Private prison
A private prison, or for-profit prison, is a place where people are imprisoned by a third party that is contracted by a government agency. Private prison companies typically enter into contractual agreements with governments that commit prisoners and then pay a per diem or monthly rate, either for each prisoner in the facility, or for each place available, whether occupied or not. Such contracts may be for the operation only of a facility, or for design, construction and operation.
Global spread
In 2013, countries that were currently using private prisons or in the process of implementing such plans included Brazil, Chile, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Philippines, and South Korea. However, at the time, the sector was still dominated by the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.Australia
opened its first private prison, Borallon Correctional Centre, in 1990.In 2018, 18.4% of prisoners in Australia were held in private prisons.
Arguments for and against
A 2016 article by Anastasia Glushko argues in favor of privately owned prisons in Australia. According to Glushko, private prisons in Australia have decreased the costs of holding prisoners and increased positive relationships between inmates and correctional workers. Outsourcing prison services to private companies has allowed for costs to be cut in half. Compared with $270 a day in a government-run West Australian jail, each prisoner in the privately operated Acacia Prison near Perth costs the taxpayer $182. Glushko also says positive prisoner treatment was observed during privatisation in Australia by including more respectful attitudes to prisoners and mentoring schemes, increased out-of-cell time and more purposeful activities.However, a 2016 report from the University of Sydney found that in general, all states of Australia lacked a comprehensive approach to hold private prisons accountable to the government. The authors said that of all the states, Western Australia had the "most developed regulatory approach" to private prison accountability, as they had learnt from the examples in Queensland and Victoria. Western Australia provided much information about the running of private prisons in the state to the public, making it easier to assess performance. However the authors note that in spite of this, overall it is difficult to compare the performance and costs of private and public prisons as they often house different kinds and numbers of prisoners, in different states with different regulations. They note that Acacia Prison, sometimes held up as an example of how private prisons can be well run, cannot serve as a general example of prison privatisation.
Private immigration prisons
Several Australian immigration prisons are privately operated, including the Nauru Regional Processing Centre which is located on the pacific island country of Nauru and operated by Broadspectrum on behalf of the Australian Government, with security sub-contracted to Wilson Security. Immigration prisons typically hold people who have overstayed or lack a visa, or otherwise broken the terms of their visas. Some, such as the facility on Nauru, hold asylum seekers, refugees and even young children who can be detained indefinitely. In many cases people have been detained for years without charge or trial. This, as well as poor conditions, neglect, harsh treatment and deaths in some of the centers, has been the source of controversy in Australia and internationally.Canada
There have been three notable private detention facilities in Canada to date, and all have either gone defunct or reverted to government control.The only private adult prison in Canada was the maximum-security Central North Correctional Centre in Penetanguishene, Ontario, operated by the U.S.-based Management and Training Corporation from its opening in 2001 through the end of its first contract period in 2006. The contract was held by the Ontario provincial Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services. A government comparison between the Central North "super-jail" and a nearly identical facility found that the publicly run prison had measurably better outcomes.
Two youth detention centres in Canada were operated by private companies, both at the provincial level. The Encourage Youth Corporation operated Project Turnaround in Hillsdale, Ontario under contract from the Government of Ontario from 1997 to 2004, after which the facility was shut down. In New Brunswick, the multinational private prison firm GEO Group constructed and operated the Miramichi Youth Detention Centre under contract with the province's Department of Public Safety before its contract was ended in the 1990s following public protests.
As of mid-2012, private prison companies continued to lobby the Correctional Service of Canada for contract business.
France
The involvement of the private sector in prisons in France grew significantly between 1987 and the late 2000s, as reported by French scholar Fabrice Guilbaud. France's system is semi-private: so-called non-sovereign missions are delegated to private companies, while guard and security functions are left to the State. Organization of inmate labor in prison workshops is another task that has been delegated to prison management companies. There are however no prisons in France in which every aspect of the prison is run by the private sector, as in the UK. The French approach to privatisation therefore necessarily divorces security and production functions.Prison is a space of forced confinement where the overriding concern is security. The fact is that at several levels, and depending on the type of prison, production logic clashes with security logic. Structural limitations of production in a prison can restrict private companies’ profit-taking capacities. A field study conducted by Guilbaud in 2004 and 2005 in five prisons chosen by prison and management type shows that the intensity of the tension between production and security, and the various ways in which this tension arises and is handled, vary by type of prison and type of management. The production/security tension seems better integrated in public-sector prisons than in those managed by the private sector in the sense that it produces fewer conflicts in them. This result runs counter to the widespread understanding that shaped the 1987 reform, the idea that introducing private enterprise and the professionalism associated with it into prisons would improve inmate employment and prison operation.
Israel
Initial attempt
In 2004, the Israeli Knesset passed a law permitting the establishment of private prisons in Israel. The Israeli government's motivation was to save money by transferring prisoners to facilities managed by a private firm. The state would pay the franchisee $50 per day for inmate, sparing itself the cost of building new prisons and expanding the staff of the Israel Prison Service. In 2005, the Human Rights Department of the Academic College of Law in Ramat Gan filed a petition with the Israeli Supreme Court challenging the law. The petition relied on two arguments; first, it said transferring prison powers to private hands would violate the prisoners' fundamental human rights to liberty and dignity. Secondly, a private organization always aims to maximize profit, and would therefore seek to cut costs by, such means as skimping on prison facilities and paying its guards poorly, thus further undermining the prisoners' rights. As the case awaited decision, the first prison was built by the concessionaire, Lev Leviev's Africa Israel Investments, a facility near Beersheba designed to accommodate 2,000 inmates.Israeli Supreme Court rejection
In November 2009, an expanded panel of 9 judges of the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that privately run prisons are illegal, and that for the State to transfer authority for managing the prison to a private contractor whose aim is monetary profit would severely violate the prisoners' basic human rights to dignity and freedom.Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch wrote: "Israel's basic legal principles hold that the right to use force in general, and the right to enforce criminal law by putting people behind bars in particular, is one of the most fundamental and one of the most invasive powers in the state's jurisdiction. Thus when the power to incarcerate is transferred to a private corporation whose purpose is making money, the act of depriving a person of liberty loses much of its legitimacy. Because of this loss of legitimacy, the violation of the prisoner's right to liberty goes beyond the violation entailed in the incarceration itself."
New Zealand
The use of private prisons in New Zealand has been tried, stopped and reintroduced. New Zealand's first privately run prison, the Auckland Central Remand Prison, also known as Mt. Eden Prison, opened under contract to Australasian Correctional Management in 2000. In 2004, the Labour Government, opposed to privatisation, amended the law to prohibit the extension of private prison contracts. A year later, the 5-year contract with ACM was not renewed. In 2010, the National Government again introduced private prisons and international conglomerate Serco was awarded the contract to run the Mt Eden Prison.On 16 July 2015, footage of "fight clubs" within the prison emerged online and was reported by TVNZ. Serco was heavily criticized for not investigating until after the footage was screened. On 24 July 2015, Serco's contract to run the Mount Eden prison was revoked due to numerous scandals and operation was given back to the New Zealand Department of Corrections. Serco was ordered to pay $8 million to the New Zealand government as a result of problems at Mount Eden Prison while it was under Serco's management.
Serco has also been given the contract to build and manage a 960-bed prison at Wiri. The contract with Serco provides for stiff financial penalties if its rehabilitation programmes fail to reduce re-offending by 10% more than the Corrections Department programmes. The prison is estimated to cost nearly NZ$400 million. In response, Charles Chauvel, the Labour Party's spokesperson for justice, and the Public Service Association both questioned the need for a new private prison when there were 1,200 empty beds in the prison system. In March 2012, Corrections Minister Anne Tolley announced that the new Wiri prison would enable older prisons such as Mt Crawford in Wellington and the New Plymouth prison to be closed. Older units at Arohata, Rolleston, Tongariro/Rangipo and Waikeria prisons will also be shut down.
The Auckland South Corrections Facility was opened on 8 May 2015. The contract to operate the prison ends in 2040. As of 2016, 10% of prisoners in New Zealand were housed in private prisons.