January 26

January 26, 2005: Who Profits From Private Punishment?

A new report from the Prison Reform Trust entitled Private Punishment: Who Profits? calls for an open and vigorous debate about the role of the private sector in running prisons. The UK operates the most privatised prison system in Europe. There are currently ten private prisons in England and Wales with a further private prison, HMP Peterborough, due to open in March. There are over seven thousand adults and young offenders held in ten private prisons in England and Wales, just under ten per cent of the prison population.

With government planning to extend the scope of competition, the report argues that there is a need to reassess the merits of prison privatisation and the ethics of large companies profiting from the incarceration of thousands of people.

The report acknowledges that private sector innovation has, in some cases, improved regimes but it raises questions about efficiency savings and the need for private companies to achieve economies of scale. Unpublished figures show that the performance of private prisons against key targets is mixed with many failing to meet targets on serious assaults, drugs and purposeful activity. Whilst there are some private prisons that are performing very well others are experiencing difficulties. Overall the pay and conditions for staff in private prisons are inferior to those in public prisons and staff turnover is higher.

At a time of record prison numbers and chronic overcrowding the report says that there is a need to question a system where companies have a vested interest in keeping the prison population as high as possible.

The report raises concerns about the lack of accountability of private companies with Parliament and the public unable to openly scrutinise the contracts handed out to prison operators. It also questions the Government’s plans to transfer to directors of private prisons additional powers concerning the segregation, control and punishment of prisoners. The report also looks at the profits, and the windfall gains from the refinancing of PFI loans, made by the four private companies that operate prisons in England and Wales.

Prison Reform Trust Director Juliet Lyon commented

"Even those who believe that ethical or moral considerations about prison privatisation are misplaced or outdated should surely stop and think about the impact of prison privatisation on criminal justice policy and the treatment of offenders. Is it sensible, without public and parliamentary debate, to develop competition which could produce innovative and cost-effective practice but could equally drive down standards and reduce prison safety? Could efforts to re-balance the criminal justice system and reform prisons be hindered, or knocked off course, by the development of vested interests and economies of scale leading to large establishments miles from prisoners’ homes rather than smaller community prisons that would aid resettlement?"

Rt Revd Dr Peter Selby, Bishop of Worcester and Bishop to HM Prisons, added:

“What the Prison Reform Trust is asking is: are there some specific concerns, beyond the general debate about privatisation, that apply when prisons are involved? If numbers in prisons need to be reduced – as most agree – is it helpful to create an interest in their growth among companies and their shareholders? Are there some real conflicts of interest which we are likely to have to address: for instance will judges and jurors have to be vetted to ensure that they do not have an interest in sending more people to prison? More generally, if prisons become part of the ‘commercial sector’, do those running them have an interest in reducing regimes or staffing levels in ways that militate against the restorative aims of imprisonment?"

"Even if particular prisons – the majority – remain in the public sector, does ‘contestability’ mean that the ethos of the whole service is actually dictated by the aims of the private sector? Or does the whole service benefit by the presence of private ‘providers’?"

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