons, the Wall Street companies, the architectural firms eager to build new facilities, the The Public Forum Tribune Readers Opinions steel and concrete monsters discussed Sad, But True Toms article. Tooeles elected officials, The Tribune editorial Jan. 11, entitled Let Locals Decide missed the most important point. Rep. Kevin C. Cromar, Valley, at least is trying to right a wrong imposed on residents of communities in this state. Why not enact a recall process to get out of public office those who abuse the system they are elected to uphold? Our community (Tooele City) has such an abuse going on at the present, yet there is nothing legally that can be done to remedy it. Sad, but true. st JUNIATA K. HOPKINS Tooele She Knows Good Art On Sunday, Jan. 12, my grandparents took me to the Springville Museum of Art. I saw many beautiful paintings and statues. They are having a contest for the best war statue for a memorial for Vietnam. When I tried to vote for my favorite statue they wouldnt let me. They said I was too young. Ill be 9 years old next month, and I dont think you have to be 12 years old to know good art. If the statue will be in a park, children should be able to vote. AMBER TROMBLY Northfield, Vt. Almost Endangered Praise to Tom Wharton, Tribunes outdoor editor, and his Jan. 9 column, "Its Time We Stop Taking Our Canyons For Granted." The column should be mandatory reading for all city council members and county commissioners. I pray they have a sense of responsibility to read it and heed Toms cautions. nel. take place is a matter of public policy and should be decided without the propafirms like ganda barrage of billion-dollExE. F. Hutton and Shearson-America- n press, two of the major corporations seeking a foothold in this business. They can buy unlimited television and newspaper time and space, reach the highest political levels and unleash upon America a program to convince the public to lock up more and more people for longer and longer periods, carefully concealing that their motive is profit. It is only an added irony that E.F. Hutton itself became involved in one of frauds in Amerithe largest white-collcan history. Is this the company to which we are going to turn over the prisons? Has it not made enough money already ar ar Universal Press Syndicate in un- der the guise of improving the local tax base and economy under the umbrella of economic development, have turned a deaf ear and blind eye towards those who want the canyons to remain unspoiled and unblemished by these developments. I hope Toms article encourages our efforts. Keep up the good work, Tom, we need reporters such as you. You are an almost endangered species. GERALD E. GORDON Tooele Forum Rules Public Forum letters must be submitted exclusively to The Tribune and bear writers full name, signature and address. Names must be printed on political letters but may be withheld for good reason on others. Writers are limited to one letter every 10 days. Preference will be given to short, typewritten (double spaced) 1 emitting use of the writers true letters are subject to condensanaiiu tion. Mail to the Public Forum, The Salt Lake Tribune, P.O. Box 867, Salt Lake City, Utah 84110. AIDS Comment I would like to thank Judy Rollins and The Tribune for the informative article about the Salt Lake AIDS Foundation. There is one comment I would like to share with Tribune readers. While most AIDS victims have had "multiple and often anonymous partners," the literature suggests the AIDS virus can be spread through a single anal or vaginal contact with an infected partner. The AIDS Foundation encourages preventive behavior by all sexually active people. The AIDS information line is PATTY REAGAN, Ph D. S L. Edward Sagarin, a visiting professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University ofDela ware, is a former president of the American Society of Criminology. Jess Maghan, a doctoral student at the City University of New York, is a former president of the American Association of Correctional Training Person- from the activities of unconvicted felons, that it must now add to its profits from convicted ones? Will all of this cost less? The first experiences in Tennessee show cost overruns of $200,000. Who will foot that bill? Will the prison be more efficiently run? Correctional training from the newly hired correction officer to the highest administrator or warden, is extraordinarily complex. In Tennessee, during the course of one year, three different administrators had to be hired, each lasting not long enough to get acquainted with the upper echelons of the staff and the problems of , the prison. It should be further noted that racial and ethnic minorities and low social-clas- s whites are disproportionately represented in the American prison population. Today they are under the care and control of a government in which blacks, Hispanics and others are gaining a small share of power, at least a foothold. Corwhite. porate America is upper-clas- s Only a few of its hirelings are minority people. Privatization places in the hands of the haves a tool to exploit and further enrich themselves at the expense of the have-not- s. There are other issues in the dangerous policy of privatization. Can a juror who owns stock in a company that is in business be chalthe prisons-for-proflenged because a verdict of guilt is to the it jurors pecuniary interest? Who will be responsible if there is a lawsuit won by a convict who convinces a court that he has been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment? How can innovation be expected from a contractor who will not offer one Iota more than the contract calls for and who does not have even the limited flexibility of the state and national correctional programs? What influence will privatization have on therapeutic and parole programs? And have we learned nothing from the exposures of overcharges in which the government has paid preposterous prices to private contractors for ashtrays, toilet seats and private transportation by air between an executives home and place of business? The criminal justice system is often depicted as a funnel. There are many crimes, fewer reported, still fewer cleared by arrest. Of the people arrested, the number prosecuted is still lower. Of these, there is a decrease in the number found guilty, and then a large drop to those actually entering jails or prisons to serve time. We suggest that privatization will not be a funnel but a tunnel; and that Wall Street firms and their subsidiaries in this business are the dark blight at the end of the tunnel. profit-makin- g Dear Nancy, Talk Some Sense Into Ron 466-997- am concerned because the local elected officials (with the support of Gov. Bangcrter) are attempting to convert one of Tooele's virtually unspoiled canyons into one of the I contractors who will be paid per prisoner have a vested interest in seeing that the incarcerated population of America increases. Whether that increase should Director AIDS Foundation WASHINGTON -- Mrs. Ronald Reagan The White House Washington, D.C. Dear Mrs. Reagan: Washington is always awash in rumors, and one of the most persistent and mysterious of them is that you are our one hope for arms control. They seriously believe that you have in mind posterity and want the word peacemaker carved on your husbands tombstone. Why they think so is not clear to all of us. You have not spoken out on the subject. Nothing that has transpired in the five years since your husband took office would suggest that you have persuaded him that he should go down in history as a hero of the ages, as a world leader who reduced, or even ended, the threat of nuclear war. But politicians, among them Republican senators who have the most aching concern to believe what is so far myth, argue that you are the White House dove. They concede there is not a shred of evidence on the point. They start with the unarguable proposition of your devotion to your husband and reason like this: "He cant say hes reduced the size of its bigger than when he took government over. He cant say he's balanced the budget. Hes got the biggest deficit in history. So whats left? Are they right? Where some of us have the most trouble believing that you are nudging him toward glory as the man who made the world a safer place is, frankly, his record. One summit meeting with Gorbachev, where no progress was made on arms control, and one summit meeting to come. Its not much. Put up against his insistence on Star Wars, as he hates it to be called, it is, in fact, nothing. The Strategic Defense Initiative may not be foolhardy as some scientists say, but your husband admits it wont be an umbrella for the world's children and their parents. But it would cost a trillion dollars and take 20 years. Where's the money coming hard-heade- d from in the Gramm-Rudma- n era? And any successor to your husband could cancel it with a stroke. If he persists with Star Wars, he goes down as a spendthrift visionary. Its better than the warmonger charge you fought so long, but not much. Mikhail Gorbachev has now given you your big chance. If you say, Take it, Ronnie," it could happen. If you dont, we settle as good a one as we are likely to get in ou time. You can be sure nobody else will push fo it. The men around your husband were dis tinctly miffed that Gorbachev came out c the blue at them with a dramatic offer t continue the test ban and reduce nuclea weapons. They had thought he was too bus. getting ready for his Party Congress to dro something this big on them. Secretary of State George Shultz said th Soviets should have made the offer in Gene va. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberge . says there's not much new in them, tha they are a restatement of other proposals. : You can be sure that Richard Perle, th Defense Pepartr .nt watchdog against arm ' trebles, is busy tight now tearing it apart word by word. Shultz couldnt be enthusiastic. Arms control talk inflames the right, which is afte him anyway. Weinberger is rational on an subject but the Soviets; hes convinced th only thing you can trust them to do is t cheat on treaties. Your husbands new na tional security adviser, Adm. John Poindexter, doesnt sound like a champion in ' -- -- . back in the dreary round of threats and escalations. You can tell him that Star Wars is not worth a chance for immortality as a man of peace. We dont know what you thought of Gorbachev when you met him in Geneva. You have a shrewd instinct for sensing men who can help or hurt your husband. Maybe you thought he was like all the rest of the Soviets, out to con Europe and take over the world. But maybe you found out from him or his wife that he has his eye on history, too, and wants to go down as the first Soviet leader to make the system work. If he really wants to show communism as something other than repressive and incompetent, he has to cut back on military spending. Which did you think? Maybe his offer is a "slick propaganda trick, as some of your husbands helpers dubbed it for the evening news shows the day it arrived. But the fact is that Gorbachev has called your husbands bluff. You remember that when he began talking about Star Wars, he said his real goal was "the elimination of nuclear weapons." Gorbachev says thats what he wants, too. And he has delivered a blueprint. It's not good enough to respond, as several have, that the president said it first. This is a chance to go about it, or at least h-- V field. Congress would ratify a treaty your hus band made. But if Congress leans on him t take this chance, he may just get his back up He doesnt like public advice. So theres only you. At least that's t'hf' rumor. A lot of us hope youll confirm it. : ( Sincerely, Dubious. r Not lmd . I, p.lM 35 nm ()n )e highway, 29 in the city, and 21 i I K ) V I |
