Introduction

A year and half ago, AFSCME released a report entitled Should Crime Pay?

We posed the question because jurisdictions were increasingly turning over the entire operations of their correctional institutions to for-profit companies. The report detailed some of the horrors that result from corporations profiting from the crimes of others. A year and a half later, more evidence has come to light showing that Crime Shouldn’t Pay.

The rapid increase in inmate populations has caused a number of jurisdictions to come under court order to reduce overcrowding in jails and prisons. At the beginning of 1998, 44 of 52 (state and federal government) corrections systems surveyed operated at or above capacity. In addition, 141 institutions were affected by court orders affecting population limits.¹ In this frenzied climate, corporate America has found a way to generate profits by building and operating correctional facilities. Overcrowding is the most common reason cited by governments that turn to for-profit firms.² Another rationale for privatizing prisons is the notion that privatization saves money. After more than a decade of experience with for-profit corrections facilities in this country, there is no clear evidence that for-profit prisons save taxpayer dollars. There are numerous examples in which for-profit prison firms:

• Get very favorable contractual terms that wind up costing taxpayers more;



• Provide low-paying jobs and inadequate benefits to employees;



• Experience a very high degree of employee turnover and understaffing;



• Avoid paying property and income taxes;



• Stick governments with the liability for their mistakes; and,



• Endanger public safety.

We call for an end to for-profit private prisons. Our 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.

¹ Camille Camp and George Camp, The Corrections Yearbook, 1998 (Middletown, Connecticut: Criminal Justice Institute Inc., 1998), pgs. 72-73.

² Abt Associates Inc., “Private Prisons in the United States: An Assessment of Current Practice,” July 16, 1998, pg. 15.