Yesterday, along with colleagues, I joined a protest against private prisons organised by the Corrections Association (CANZ). I want to thank CANZ for setting up the campaign Stop the Cell-Off – No prisons for profit.
The Government will shortly introduce legislation enabling private prisons despite the experience here under the last National Government and evidence from overseas. Actually this isn’t that surprising given the Government’s propensity for making policy ‘on the hoof’ and their derision about the idea of evidence based policy making.
There are no good grounds for privatising prisons. It seems to me that the Government can only be motivated by a commitment to privatisation, or a desire to see less Government responsibility, or to see cuts in workers’ wages and conditions, or all of these.
The speakers yesterday identified a range of significant concerns – reductions in staffing levels, worse outcomes for prisoner rehabilitation, reduced safety for prisoners, corrections staff and the public and reductions in staff wages and conditions (for a job most of us would understand is very difficult).
For these reasons and because I believe that something as fundamental as removing a person’s liberty has to be the responsibility of a democratic and accountable Government I oppose the privatisation of prisons. Private companies are not accountable to anyone except their shareholders, usually for the maximisation of profit.
Prisons are about people not profit - prisoners and their families, corrections staff and their families and us, the public. Please join the campaign to oppose the privatisation of prisons.
To be honest Corrections is a total rats nest of inefficiency corruption and waste that it would be worth a try. But its either going to get worse or better, either way it will cost more.
I’m sure the Nats will contain the problem
Some overseas prisons are creepy, how about that guy who makes his prisoners squelch in tents, in a hot climate?
Down with privitisation!
For once it would be nice to see the Labour Party engage in constructive debate rather than sloganeering designed to mask the Labour Party getting involved in yet another union-based beat-up, Ms Beaumont.
Ms Beaumont, have you got international evidence that private prisons are demonstrably worse, or more expensive, or have worse outcomes for community safety or prisoner rehabilitation than public prisons? I don’t suppose you do, because there is mixed evidence on all of those matters.
If privatisation is inherently bad then why is much of the health sector private? Why are some aspects of government services, such as legal services, accounting and audit services, information technology, cleaning, and medical patient care contracted out to the private sector?
I’ll give you the answer. Because through experience, contracting out of some services delivers better outcomes. I think it’s better to take a case by case approach to outsourcing, rather than stamp a blunt slogan on it and get your union friends to post another protest.
If Labour started engaging with the public on the issues that matter you might start clawing back the 33% deficit in the polls.
In every thing I have ever read about private prisons (which is a fair bit, mostly articles from international academic criminology and social science journals) there has never been an increase in “efficiency”.
Beside the fact that the term is totally vague and a just a buzz word for the political right, private prisons can’t take any more prisoners than their state-operated equivalents (for obvious reasons), do not do any better job at reducing recidivism (in fact it’s generally worse because the conditions are worse to maximise profits and it suits the bottom line of the owners to have more people locked up), cost more to run, and put their staff, who are low-paid, in dangerous situations.
Where is the efficiency in that? You’re kidding yourself if you’re buying this myth the Government is selling – this is about establishing a new line of income for their rich buddies in the business world. Dealing with crime is not business – there simply cannot be any scope to extract profit from the manifestation of societal ills.
Barring captial punishment, incarceration is the strongest sanction the state can apply to an individual. This is not the sort of responsibility that should ever be contracted out to private operators with their failed security guard staff, and beans on paper plates ethos.
Ellis – As Carol says “something as fundamental as removing a person’s liberty has to be the responsibility of a democratic and accountable Government”. This isn’t health. It isn’t accounting. There is no middle ground here – hence no issue to ‘engage’ on. We locked ‘em up, we are responsible for them. It’s about standing up and doing your duty as a government of the people. I would have thought the right would appreciate this type of moral stand.
Those are fair enough points, Tigger. I don’t believe that contracting out private prison services means the government is no longer accountable or responsible for their delivery. I also don’t think the record of public prison management in this country has shown ideal levels of political accountability in the delivery of prison services.
Tim, that’s the entire point of devolution – the funder-provider split allows the government to relate to its citizens in only a contractual manner. If the company that runs the prisons fucks up, the government just gets to say “well, we’ll re-tender the contract, it’s not OUR fault they screwed it up”.
If you think there’s little accountability now, you just wait.
Private Prisons are just a stupid idea – full stop!
This is NOT the privatisation of prisons. It is providing for prisons to be privately managed. There is quite a big difference in that. As long as the prisons remain state owned their operation is fully in the public eye and they are accountable to the government regardless of the management situation.
What about the scandals in Aussie with the US owned company? Outrageous. They were rorting the taxpayer big time , hardly any staff , they were claiming for staff they didn’t have , terrible conditions and eventually riots.
Prison officers in CHCH are very worried about double bunking , they say it is unsafe..there will be more rapes and more suicides. There was a suicide recently. Officers fequently intervene in suicide attempts. All of these problems will get worse with privatisation.
Argh, double bunking should be outlawed, it’s inhumane.