Monday, January 21, 2013

Strange Company


The privatisation of chunks of prison and probation related parts of the criminal justice system has worked some people up into a lather. Coupled with the concept of Payment by Results (PbR) as a means to reduce reoffending, it is clear to all but the wilfully stupid that the government intends to impose significant change.

I can’t recall having a fundamental issue with the privatisation of punishment – the essence of the matter – as someone, somewhere is making money out of the whole affair. Whether screws or suppliers of cell doors, prisons are a money laundering machine. That the private sector claims to be able to do this more efficiently is, to my mind, hardly a moral point but a practical one. Not that the moral debate was ignored – it just passed by in the blink of an eye 25 years ago and attempting to resurrect it is politically futile.

That lot said, to find myself on a conference platform as host of an event sponsored by G4S was one of those moments when I had to give serious consideration as to the nature of reality. Surely I have slipped across the quantum boundaries into a different reality? For there I was, with an old prison Area Manager, now glad-handing him as a head honcho at G4S. Strange days.

Not everyone is as sanguine over a future where giants such as G4S dominate. Probation officers in particular are taking to the streets in mass outraged mobs….Well, putting down the recall forms long enough to hack out a tweet or two, at least. And the objections seem to be wildly ideological, reducing to “private=bad, public=good”. And crazy libertarian that I am, such ideology doesn’t interest me one bit.

Public services are rarely better than private ones – if at all. The people who make up the organisations can be as lazy, useless or professional as anyone in the private sector. The difference is, a lousy public sector organisation that fails to deliver doesn’t go bust, it just keeps wasting the public’s money. If a private company consistently did badly, it would go bust and open the way for a new competitor.

The idea that private industry is inherently bad is a silly one. The profit motive has driven Western culture to the heights where it dominates the globe. Along with democracy, private enterprise is the greatest contribution the West has made to mankind. And we enjoy its benefits every moment of every day.  To dismiss private enterprise when it encroaches purely because of the profit motive is positively weak-minded.

The criminal justice landscape is changing and ideological objections seem to be futile. It is a fascinating time, where adaptation and flexibility may signal the survival of the best old ideas and practices and the demise of the useless.

Adapt or die. And I’m adapting like hell. And sharing space with G4S is a portent of very fluid times.




16 comments:

  1. "If a private company consistently did badly, it would go bust and open the way for a new competitor."
    Sadly, Ben, that's where you're wrong. Outsourcing companies have consistently done very badly indeed but still got the next contract because the procurement process says you can't take past performance into account.

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    1. I meant overall. G4S is a global company and the corrections part in the UK is a small part. If they were crap across the board, the market would devour it.

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  2. The problem occurs when a formally public monopoly is turned into a private monopoly. The checks and balances that normally keep the private sector in check (I.e. Consumer choice and competition) don't happen, and the natural response to this by any healthy for profit organisation is to take the piss...

    There have been very successful privatisations, unsuccessful ones that eventually sorted themselves out once some competition worked its way into the system, and some privatisations that can only be described as bloody disasters...

    I can't see our current dear leaders making a good job of getting a healthy market built into these contracts...

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  3. I'd have to agree with Anonymous and Duncan. I don't have a specific problem with private either - but I do have a specific problem with crony and non-competition.

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  4. Another problem with any service sector going private is how performance is judged. If you make and sell things, then the market judges itself, but if you invent 'performance quotas', and the customers [inmates] are not directly involved in the assessment, then there is less spontaneous feedback for self correction.

    Imagine if we had a Justice system that measured its 'success' by the number of convictions, rather than Justice...

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  5. From what I remember of the Private Prisons, they are substantially better than the public - Even Blakenhurst (which went public after initially being private) is an example of how good a local prison can be, in terms of work, time out of cell etc. Blakenhurst and Winson Green are within 20 miles of each other, but so different that it's not funny.

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  6. Get with the times Fenrir ... Winson Green is now run by G4S ....
    Interestingly Blakenhurst remains in the public sector... Prison privatisation isn't about performance nor prisoners nor profit; it never has been, it's about politics and always will be, just the same as NHS reforms, nationalised industry sell offs and public sector cuts and pay restraint...
    Politics, and were all pawns in the game, even the prisoners!!! Oooh, how inclusive!!
    Innervision

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    1. The Govt is ideologically driven towards privatisation, that's true. Whether private prisons perform better on any measure is moot.

      However, private prisons do bring new thinking, unhindered by the cultural baggage of the State prisons. In-cell phones, Kiosk systems, Summit Media, are all ideas that the State prisons had the chance to vanguard but failed in the "no..." culture in which new ideas just wither.

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  7. Anything that puts the crooked nose of the POA out of joint, can only be a good thing.

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    1. You need to get with the times too Darby;
      The POA are now allowed to recruit in private establishments, and have been for some years now...
      IV

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    2. If you can't beat them, join them (up), eh?

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    3. Not really.. It's about collective bargaining and people's right to join a trades union, you know, the rights that individuals have fought for and gone to jail for in the past ...

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  8. There has been, nor will there be, any privatisation of prisons. I realise the term 'privatisation' is widely-used, but in this case it is a misnomer. What we are seeing is a move by the private sector into prisons, first by managing them (since the 1990s), then building them, and now taking them over from the public sector, but government remains in the equation so that this is 'contracting-out' or 'marketisation' rather than 'privatisation' proper. The private companies that do this are still reliant on government for their income stream, and this is partly where the concern should arise.

    I can accept that the economic function of prisons is similar whether in the public or private sector, but given this is the case, why bother 'privatising' prisons? I think it's clear the reason prisons have been privately run, and are now being 'privatised', is to create profit-making opportunities for the business sector. The other arguments about how well a private prison is run versus a public prison are superfluous. The idea that improving prisons requires market discipline is a very strange notion.

    Has anyone done any research on the costs of the private sector against public prisons? If so, I have a strong suspicion that private prisons will be shown to be more expensive to run. This is partly because private companies must work to achieve shareholder value. The idea that a private prison must be cheaper is misconceived. If anything, the opposite is more likely. And of course this profit motive raises all kinds of ethical concerns, not least because as a contractor managing a critical asset, the private company cna make significant demands on its customer - the government - during the term of its contract.

    In any case, if it turns out private prisons are in fact cheaper, that is not necessarily a good thing. If anything, a private prison that is run 'efficiently' should be of greater concern to us than an inefficient prison. Think about what efficiency means in the private sector. Private companies who rely on government contracts will work to reduce costs to an absolute minimum in order to maximise returns. Due to the iliquidity of the asset they hold and the significant investments they need to make, these companies will also begin lobbying for larger prison populations.

    Ben Gunn says: [quote]"If a private company consistently did badly, it would go bust and open the way for a new competitor."[unquote] But if a private company consistently does badly in the prison sector, then what is the cost to prisoners and those working at the prison? Prison privatisation isn't primarily about economics. It is really a way for governments to divest themselves of responsibility, and thus true accountability and answerability, for what happens in prisons.

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    1. Further to my points above, it also seems to me (though I will need to think about this further) that a private prison system will have an economic structure that incentivises longer prison terms for its inmates. In publicly-run prisons, the economic incentive is to keep prisoners inside for as little time as possible, whereas in a privately-run system the incentives work in the opposite direction.

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    2. Excellent point TTR. Similarly, Doctors and Social workers have no personal economic use for healthy contented people, if the afore mentioned are paid per action quota.

      And in America, there have been some scandals regarding Judges receiving bonuses for sending more juveniles to privately run detention centres:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

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    3. Loosely combining both of your points: Prison dentists would have a profitable habit of filling cons mouths with unnecessary metal.... simply because it pays better than a check-up.

      Probably still goes on....

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