Should_Jails_Be_in_the_Private_or_Public_Sector

Stefan Wolf Staertzel Thursday, September 16 2010 Should Jails be publically or privately owned' Should Jails be in the Public or Private Sector' The Public Sector is the area of nation’s affairs under governmental control rather than private control, when the Private Sector is the area of nations economy under private control rather than governmental. A Jail in most cases is ran by the government and ran by the public sector, except for some exceptional privately controlled jails. So the question is, should a prison/jail be run by the private or public sector' Pros and Cons: Public vs. Private Public Limited Companies are companies that are able to raise large amounts of money by selling its shares to the public. This means that the company is on the stock market, can raise money by selling shares, publicize their company, and can dominate the market if shares are sold. The public sector is ran by the government and receives its income from taxes. The public sector can work in synergy where all parts work together and therefore, run more efficient. Disadvantages of PLC’s are that once shares are sold they lose control due to stock market, and eventually the entrepreneur looses complete control of his company. If media talks poorly of your company, shares won’t be sold, and if the media talks highly of the company, your company will sell more shares and increase their income. It takes at least 75,000 dollars to start business, hence making it expensive to set up in stock market. Lastly, competitors and investors have access to your company’s information and can use it to their advantage. Disadvantage of public sector is the government makes all decisions and employees have no input, and expensive to run due to employment costs and maintenance of infrastructure and governmental facilities. Private vs. Public Jails Private Prisons argue that the private companies can operate prisons at lesser costs than the government, without reducing the quality of the service provided. They also argue that they do not have to deal with state bureaucracy, and laws which make the management of their facilities less expensive. Even if private prisons are in fact cheaper than public, this does not mean that it is more efficient as making profits from managing a prison will normally lead to cutting back on rehabilitation programs, food and medical care, laboring the inmates, in addition to hiring inexperienced staff to cut on salaries. Public prisons are more open to public inspection, unlike private prisons which are less transparent, difficult to regulate, monitor violations and obligations are difficult to detect. Public prisons are open to public inspection unlike private prisons which are not open to public inspection and the operation contracts are confidential and which leads to a lake of accountability. Some governmental functions must be conducted only by the government and not by private contractors since it represents a responsibility of the state towards its citizens like in the case of national defense. Conclusion: Jails should stay publically owned by government. A study in Tennessee was conducted and found that the private prison cost per prisoner per day was $35.39. The two public prisons compared with it cost $34.90 and $35.45. This concludes that no “savings” are made.  Since taxpayers pay for both private and public prisons due to the fact that the government pays both private and public, and the fact that private prisons make profit do not make the operation less expensive on the taxpayers.   James Austin conducted a survey and found that 49% more staff assaults occurred, and 65% more inmate on inmate assaults occurred. This proves that private prisons are inefficient. In my opinion, since privately ran jails are like a business, they are here to make money. Private jails as well cut down on costs by creating inmate labor cutting the costs by 57.2 million dollars from the 2 billion they receive. They decrease the quality of the prison to increase their profit, unlike the government who does not aim to make money, use their money to increase the quality of the prison. As a conclusion I agree that prisons should stay under the control of the private sector.