Prison privatization and public budgeting: A meta-analysis of the literature

Corrections is one of the largest growth industries of the 1990s. Correctional budgets are increasing faster than almost any other category in the public sector, consuming greater and greater shares of state, county, and federal budget appropriations. Faced with the dilemma of these growing costs, legislators are exploring privatization as a cost saving measure. Privatization can take many forms (e.g. privatizing services, privatizing construction, and privatizing operations at the institutional level), but privatizing prison operations is arguably the most controversial attempt at cost saving. There is an abundance of literature on the subject that influences legislators and public opinion but there are relatively few empirical studies that actually compare costs. In reviewing the prison privatization literature, conclusions regarding cost savings are mixed. The purpose of this paper is to assess the quality and quantity of empirical research on cost effectiveness of private vs. public prison management and to assess the impact of that research on the conclusions drawn in the privatization literature.