[Market Economy Guide] Should the Government Run Prisons?

The Notion That Prisons Must Be Run by the Government Is a Prejudice

...The purpose is not “isolation” but “rehabilitation”...the private sector can do it better

What if private citizens operated prisons? Doesn’t a private prison somehow seem likely to focus only on profit rather than the rehabilitation of criminals, and to be lax in prison management? In the worst-case scenario, one might even worry about prison escapes. It may also seem unreasonable for the private sector, the economic actor most focused on profit, to get involved in operating prisons, which are a public good.

Private prisons first appeared in the United States in 1984

Most people tend to imagine highly dangerous scenarios when it comes to private operation of prisons. The reason is simply that it is “unfamiliar.” But if we look more closely, we realize that such anxiety about private prisons is merely a misconception. In Korea, the belief that “prisons are naturally run by the government” is deeply rooted, but in fact not all prisons in the world are government-operated. It is simply an unfamiliar concept in Korea; in world history, it is actually a fairly old method of prison operation.

In the United States, private prisons began to be pursued as early as the 1880s. At the time, the U.S. was suffering from increasingly serious violent crime and the chronic overcrowding of inmates in prisons. The establishment of private prisons began as a way to save public finances, relieve overcrowding, and above all promote the efficient rehabilitation of criminals. But was the concept of “private prisons” unfamiliar even in the United States? It was not until 1984, more than 100 years later, that the first private prison was established in Tennessee. After a long push, that first private prison has become part of a trend now spreading across the world.

Prison overcrowding and conditions

Making use of the private sector in prison operation—with its flexibility and capacity to improve efficiency—rather than relying on a government that repeats the same prison management methods year after year according to long-established routines, could be a way to solve various prison problems. Involving private volunteers in correctional administration could also help sustain social concern for inmates while reducing costs.

The original purpose of prisons is to lead offenders to repent of their crimes and become members of society again. Their founding purpose is rehabilitation, not merely the detention or isolation of criminals. But prisons operated by the public sector have no direct incentive to work especially hard at the difficult task of turning bad people into good ones. Even if they perform only the simple function of isolating criminals from society, there is no one to sanction them. It may be only natural that few public officials would choose a difficult path when an easier one is available.

At times, they fail even to perform the simple function of isolation properly. In 2014, two inmates with mental illness committed suicide in Italy. In response, one Italian prison official pointed to the problem of overcrowding, saying, “The prison is so crowded that it is difficult even to determine whether there are inmates with mental illness.” In fact, Italy is currently concerned about prison riots due to worsening conditions caused by overcrowding.

The United States is no different in facing chronic prison overcrowding. The state of California suffers an average of around 2,000 violent crimes every year. Under these circumstances, prisons are always packed with inmates. To maintain its prisons, California has had to endure enormous fiscal deficits year after year. Eventually, the state could no longer handle the huge prison population and began releasing offenders early before they had completed their sentences. But this led to the disastrous result of rising violent crime in California.

Discovering a new possibility

To solve such problems, we should make use of the magic of efficiency that the private sector possesses. Korea also offers an example of successful private prison operation. Opened in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, in December 2010, Somang Prison is the only private prison in the country. It is known for having a low recidivism rate after release. There has, of course, been some criticism of it as well. We may need to watch it longer, but at the very least it can be seen as the discovery of a new possibility: that the private sector, not just the government, can operate prisons in a desirable way.

Prisons are a public good, but they can be well supplied and operated by the private sector. Even if something is a public good, that does not mean it must necessarily be supplied and operated by the government.

■ Please remember

Making use of the private sector in prison operation—with its flexibility and capacity to improve efficiency—rather than relying on a government that repeats the same prison management methods year after year according to long-established routines, could be a way to solve various prison problems.

Sung-no Choi, President of the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: [시장경제 길라잡이] 교도소를 정부가 운영해야 하나

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2020-04-20

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=8&idx=22565