The modes of provision of prison services in a comparative perspective

Abstract

This paper aims to compare the performance of two modes of provision of prison services: public, and with the participation of private companies. There are few empirical studies concerning the alternative modes of governance in this sector, which differs from other public utilities in that there is an absence of network externalities and scale economies. In addition, an understanding of informal institutions is crucial for the performance of the service provider, either public or private. In this paper, we build a comparative analysis of two case studies of similar correctional facilities, one public and the other outsourced to a private company under the supervision of civil servants (hybrid governance structure), both located in the same region of Brazil. We found that the privately operated facility has achieved better performance indicators (in terms of number of escapes, riots, deaths, assistance to inmates etc.) than the public facility, which in part refutes the arguments of Hart, Shleifer and Vishny (1997) against private participation in prison services. We conclude that the reasons for these differences are related to lower levels of administrative controls; to the presence of civil servants within the privately operated prison, which contributes to reducing information asymmetries; to greater incentives for the private operator: to monitor employees, to bypass local judiciary constraints and to fulfill contractual obligations.

Organizing Prisons through Public-Private Partnerships: a cross-country investigation

“…); (c) services offered to inmates (food, medical and legal assistance, rehabilitation services, etc.) (Cabral & Azevedo, 2008;Dilulio, 1996).…”

“…In order to illustrate the situation in Brazil, Cabral and Azevedo (2008) performed a comparative case study of two facilities, one publicly managed and the other outsourced to a private company, both located in the same region, the State of Bahia. Although the facilities are similar in physical structure (same design), in terms of capacity (both were designed to hold 268 prisoners), and with regard to the inmates' criminal profiles, there are some differences that could be associated with different governance structures.…”

“…Normally, it is up to the courts to determine who goes to prison, who is released, or which prisoner has the right to alternative sanctions other than incarceration. Thus, the reduction in the number of inmates in the prisons is dependent on the efficiency of legal matters and also on the social choices shared by the local judicial community (Cabral & Azevedo, 2008). In this sense, judges in conservative locations are keener to hand down harder sentences, as can be seen in the U.S. (Schneider, 1999).…”

“…Such institutional problems signal precaution to prison managers as the delay in delivering judgments might generate internal conflicts inside the correctional facility, mainly when those judgments are related to benefits to be conceded to inmates, such as appeals, probation, parole and other prisoner rights assured by law (Cabral & Azevedo, 2008).…”

“…The water (Chong, Huet, Saussier, & Steiner, 2006), electricity (Glachant & Finon, 2003), roads (Athias & Saussier, 2007), telecommunications (Levy & Spiller, 1994) and also even more human and lessinfrastructure sectors such as health care (Albreht & Klazinga, 2009) and social security (Cronqvist & Thaler, 2004) have been analyzed. However, little is known about the public and private governance of criminal justice services, such as prisons (Cabral & Azevedo, 2008). Researchers seldom focus their studies on the correctional sector, probably because the process of obtaining relevant information is not an easy task: non-consolidated data and confidentiality are factors that often disturb and frequently impede the execution of research in this sector (Dilulio, 1996).…”