Privatised Confinement

Motion: This House would Privatise Prisons


I was to learn an unusual amount participating in this debate. While our team was given the negative side (yet again), and the adjudicator came out in our favour, it was not for the reason I would have hoped.

The nature of my line of reasoning going in, that of highlighting the dissolution that could occur of the separation of powers between the legislature and the judiciary, clashes with a core assumption on which such debates are framed. That is – and this is a fact I can only now hope to intuit – that both sides of the debate are arguing from the perspectives of opposite sides of a parliamentary caucus.

In essence, following my argument, I was accusing the other “side of the house” of being corrupt.

The adjudicator pointed out that he wouldn't attribute this much weight, and that the other side could have simply said in response that they were not corrupt.

I later realised two things from his statements:

1. First, a question I hope to have resolved; we can assume that adjudicators will often know many of the contrary arguments going in to a debate, so how much should they be able to assume this knowledge as they judge? While admittedly this was considering an argument at the level of the debate's format itself, to some degree don't even such meta-level judgements depend on the judge putting arguments into the other side's mouth? [I'm sure the irony of “accusing” our adjudicator of some low-level corruption does not escape you, dear reader.]
2. That he was partly wrong. While the other side could have asserted such innocence, that would only dismiss half the problem, as even if the legislature could not be held to fault, they could not make such an assumption about their separate judiciary, where the problems alluded to could still arise. 

There was also an interesting “point of information” raised by the other side during my speech. I did not have a clear, well thought through response at the time, but now the memory of it should yield a general strategy for later debates. One of their members stated after I had dismissed the suggested benefits of their proposed plan “well how does your side suggest we solve the problem of a 50% reoffender rate?” (paraphrased)

Either he was pursuing a clever distraction, or had a deeply flawed conception of the nature of the debate. I should have pointed out that in this debate his side was making a proposal, and we were merely saying why it would not work the way they suggest. The onus is on them to justify the benefits of whatever solution they suggest.

If our side isn't suggesting a solution, then their question would appear to attack a non-existent proposal. Or at least draw on us to make suggestions of no value to our argument.


Following are the arguments I had prepared from a little research…

Affirmative

Suggest line of argument:

• Privatise only minimum-security prisons, with regulation & independent enforcement equivalent to state prisons of:
• Ratio of Officers & Guards to Inmates
• Living standards
• Provided amenities
• Food
• Building standards
• In addition, strong financial punishments for failure to meet the same standards (notice that state prisons are beyond such enforcement)
• Consequences for state
• State prisons do not have to pay taxes on property
• Private prisons provide large source of tax income
• Consequences for taxpayers and society
• Private companies front initial costs of building new prisons
• Taxpayers do not suffer from budget overruns
• Competition between operators
• Does not exist for state prisons
• Reduces costs of containment and rehabilitation programs
• University of Florida study & report to Florida State Legislature in 2003
• Inmates in privately-managed prisons 27% less likely to become repeat offenders
• Economic incentive to provide high-quality services
• Providing decent food to inmates helps prevent costly riots
• Competitive pay to employees
• Reduce turnover
• Reduce cost of training new staff
• Bonuses for quality of rehabilitation programs
• Punishment for violating standards

Negative

• Dissolves separation-of-powers between legislature & judiciary
• Bidirectional incentives:
• State to Private
• Reduce costs of incarceration
• Reduce prison overpopulation
• Private to State
• For-profit prisons bottom-line based on number of inmates
• Incentive to increase numbers
• Lobbying
• Legislature for tougher laws for more and more minor misdemeanors
• Judiciary for stronger enforcement of more and more unreasonable laws
• Bribery
• “Kids for cash” scandal (Michael Moore)
• Private prison company found guilty of paying two judges $2.6mil to supply them with 2000 children
• Incentive to increase recidivism
• Rehabilitation, not just containment
• Less effort to incorporate prisoners back into society
• Cycle of incentives means:
• State less inclined to ensure these facilities run with proper oversight
• For inmates:
• Poorer amenities
• Bad food
• Less security from other violent inmates
• “Serco will soon be the largest operator of private prisons in the U.K., and they're very efficient at it. In one prison, they increased capacity by 20% simply by putting beds in the toilets. In another Serco prison a 14 year old hanged himself after being assaulted by Serco guards, the U.K.'s youngest ever death in custody.”
• For officers/guards
• Unions can find less work for their employeeys because of reduced demand
• 2/3rds cost of running prisons comes from labour requirements
• First area to cut costs
• For society
• Prisons become lax with their security standards
• More risk of violent inmates escaping
• New costs to deal with
• Escapes
• Lawsuits brought against private prison companies
• Hospitals required to treat injured inmates
• State more inclined to reclassify violent criminals as lower risk
• Private prisons cherry-pick safe criminals
• To get prisoners in to (percieved) cheaper confinement, state has incentive to report more dangerous criminals as being of lower risk.
• In turn, private prisons security standards not up to task
• Poorly handled violence
• Higher risk of escapes
• Comes down to a revolting trade in human lives
• Benefits noone
• Even for prisoners, affront to their liberty.
• Studies of cost-effectiveness
• Evaluation of 24 different studies on cost effectiveness
• At best, results of question are inconclusive
• At worst, no difference
• Most positive studies funded by private prison companies
• U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics
• Cost savings promised “have simply not materialised.”
• Wall Street Journal
• Shown that, because of lobbying, private jails in Mississippi and California are being paid for non-existent prisoners.
• If courts fail to reach their quota, they get their money anyway
• Some places have laws prohibiting public employees from striking
• Illinois and New York have enacted laws banning prison privatisation