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Privatization and the Penal System: Britain Misinterprets the American Experience

The building and management of penal institutions by private corporations has been adopted by governments in both the United States and Britain as a possible solution to the problems of their overburdened prison systems. British advocates of privatization have looked to the United States to demonstrate the success of privatization, but they have seriously distorted the evidence and have paid scant attention to the constitutional, administrative, and political differences between the two countries. The authors examine these differences and conclude that many of the practical incentives to privatization which exist in the United States are absent in Britain, and so too are some of the legal protections which prisoners in American private jails enjoy. While not advocating the privatization of penal institutions in either country, the authors are critical of those opponents of privatization, particularly in Britain, who assert that there is, or should be, a fixed relationship between the state and the penal system. They contrast this with the earlier attitude of progressives in both countries who saw the expansion of private, nonprofit involvement in noncustodial forms of punishment as an important means of promoting change.