The economic efficiency of rehabilitative management in young offender institutions in England and Wales

In the light of the UK Government's call for efficiency savings across all departments, including the Criminal Justice System, this paper attempts to shed some light on how cost savings can best be secured in the running of Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) in England and Wales. It does this by identifying ‘best practice’ YOIs using recently‐developed Data Envelopment Analysis that caters for both good and undesirable outputs (such as assaults and testing positive for illicit drugs by inmates), thereby allowing policymakers to deliver cost savings through the spread of management techniques adopted by benchmark YOIs. The study also analyses the size‐efficiency relationship for YOIs in England and Wales and finds that, although the smallest institutions are typically the most efficient, the size‐efficiency relationship is quite complex. This calls into question the Government's wisdom of building ‘titan’ prisons in England and Wales which, perversely, might decrease the efficiency of rehabilitating young offenders.