Armstrong studies the environmental quality of confinement in private and public juvenile correctional facilities using data from 48 facilities, representing 4,590 delinquents, 1,362 staff, and 48 administrators in 19 states (16 private and 32 public facilities). Her results demonstrate that neither staff nor juvenile delinquents perceived the environmental quality to be significantly different between private and public facilities. Further, compared to public facilities, private facilities were smaller, newer and had a more intensive admission process for juvenile delinquents. Public and Private correctional staff differed significantly on age and prior work experience. Differences in the juvenile populations were minimal.

Privatization of Criminal Justice

A collection of original articles from a number of the world's leading authorities on imprisonment. The aim of the book is to review the current state of imprisonment around the world and to look at possible future developments. The underlying theme of the book is that imprisonment is undergoing a significant change in a number of different countries and that there are important lessons which can be learned from the analysis of these changes. At the same time this book is perceived as a 'state of the art' collection which provides an informed and comprehensive analysis of the major aspects of imprisonment. Consequently the book should be of interest to a wide-ranging international audience of academic researchers and policy-makers as well as students.

Under the auspices of a governmentally sanctioned "war on drugs," incarceration rates in the United States have risen dramatically since 1980. Increasingly, correctional administrators at all levels are turning to private, for-profit corporations to manage the swelling inmate population. Policy discussions of this trend toward prison privatization tend to focus on cost-effectiveness, contract monitoring, and enforcement, but in his Private Prisons in America, Michael A. Hallett reveals that these issues are only part of the story. Demonstrating that imprisonment serves numerous agendas other than "crime control," Hallett's analysis suggests that private prisons are best understood not as the product of increasing crime rates, but instead as the latest chapter in a troubling history of discrimination aimed primarily at African American men.

This book makes public, for the first time, a full account of the development of the privatization of prisons, centred on the only full-scale empirical study yet to have been undertaken in Britain. After providing an up-to-date overview of the development of private sector involvement in penal practice in the United Kingdom, North America, Europe and Australia, the authors go on to describe the first two years in the life of Wolds Remand Prison - the first private prison in Britain. They look at the daily life for remand prisoners, assess the duties and morale of staff and compare the workings of Wolds to a new local prison in the public sector. The authors conclude by discussing some of the practical and theoretical issues to have emerged from contracting out, ethical issues surrounding the whole privatization debate and implications for the future of the prison system and penal policy.

Thoroughly revised and updated, the third edition of the best-selling textbook Prison and Jail Administration: Practice and Theory covers all aspects of prison administration, from organizational structure and management accountability to food service, personnel corruption, and the impact of technology on penal institutions. Authored by over sixty leading experts in the field, the text provides students with a unique balance of practice and theory, and includes suggested readings, learning objectives, and discussion questions to help students gain an in-depth understanding of the material. The third edition includes all-new pedagogical features, instructor resources, and new chapters on current topics, such as women offenders, the world of a corrections officer, hiring and retention of staff, institution pre-release programs, and restorative justice. The most comprehensive and accessible prison administration textbook available, Prison and Jail Administration: Practice and Theory, Third Edition is essential reading for students in correctional administration courses.

With more than one million people behind bars, the United States imprisons a larger share of its population than any other industrialized nation. This has precipitated a serious overcrowding problem with federal and state prisons currently operating well beyond capacity. Conventional efforts appear unable to cope with the increasing shortage of beds or with inadequate rehabilitation services. A bold solution is required; increasingly it is being seen to reside in the private sector. This timely volume explores the issues of private versus public financing, construction, and management of medium-and high-security prisons.Private prisons are not a new concept in the United States. They have existed in several forms since the eighteenth century. The opening chapters evaluate historical cases of prisons for profit, examining the concerns of labor, abuses of inmates, and the source and resolution of disputes between private and public sectors. These chapters argue that the experience gained through privatization does not justify current opposition from civil libertarians or labor unions.Chapters dealing with the modern contracting out of complete management and limited services document the growing trend toward privatization and instances of public/private partnership in prison industries.The assembled evidence indicates clearly that privately run prisons have shown significant cost savings and good quality of provision for prisoners while still being profitable. However, the authors caution that these promising results must be reinforced by public safeguards in the contracting stage and monitoring to assure good service and security. With the American prison system in disarray, the public interest demands that government look beyond the public or private identity of those who wish to provide correctional services and focus instead on who can provide the best services at a given cost. It is essential to state that correctional services should attain several objectives and not merely cost minimization. The analysis and recommendations presented here will aid in the task. Privatizing Correctional Institutions will be of interest to law-enforcement officials, public policy analysts, penologists, and criminologists.

This book examines the current state of both the theory and practice of prison privatization in the United States in the 21st century, providing a balanced compendium of research that allows readers to draw their own conclusions about this controversial subject. This three-volume set brings together noted scholars and experts in the field to provide a comprehensive treatment of the subject of privatized prisons in the United States. It is a definitive work on the topic that synthesizes current thought on both the theory and practice of prison privatization. Volume I provides a broad-brush overview of private prisons that discusses the history of prison privatization and examines the expansion of the private prison industry and the growth of inmate populations in the United States. Volume II focuses on the corrections industry itself, providing essays that explore the business models, profit motivations, economic factors, and operations of the corporations that offer corrections services, while Volume III explores the political and social environment of prison privatization. Academics, practitioners, policy makers, and advocates for and against private prisons will find this work useful and enlightening, while general readers can use the unbiased information to draw their own conclusions in respect to the merits of prison privatization.