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The Government of New Zealand has announced that three new prisons are to be publicly owned but they could be publicly or privately run. The Department of Corrections will be invited to bid against the private sector for the management contracts.

The tendering process for the 275 bed extension to the existing Mt. Eden remand prison in Auckland and two other prisons for sentenced prisoners in Northland and Auckland will begin in October 1998. The contract award for Mt. Eden will be announced in July 1999 and the building is expected to be completed in 2000.

The Government has also announced that Chubb (NZ) Ltd has been chosen to provide prisoner escort and court room custodial services in the Northland and Auckland regions from 1 October 1998 (see PPRI #15 and 20).

Meanwhile, trade unions representing New Zealand’s prison officers have been resisting plans to cut wages, overtime and holidays but increase working hours. The Department of Corrections wants the changes in order to compete with the private sector. It has borrowed $25m to pay officers to leave or transfer to the new conditions.

n In August 1998, Dr. Andrew Coyle, a former prison governor in England and Scotland and now director of the International Centre for Prison Studies, was in New Zealand to give the Allan Nixon Memorial Lecture. This is an extract from his speech The Prison In The New Millennium:

“A few days ago I was reading the May 1998 edition of the highly professional magazine published by the Department of Corrections. It recorded, with apparent pride, the fact that prison capacity by the end of 1998 would be almost 5,900 compared to a mere 4,941 when the Department was set up in 1995. I make that a 19 per cent increase in the number of New Zealand men and women deprived of their liberty.

Based on current projections, the Department estimates a need for 7,750 beds in 12 years time. I make that a 57 per cent increase since 1995. But even the Corrections Department does not think that the number of New Zealanders in prison will rise to 7,750. It expects that home detention and prison programmes will reduce that number considerably. But why should it expect that?

What, in effect, is happening is that New Zealand is following the model of the USA in identifying those members of society whom it wishes to exclude and is providing the facilities to do so. The Department of Corrections makes no moral or political judgement. Its task is simply to provide the accommodation for the appropriate number of prisoners.

Well, if New Zealand is following the American model, then it should prepare within the next 15 years to lock up in prison not 7,750 men and women but 22,750 men and women. But, you say, that is preposterous. It is inconceivable. It will not happen. That is what Americans thought in 1980, but it is what has happened in the USA in 1998, where there are 1.7m citizens in custody.

There is another seduction in this massive expansion in the number of citizens who are being sent to prison. It is the commercial and financial interests which follow this expansion. I do not intend to enter into the debate about private prisons. Let me simply note that in most countries many of the new prisons are being built in regions where there is considerable unemployment. Until recently, communities were reluctant to have prisons built in their neighbourhood. Now local authorities regard them as opportunities to reduce unemployment levels.

This is also the case in New Zealand. Let me quote from the ... magazine to which I have already referred: ‘The Department’s Chief Financial Officer Richard Morris says each 300 bed prison costs about $40m to build and pumps about $10m a year into the local economy. This will be a significant benefit to regions such as Northland.’

This is a dangerous argument to pursue in economic terms, let alone the terms of morality and public safety.”

SOUTH AFRICA

First contracts being negotiated

The Government of South Africa is negotiating the final details of four 25 year contracts for new prisons to be privately financed, designed, built and run (see PPRI #13 15,16,18 and 20).

South African Custodial Services, which includes Wackenhut Corrections Corp, Kensani Consortium Pty. Ltd and African Merchant Bank is negotiating for a 1,500 bed adult remand centre at Boksburg, Gauteng Province. A consortium including Group 4 is bidding for a 1,500‑bed maximum security facility at Bloemfontein.

Other contracts are for a 800 bed youth development centre at Barberton, Mpulanga and a 1,500 bed maximum security prison at Louis Trichardt, Northern Province.

A government spokesperson told PPRI that it has not been decided whether one of the consortia will be awarded two contracts. South Africa is the first country on the African continent to privatise prisons.

RUSSIA

CCA programme imported

According to Corrections Corporation of America’s magazine for employees The Private Line, the company has designed a substance abuse treatment programme for use throughout the Russian correctional system.

CCA’s programme, known as LifeLine, is currently used in 17 of its facilities in the US and Puerto Rico. In April 1998, a CCA instructor went to Russia to train 20 medical and correctional staff. LifeLine will be implemented first at St. Petersburg Top Security Hospital and then at other facilities.

CANADA

First round to union

The Government of Ontario has yet publicly to announce how it will implement its plans for five superjails [two new and three redesigned existing facilities] to replace 14 adult prisons (see PPRI #15, 16, 18 and 19). But the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), which represents the province’s correctional officers and fears up to 1,700 job losses, has convinced four municipal councils to reject privatisation as an option for a proposed superjail to be located at Penetang, north of Toronto.

According to the Globe & Mail, 1 August 1998, Corrections Corporation of America understands that one of the two new identical facilities will be privately run and the other kept in the public sector as a comparator.

UNITED KINGDOM

Securicor fined

Securicor has been fined more than £105,000 since its 800 bed HM Prison Parc opened at Bridgend, Wales in November 1997 (see PPRI #18-21). A fine of £54,700 was imposed for contract failures in February 1998 and a further £51,900 for incidents in May and failure to meet minimum standards from February to April 1998. The Prison Service expects to make further substantial deductions from payments due to the company. The contract between the company and the Home Office limits financial penalties to a maximum of five per cent of the full contract price regardless of the severity of contract failure.

The Director General of the Prison Service, Mr Richard Tilt, told the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee in July 1998 that “there were problems caused by a lack of leadership, with senior management failing to address issues in a consistent and sustained manner. There have been two changes of director and one of the deputy director ... staff numbers have also been increased.”

Staff turnover at Rebound ECD

An article in Group 4 Securitas International Magazine No. 28 described the scene at Medway, Group 4 subsidiary Rebound ECD Ltd’s recently opened Secure Training Centre (see PPRI #16, 19, 20 and 22),: “Whilst speculation, conjecture and argument continue in the outside world, [director] Sue Clifton and her team do their best to ignore such wrangling and get on with the extremely difficult job of helping young and sometimes violent offenders ...” However, the senior staff responsible for education and care, along with 20 other staff, have already left Medway since it opened in April 1998. The Howard League for Penal Reform has called for an inquiry into the running of the Centre.

IT contracting to be reviewed

Plans for privatising Prison Service information technology services in England and Wales under the Private Finance Initiative have been suspended for six months following concerns over reliability and value for money (see PPRI #3).

The Prison Service is reviewing its options but, as it still prefers a public/private partnership, the future of the 2,500 staff remains uncertain. Over £5m has already been spent on preparatory work and negotiations with potential consortia PRISM and EDS over a £350m contract.

Sweet deal exposed

Wackenhut (UK) Ltd signed a contract with the Prison Service in November 1997 to take over the running of industrial workshops at HM Prison Coldingley, south of London, on a [undisclosed] profit sharing basis. It was revealed recently that the company had not only received an interest free loan of £100,000 from the Prison Service to help with start up costs, but it also did not have to pay for utilities such as water, electricity, gas and telephone calls worth £40,000 consumed by its laundry and engineering businesses. Following the revelations, the Prison Service is looking for ways to recover utility costs from Wackenhut.

Trade unions, whose members at Coldingley now work for the company, opposed privatisation in the first place and questioned the scheme’s viability. A spokesperson for the Public and Commercial Services Union said: “We asked to see the contract during the negotiations with Wackenhut. This was denied to us. Now we know why.”

AUSTRALIA

Port Phillip developments

A prisoner died from a suspected drug overdose at Group 4's Port Phillip Prison on 12 August 1998 (see PPRI # 15-22). He was the ninth to die since the prison opened in August 1997. There have been more deaths in one year at Port Phillip than the entire Victorian prison system has had in eight years.

The Victoria government is setting up an internal review into deaths in custody. On 10 September 1998, on the anniversary of the first prisoners to arrive at Port Phillip, the Victoria Deaths in Custody Watch Committee and the Federation of Community Legal Centres held a demonstration in Melbourne to commemorate the nine prisoners who have died.

n The Government has launched an investigation into allegations that a staff member at Port Phillip tampered with prisoner records on a statewide database.

Confidential documents seen by the Sunday Herald Sun reveal that a Group 4 officer’s password was used to change 624 prisoner records. According to the newspaper’s source, the identified drug user status of prisoners had been reduced in all cases. The company must enter data on all prisoners who test positive or are found with drugs as, under the terms of the contract, the company can be penalised for drug use above certain [undisclosed] levels when applied in conjunction with other performance indicators. The database also holds information such as prisoners’ release dates, security ratings, privileges and informant details.

n The overall cost of redesigning cells at Port Phillip to eradicate hanging points was over one million Australian dollars. The Government’s contribution to the cost was A$300,000 while Group 4's share was A$700,000.

The Government “felt the company was responsible for the major part of bringing about the corrective action ... the view of correctional people was that cell design is not a significant issue in suicide management, that it is more related to the overall management regime. But in the context of the events that occurred at the prison, we felt for whatever reason the company had not delivered the outcomes we were looking for in terms of suicide management and we held them responsible for the vast majority of the modification costs that needed to be undertaken.” (Mr T Daly, Deputy Secretary, Justice Operations, Department of Justice, Victoria, evidence to the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, Inquiry into 1998-99 budget estimates, 21 July 1998)

n “I must say I was less than impressed with middle management operations. Additional monitors were installed and pressure was placed on Port Phillip Prison to place additional staff at the prison. My understanding now is that Port Phillip Prison now employs about 30 more prison officers than originally planned ... it is anticipated that when the first year’s contract is assessed the company will suffer some financial reduction against its contractual arrangements.” (Mr B McGrath, Victoria’s Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for Corrections, evidence to the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, Inquiry into 1998-99 budget estimates, 21 July 1998)

Freedom of Information case

A hearing into an application for the full contracts and operating manuals at all three of Victoria’s private prisons to be made public under the Freedom of Information Act will take place between 19 October and 6 November 1998 (see PPRI #13).

The case, brought by the Coburg Brunswick Legal Centre, is being contested by CCA, Wackenhut, Group 4 and the Government of Victoria.

CCA fined for Women’s Prison

The Victoria Government penalised Corrections Corporation of Australia approximately A$100,000 for contract deficiencies at the Metropolitan Women’s Prison in its first year of operation (see PPRI #3 onwards). The money was withheld from CCA’s performance fee. The prison opened in August 1996 but the amount of the penalty was only disclosed in July 1998.

Deaths at Arthur Gorrie

Two prisoners have died recently at Australasian Correctional Management (Wackenhut)-run Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre at Wacol, Brisbane (see PPRI #13). The first was found hanging by his shoelaces on 20 July 1998. The second died on 22 August 1998 and investigations are under way to establish whether this was the result of a drug overdose.

Queensland review

The efficiency of Queensland’s prison system is to be reviewed. The terms of reference include an assessment of the oversight of the state’s privately managed prisons and the effectiveness of the division of Queensland’s Corrective Services Commission into purchaser and provider of corrective services. A report is expected to be published by the end of 1998.

WA transport contracts

Australasian Correctional Services, Corrections Corporation of Australia and Group 4 Correction Services have bid to take over the transport of prisoners, court security and custody of prisoners at police cells and courts in Western Australia.

The Government is expected to announce the winner in December 1998. The contract will start in April 1999. Some 200 police, prison and juvenile custodial officers will be redeployed.

Prison labour complaint

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has accused the Victorian Government of breaching International Labour Organisation (ILO) rules banning the use of forced prison labour. The ACTU has filed an official complaint with the ILO, claiming that the Government’s arrangements with Corrections Corporation of Australia, Australasian Correctional Management and Group 4 contravene rules preventing private companies benefiting from the use of prison labour.

Prison labour is exempted from the ILO’s rules provided that it is supervised by a public authority, not hired out or placed at the disposal of private companies. The ACTU has also cited examples of prisoners earning between A$6.50 and A$7.50 per day compared with the minimum wage of around A$75 per day for similar work.

The Government argues that it is not in breach of the ILO convention.

n In the UK, the Trades Union Congress recently made a similar complaint to the ILO. The Government’s legal interpretation is also that its arrangements with private contractors do not breach the convention.

UNITED STATES

Resisting privatisation

The first national protest against prison privatisation by correctional officers will take place at the headquarters of Corrections Corporation of America in Nashville, Tennessee between 15 and 17 October 1998. According to Corrections USA (CUSA, formerly CCJC see PPRI # 13, 15,16 and 18), “No other issue has galvanised professional correctional officers more. Stopping prison privatisation will take an all out grassroots effort. We must demand an open and honest debate at every table where this issue is discussed. In Nashville we will expose prison privatisation for what it is: corporate greed fuelled by human misery and funded by taxpayers’ dollars.”

The protest coincides with the reintroduction of legislation to privatise 70 per cent of Tennessee’s corrections system. Earlier this year a CCA-backed Bill failed to win approval after a campaign by the Tennessee State Employees Association (see PPRI #16 and 20). CUSA’s February 1999 conference will be in Miami, where Wackenhut has its headquarters.

Contact: CUSA, PO Box 394, Newton, NH 03858. Tel: ++ 1 603 382 9707. Email: BDawe82086@aol.com

n Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex is a conference to be held from 24-27 September 1998 at the University of California at Berkeley which will seek to develop a new movement to resist the trend of imprisonment and the “profitable business in which more and more corporations are staking their claims”.

Contact: Critical Resistance, Tel: ++1 510 643 2094. Fax: ++1 510 845 8816.

Cancelled health contracts

EMSA Correctional Care has had its contract with Greenville County Jail, North Carolina cancelled. The company failed adequately to distribute medicine, make visits to ill prisoners or provide mental health services. A May 1998 US Justice Department report alleged that inadequate medical care may have contributed to the deaths of five prisoners in the last three years. EMSA is owned by Med Partners.

Wexford Health Sources Inc’s $2m contract at Tulsa County Jail, Oklahoma was not renewed last July after two nurses employed by the company were indicted on charges of second degree manslaughter and falsifying evidence in connection with the death of a prisoner. The nurses are alleged to have denied medical attention to prisoner Charles Guffey who later died of a ruptured ulcer in October 1997.

Wackenhut’s pre- teething troubles

Wackenhut Corrections Corp’s new 276 bed Jena Juvenile Justice Center in Louisiana has been heavily criticised - and the prison was not due to open until 15 September 1998.

Problems identified by a prison expert and a Justice Department lawyer included: unacceptably low staffing levels, for example one guard per 48 prisoners in the dormitories; inadequate counselling and psychiatric resources; a flawed behaviour management plan; and an inappropriate restraint policy which included the use of mace and an irritant dust.

US District Court Judge Frank Polozola warned the company and State officials not to open the facility before the problems were resolved. The company said that it would evaluate the criticisms.

Louisiana takeover

Louisiana’s only private juvenile prison has been taken over by the State following allegations of abuse and inhumane conditions at the Trans-American Development Associates Inc-run Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth. Federal investigators, mental health advocates and prisoners’ lawyers have all been critical of conditions at the facility. A Justice Department investigation found that prisoners were routinely beaten. A lawsuit on behalf of a number of prisoners is pending.

n An in-depth article on the problems in Louisiana generally and Tallulah in particular can be found in the New York Times, 15 July 1998: Louisiana Boys’ Prison Is Epitome of Neglect and Abuse, by Fox Butterfield.

Youngstown problems continue

The US Attorney General, Janet Reno, has ordered an independent review of CCA’s North East Ohio Correctional Center at Youngstown (see PPRI #18 and 19). The review will cover security and management procedures and work opportunities for prisoners.

This follows a series of violent incidents, including 13 stabbings and two murders, since the prison opened in May 1997. On 25 July 1998, six prisoners cut through a gate and escaped. Earlier in the year the State’s Correctional Institution Inspection Committee was refused access to the prison.

As a result of legal proceedings about its prisoner classification system, CCA had to transfer a number of high security prisoners from the prison. Under the terms of the contract between CCA and the District of Columbia, the company should only have held medium security prisoners at Youngstown.

Tennessee incidents

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is investigating the murder of prisoner Corey Smith on 27 August 1998 at CCA’s West Tennessee Detention Center in Mason. Both the victim and the alleged murderer are Washington DC prisoners transferred from CCA’s Youngstown, Ohio facility.

A prisoner escaped from the CCA-run Hardeman County Correctional Facility in Tennessee on 4 September 1998. Serving a 34 year sentence for aggravated rape, he was found to be missing during a routine count.

Montana criticises CCA in Arizona

The Montana Board of Pardons and Parole has criticised CCA for failing to provide sex offender treatment for Montana prisoners held at the company’s Central Arizona Detention Center. The State was paying an extra $150,000 a year specifically for this service.

In July 1998, the Board’s Executive Director informed Montana corrections officials that: “We have been apprised that there is no sex offender treatment available at this time nor has extended treatment been available ... we have also been informed that the facility is refusing to submit evaluations which the board requires as part of the investigation of a prisoner applying for parole.”

The company’s non-compliance was viewed as a breach of Montana law. CCA has since hired a new sex offender programme director.

Evangelists want CCA contract

Since 1989, CCA has run the Venus Pre-Release Center for the State of Texas. But the contract is up for renewal and the company is facing competition not only from its usual rival companies but also a Texas evangelical coalition.

The Restorative Justice Ministries Network, based in Fort Worth, wants to run the facility in order to offer prisoners faith-based counselling, job training and education.

If the Texas Department of Criminal Justice awards the contract to the coalition, the facility would be the first faith-based private prison in the US. A decision on the contract award is expected in November 1998.

Revenues keep growing

The world’s two leading corrections companies continued their growth during the first half of 1998. CCA, which dominates in the US, had revenues of $305.3m compared with $198.8m for the same period in 1997. Net profit was $39.5m compared with $23.6m.

Wackenhut Corrections Corp, which is expanding more rapidly than CCA outside of the US, had revenues of $145.8m compared with $92.7m for the first six months of 1997. Net profit was $7.7m compared with $5.3m.

Cornell guard shoots escapee

A Mexican prisoner was shot and killed by a guard after he managed to get beyond the perimeter fence of one of Cornell Corrections Inc’s three facilities at Big Spring Correctional Center, Texas, on 8 August 1998.

The company’s regional manager, Mr Dale Brown, told the Midland Reporter Telegraph that the prisoner failed to heed warnings in English and Spanish and, after a warning shot was fired, he was killed by a single shot. “These are people who are already convicted of a felony. When they’re trying to escape you have to assume they are desperate and dangerous to the public. It’s a difficult thing in our business, but our job is to keep them in the institution’s perimeter,” he said.

n Cornell Corrections Inc’s revenues for the six months ended 30 June 1998 increased 100 per cent to $56.1m from $28m for the same period in 1997. Net profit increased 96 per cent to $2.5m.

At the end of 1997, Cornell had 5,061 beds in operation. As at 13 August 1998, the company operated 43 facilities in the US with a capacity of 9,308 beds.

Timely for investors in crime?

Only “qualified professional investors” can attend the Westergaard/Mallon Security 2001 conference at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on 17 September 1998.

According to a press release, “US Technologies, operator of in-prison manufacturing facilities... exemplifies the type of promising microcap company... they’ve got a special story to present ... given recent events, what could be a more timely target for investors than security and crime control?” Potential investors can also visit a website (www.security2001.com) to “take a comprehensive look at the security/crime control industry” where they will find details of “53 companies representing seven industry sub-sectors”.

RECENT BOOKS, REPORT AND PAPERS

Prison Privatisation and the Remand Population: Principle Versus Pragmatism? Adrian James and Keith Bottomley in The Howard Journal, Vol. 37 No.3, August 1998. Once again drawing on their evaluation of Britain’s first contractually managed prison, HM Prison Wolds, the authors argue that there should be an urgent discussion of fundamental issues relating to the detention of remand prisoners in the light of the rapid expansion of private sector involvement in prison management.

Prisoners’ Access to the Court: A Qualitative Study Of The Barriers Inmates Must Overcome To AccessThe Courts, Alexis J. Miller in the Justice Professional, 1998 Vol.10. Based on research in Kentucky, this paper examines prisoners in both public and private prisons and their right to access the courts. The author states that prisoners in private prisons face “their own unique set of problems” and that any further obstructions to court access may result in a “Neo-Hands Off doctrine.”

Privatising Section 1983 Immunity: The Prison Guard’s Dilemma After Richardson & McNight, 117S.Ct. 2100 (1997) by Daniel J. Juceam, in Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol. 21, No.1, 1998. Further discussion of the landmark case in which it was held that contract prison guards are not entitled to the same immunity as public employees.

Framed, Quarterly Magazine of Justice Action, Winter 1998, Issue 35.Contact: PO Box K365, Haymarket, New South Wales 2000, Australia. Includes regular features such as World Watch and, in this issue, Port Phillip Prison: Penal History Repeats Itself.

Asylum-Seekers and Immigration Act Prisoners - The Practice of Detention by Rachael Ellis, Prison Reform Trust (see contact details page 8). This pamphlet examines the practice of administrative detention in prisons and privately-run detention centres and recommends a series of reforms.

DEBATE

In PPRI #22, Prof. Mick Ryan and Dr.Tony Ward critically reviewed Prof. Richard Harding’s recent book, Private Prisons and Public Accountability. Here is Prof. Harding’s response:

Both Mick Ryan (British Journal of Criminology) and Tony Ward (Theoretical Criminology) seem to have been cut to the quick by my reference to their own contribution to this debate. Each of them bridles at my accusation that they seem to be, along with some other protagonists, ideological or moral fundamentalists who have dealt the human factor (conditions for prisoners) out of consideration in their analysis of prison privatisation.

Ryan asserts that my arguments are “intellectually unsustainable”, and accuses me of “naive pragmatism”, whilst Ward defiantly confesses to being a “moral fundamentalist” contrasting this with my own “moral pragmatism”. For Ryan and Ward it is simply not legitimate even to embark upon the task of trying to evaluate how privatisation is actually working, let alone to put forward (in the light of the evidence) the proposition that its impact could be to stimulate an improvement across the whole prison system - public and private.

Each reviewer shies away from actually sharing with their readers what precisely it was they had said that caused me to label them in the way they find so hurtful. This diffidence is understandable, for their comments are possibly the silliest that have yet found their way into this debate. What they said (in Matthews (ed.) 1989 at pp. 64 and 71) was this:

“It should be clear ... that in the main we agree with those on the Left and in the penal lobby who oppose privatising prisons ... Turning ... to the position of prison officers, there are signs that the threat of privatisation is helping to bring about a rapprochement between the Prison Officers' Association ... and the Labour movement ... Though any alliance will no doubt be a cautious one on both sides, the POA's unmistakable shift to the left, its support for reducing the prison population, and its dislike for being used as a scapegoat by a union-bashing government, all point to another fissure in the supposed monolith of State which the Left would be foolish not to exploit.”

This was written in the darkest days of Thatcherism, and I suppose any of us could be forgiven in our anger and despair for writing nonsense at that time. Nevertheless, my own comment (Harding l997 at p. 24) is one from which I do not resile at all:

"Prisoners may not be particularly cheered by the knowledge that grandiose strategies about ideological realignment can so readily be constructed out of their predicament. They are left stranded as irrelevant symbols of supposedly greater issues. Their own identities and preferences are of no interest. This is their ultimate disempowerment. A debate which par excellence possesses profound human connotations is reduced simply to moral or ideological abstractions.”

Indeed, Ryan confirms in his review that, a decade later, he still regards the prisoner as subsidiary to the principle:

“Surely, most of the important questions we ask about the organization of the penal system and the well‑being of prisoners involve issues of moral principle? These abstract, sometimes political or ideological, questions cannot be impatiently brushed aside or relegated. Furthermore, those who ask such questions do not ask them without being aware of their practical consequences. Rather, it is that such practical consequences are not sufficient to justify this or that policy, since these can, in turn, undermine other important principles leading to other possibly even more undesirable outcomes, for example, a substantial increase in the overall prison population.”

Yet in their 1989 book, Ryan and Ward had acknowledged the importance of the prisoner perspective. Their work was deficient in this regard, they confessed (at p. xiii):

“It will soon become apparent to anyone who looks critically at our work that our evaluation of the American experience of privatising punishment is lacking in one crucial dimension, the offender's voice. What offenders, especially those on the inside, feel about being guarded by those on a private payroll obviously matters: they know where the shoe pinches, what the experience is really like.” The reasons for this deficiency were that there was “an absence of an authentic prisoners’ movement to relay their voice” (why does the Old Left always set such store by spokespersons for committees?) and evidently they were not able to communicate with prisoners directly and conduct their own “systematic enquiries”.

In this context one might have hoped that they would at least have noted the attention which I myself gave to this issue (pp. 115‑117). On the other hand, it might have been inconvenient to do so inasmuch as it mostly tended to support the view that the short‑term experience of private prisons (there are as yet few prisoners with long‑term experience) was welcomed by inmates.

Since writing my book I have continued the practice of regularly visiting private (and public) prisons, where I always talk, unsupervised, to prisoners. I estimate that I have now had more than one hundred such conversations in 14 different private prisons in Australia, the U.K., Florida, Virginia, Texas and Tennessee.

Overwhelmingly, experienced prisoners speak appreciatively of the improvements they believe the private sector has brought to their daily lives. I freely acknowledge the limited and subjective value of this evidence and its anecdotal nature. But I have to say that it is prima facie more cogent than the discussions which, when formulating his own views, Ryan apparently held in 1988 with members of the Department of Political Science at the University of Akron, Ohio ‑ not exactly a front‑line group to consult (Ryan and Ward 1989, p. xiii).

I also acknowledge, and did so in my book (p.116), that prisoner preferences should not necessarily be equated with what is optimal for penal policy as a whole. But, unlike Ryan and Ward, I do not presume to discount their preferences entirely.

Ward’s review is dismissive of the proposition that private prisons may have some advantages over public prisons. He is also critical of my own position that, ultimately, the key question is that of system‑wide improvement ‑ “cross‑fertilisation”, as I call it in the book. He strongly implies that this is some sort of sleight‑of‑hand on my part:

“There may seem to be a ‘heads‑I‑win, tails‑you‑lose’ quality to this argument (if public prisons turn out to do better than private ones, that just proves that competition is good for them!).”

This comment is disingenuous. It simply ignores whole swathes of the book (particularly pp. 134‑149) which show cross‑fertilisation at work in a context where the public system admittedly and avowedly started out well behind the private system. It bypasses the carefully documented evidence that the public sector in letting contracts almost invariably requires performance standards higher than those which it has hitherto imposed upon itself. Actually, since I finished writing my book, it has become apparent that one area I merely touched upon in passing ‑ health services ‑ has achieved a quantum leap of standard in private sector prisons in comparison to the public sector prisons.

The seven private prisons I was able to visit during June 1998 each has a comprehensive, 24 hours a day, health service modelled on the community health centre system of the UK or the family health centre of the USA. These are staffed by external medical professionals, not by old‑style, disenchanted, under‑resourced Prison Medical Service staff.

The atmosphere is invariably bright, competent and caring, and the prisoners are first and foremost patients. The public sector prisons are trying to respond, but there are systemic reasons why there will be a considerable lag‑ time in replicating this model.

No less notable are recruitment policies for uniformed staff. The private contractors are gender‑blind and race‑blind, in ways not yet achieved by any public sector prison system of which I am aware. A prison whose staff complement is substantially female is quite different in ethos from one where a testosterone contest is the order of the day. It is more conducive to programme delivery and to dispute mediation and to other factors which tend to make the prison experience less harrowing for prisoners. As for evaluative system‑to‑system comparison, a recent pilot study (Lanza ‑ Kaduce and Parker 1998) has confronted the most difficult penal question of all ‑ recidivism rates. The challenging conclusion was that the recidivism rates of private prison inmates in Florida may be only half of those of public prison inmates. There are a series of methodological questions to be considered, and a replicatory study with larger samples and longer follow‑up times is needed. However, the basic methodology was rigorous.

Conclusion

Let me conclude by posing a real-world problem for Ryan and Ward. When South Africa emerged from its state of colonialism, there were about 235 prisons accommodating about 100,000 prisoners. At best, these were human warehouses; about 30 were unfit for human habitation and were closed.

Since the end of apartheid, prison populations have continued to increase, and will reach 156,000 in 1999 (the classic pattern, incidentally, of increases in prison population preceding privatisation). The South African Government has called for expressions of interest and then tenders to build four new prisons to house about 5,000 prisoners; all bidders must be in an effective consortium arrangement with local enterprise.

It is anticipated that the contracts will shortly be let, and the successful bidders will almost certainly be consortia which include each of the three main operators found in the UK and in Australia.

The contract prices will come in at about three times the recurrent costs presently expended per prisoner throughout the remainder of the system The reasons for this are twofold: because the price includes amortisation of the capital costs over a period of 25 years, and because the operational costs are considerably higher. Why is this so? It is because none of the private sector bidders could afford to be associated with a ‘human warehouse’ prison and because in any case the South African Government was committed to raising imprisonment standards.

In other words, to ensure entry by the private sector the South African Government had to commit (which of course it wished to do) to improving the standards of the prison regime.

In practical terms ‑ financial strength and ‘know‑how’ of the private sector and higher priorities such as education and health for up‑front infrastructure outlays for the government ‑ the only way South Africa could begin the long, slow path of improving its prison system was thus by private sector participation. Otherwise, that process would be on indefinite ‘hold’.

In these circumstances, then, is privatisation a bad thing? Should it be rejected on moral or ideological grounds? If Ryan and Ward think so, let them try to explain this to the tens of thousands of present and future South African prisoners who progressively will begin to benefit from a real, not a token, attempt by the government to meet human rights standards. I rather doubt that they would get a good hearing.

Reading these reviews somehow put me in mind of a WH Auden stanza written at the time of Munich (1938):

“Faces along the bar

Cling to their average day.

The lights must never go out,

The music must always play.”

The lights which must never go out for Ryan and Ward are the desiccated prejudices of the Old Left and the tunes which are playing for them are tedious refrains stuck in a 78 rpm groove. The villains are the familiar ones - capitalists smoking big cigars and counting their stashes whilst they exploit the underclass ‑ and the heroes are the put‑upon working class (prison officers) and untainted scholars wearing Harris Tweed jackets.

Rather a lot has happened in the world since 1989 when Ryan and Ward wrote their book. Moral issues may not have changed, but moral strategies and moral responsibilities must move with the times. The moral questions as to how private prisons are run are no less important than the threshold moral question of whether they should exist. And when that threshold question has been settled (or lost, as Ryan and Ward would see it), the moral responsibility of those of us who are fortunate enough to have positions where we can gather information and analyse it against a broad background of history and philosophy and penology is to participate morally in policy development.

It is actually a far more insidious form of moral pragmatism to spare oneself the difficult dilemmas by staying on the sidelines, chattering as part of the moral audience, rather than to join in the debate. The moral fundamentalism of Ryan and Ward is in truth ideological bankruptcy.

n References: Harding, R.W. (1997): Private Prisons and Public Accountability, Open University Press, Buckingham. Lanza - Kaduce, J., and Parker, K. (1998), A Comparative Recidivism Analysis of Releasees from Private and Public Prisons in Florida, http//www.crim. ufl.edu/pcp Matthews, R. (ed.) (1989) Privatizing Criminal Justice, Sage Publications, London.

Ryan, M., and Ward, T. (1989): Privatization and the Penal System: The American experience and the debate in Britain, Open University Press, Buckingham.

n Correction: In PPRI #22, Prof. Harding was mistakenly referred to as Dr. Harding. We apologise for this error.

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