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Empty Promise 5: Private Prisons Save Taxpayers' Money
Prison privateers make bold claims that they can run prisons cheaper than the government can.
REALITY: Private Prisons Don't Save Taxpayers' Money
- CCA's fees for operating the David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center (Tulsa, Oklahoma) increased 42 percent from 2001 to 2004. This increase eventually led to a projected $3.7 million budget deficit for Tulsa County. In 2005, the county decided it could do a better job of operating the jail and controlling costs by operating the jail itself.
- A 2005 internal review by the Florida Department of Management Services found that CCA and the GEO Group were allowed to over bill the state nearly $13 million. In addition, the report found that the state paid CCA and the GEO Group for guards who didn't exist and let the companies avoid minimal requirements for nurses, vocational trainers and teachers.
- Numerous cost studies by neutral researchers, comparing "apples to apples," find little to no cost savings in privately operated correctional facilities. These studies include federal and state cost analyses as well as independent research.
- Marketing representatives claim private prisons can provide taxpayers with double digit savings. But private companies look for ways to avoid cost comparisons rather than encourage them. In 2005 and 2006, CCA lobbied the Tennessee legislature to remove a requirement that a private prison contractor's cost be at least 5 percent less than state's cost for the same services. Speaking about a similar requirement in Florida, Ken Kopczynski, executive director, Private Corrections Institute Inc., said "the private companies have used their political influence to dodge a legal mandate of operating 7 percent cheaper than state-run prisons in Florida."
- Private and public prisons are often difficult to compare because contractors are routinely allowed to "cherry pick" inmates. For instance, a report from Policy Matters Ohio documented the practice of administrators sending less expensive inmates to private facilities — thereby artificially inflating reported cost savings. Also, in Tennessee, the private prisons don't house any inmates who have AIDS. Provisions such as these help a corporation to maximize profitability while minimizing risks. Meanwhile, state-run facilities are left to house a disproportionate number of sickly and costly inmates.
- Jurisdictions can also incur additional costs related to quelling riots and capturing escapees.
Don't be a prisoner to empty promises!
Private corrections is structurally flawed. The profit motive drastically changes the mission of corrections from public safety and rehabilitation to making a quick buck. Chronic employee turnover and understaffing, a high rate of violence, and extreme cost cutting make the private prison model a recipe for disaster. The conditions that exist within the walls of private prisons put entire communities in peril. The practices of the companies are predictable and the consequences are preventable, but the need to satisfy stockholders and Wall Street analysts preclude the industry from taking effective action.
The nation's corrections systems should answer to the public, not to corporate executives and shareholders. The imprisonment of human beings should not be driven by the bottom line.
Crime shouldn't pay, and if it does,
it is the public that will pay the price.
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