Article Critique on Correctional Goals and Prison Privatization
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Article Critique
Robert Rosensteel
Helms School of Government, Liberty University
Abstract
This article critique was completed to review two separate articles written about the
privatization of prisons. One of the articles chosen was about being pro privatization and the
second article was about the cons or draw backs of privatizing prisons. This is a very debated
topic within the criminal justice system as a whole. Within this critique we will discuss the pros
and the cons of privatization of prisons. We will also look at the strengths and weaknesses of
the two articles that were chosen.
Keywords: privatization, prison, recidivism
Article Critique on Correctional Goals and Prison Privatization
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Article Critique
Prison privatization has been a widely disputed topic for many years. There are a
plethora of pros and cons to the argument on whether America should change to privatized
prisons or not. Corrections as a whole have been around for quite some time. Prisons formed
as institutional corrections date back to around 1166 in England. Prior to prisons being created
in the United States, prisoners were held in ordinary houses where there were no cells. The
prisoners stayed in specific rooms within the homes. The prisoners were housed together
regardless of anything. It did not matter whether the prisoner was male or female or what age
they were. The other interesting thing was that these prisoners were not classified by what
crimes they committed either. This means that someone that murdered someone could have
been residing with someone that stole something. Fast forward quite some time, hundreds of
years, and we have a completely different criminal justice corrections systems. In today’s world
the corrections system is broken down into several different categories. The system is broken
down into local, state, federal, and private agencies. Privatization of prisons started in the
1980s due to the thought that it may be less expensive. According to Masters et al., “the shift
toward prison privatization began in the 1980s, fueled by the belief that private enterprise could
build and run prisons more efficiently and less expensively than the government. This idea was
especially attractive to federal and state governments that increasingly were struggling to curtail
skyrocketing costs” (Masters et al., 2024). Although the original belief was that if prisons
became private, they would be cheaper to run and facilitate, it has been proven since then that
they are in fact not cheaper to run privately. There are studies that have shown that they in fact
can be more expensive. Not only can they be more expensive but in order to cut costs to get
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the amounts down, there have been studies that show that the prisons are cutting from
prisoner
health care as well as cutting back on hiring personnel. This is all dangerous for not only the
prisoners but the staff as well.
Article 1-Background
The first article that I utilized for the purposes of this critique was, The Incentives of
Private Prisons, written by John Pfaff. This articles begins by speaking about the misconceptions
that people have about private prisons in America. For instance, what most people don’t realize
is that only approximately 8% of prisoners in America are incarcerated in private prisons. One of
the biggest complaints when it comes to privatization of prisons is money. The majority of folks
believe that private prisons are for-profit and that public prisons are not. According to Pfaff,
“what upsets us about private prisons should upset us equally about public ones, since public
prisons ultimately profit from putting people in cages as well – and not just financially, but
politically too. In other words, shifting away from private prisons does not shift us away in any
real sense from profit-driven policies. The nature of the profit might change a bit, but even
public prisons are often sources of monetary profiting” (Pfaff, 2020).
What most people don’t realize is that even some local jails get paid the same as private
jails. They tend to get a per diem per prisoner that is housed at their facility. Now, when it
comes to public jails, they also can get paid per diem for their prisoners. The reasons for this is
typically because these local jails are often times asked by the state or by the federal
government to house prisoners for them. The reason for this is because the states and the
federal government are attempting to keep overcrowding to a minimum and the easiest way to
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do that is to outsource to those local facilities. It has been shown that public prisons have
strong incentives to attempt to keep the populations up just like private prisons do.
The next argument that was brought up in this article was the effect on politics that
private and public prisons have. According to Pfaff, “when states confront the question of
where to count people in prison as living for the purpose of the census, which in turn shapes
how the legislatures draw political district maps” (Pfaff, 2020). Forty-one states within the
United States count their prisoner’s home address as the prison rather than their actual home
address. One huge issue with this is that these states are allowing the prisoners to account for
their population however they’re not allowed to vote in elections.
Article 1 - Critique of Strengths and Weaknesses of the Article
Strengths
I think that this article was incredibly well written and overall should be considered a
strength. However, the first strength of this article was how descriptive and informative it was
in relation to explaining the purpose behind why it was being written. Pfaff ensured that his
readers knew where he stood. He listed out his three goals for writing the article which were,
“laying out the problems with the conventional framing to illuminate the potential alleability of
private prison incentives, draw attention to the three private prisons currently operating under
incentive provisions, and to examine how to think about inventive contracts in particular” (Pfaff,
2020). Putting this information out there within the first few paragraphs allows the reader to
know what to prepare for as they read through the article. Pfaff wrote the entirety of his
article from the perspective of someone that is pro-privatization. However, he was very clear
Article Critique on Correctional Goals and Prison Privatization
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throughout the article pointing out the opposition’s viewpoint. This is not something that you
see too often as it could draw people away from your view on things.
The second strength that I noticed while reading this article was when Pfaff brings
attention to a big part of his argument in that there should not be a public versus private debate
but that it should be “what incentives do penal institutions face” (Pfaff, 2020). Pfaff speaks
about how it may be easier to decrease recidivism in private prisons because they have the
ability to incentivize private prisons easier than public prisons. Pfaff even goes as far as to point
out that people believe that private prisons will cut their spending on resources so that they can
still turn a profit. However, Pfaff explains that this may not always be the case. He explains this
may not be the case because there are often clauses in the contracts that incentivize lowering
recidivism rates.
Weaknesses
The first and biggest weakness that I observed while reading through the article is the
multitude of references that Pfaff makes to politics. I view this as a weakness because as people
read through the article, if they read anything that is against their political views, they are highly
unlikely to continue to read the article. Pfaff makes several references to politics throughout
the entirety of the article. Pfaff states, “this is and I use this term intentionally a five-fifths
compromise, one that inflates state-level Republican legislative power” (Pfaff, 2020).
The second weakness that I observed while reading through this article was in the
paragraph where Pfaff speaks about public and private facilities having the same indifference to
the costs of recidivism. Pfaff states, “public facilities are fairly insensitive to the costs of
inadequate programming, health care, or staff training” (Pfaff, 2020). I believe what Pfaff is
trying to do in this paragraph is show that public facilities are just as “bad” as private facilities in
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the aspect of health care, staffing, and training. I think after reading this section, this was the
one part of the entire article that Pfaff wasn’t very articulate in what he was saying. The reason
I say this is because he speaks about those things but then goes directly into explaining that
prisoners are typically not living in the same area where the prison is located. According to
Pfaff, this means that the problems that happen once prisoners get out are away from the
prison. What he is referencing is that they (the prison and its staff) don’t care what happens
because once their out they are no longer their problem. I think this information is important as
well as pertinent to his article, but I believe the average reader is going to get confused because
there is no clear and distinct change between topics. They are just sort of smashed together
and are completely different subjects. Pfaff never does go back and reference the staffing and
training issues that he references before.
Article 2-Background
The second article that I utilized for the purposes of the critique was The Problem With
Privatizing Prisons, written by Farah Mohammed. This article is in reference to the negative
aspects of privatizing prisons. The article begins by stating what the purpose of private prisons
was supposed to be. Mohammed states, “private prisons are, in theory, a practical solution to a
thorny problem. The state has too many prisoners and not enough prisons” (Mohammed,
2017). The article then goes on to speak about how this was the initial purpose, but the efficacy
of that plan was less than ideal. According to the article, private prisons have not saved much
money like they were supposed to have done. The article then goes on to discuss how private
prisons do not do a good job when it comes to rehabilitation.
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Another major issue that is discussed is that private prisons have an issue with staffing
their facilities. The reason for this is because often times, the officers are in a very poor working
environment. One of the big issues for the officers is that they are incredibly outnumbered.
There are studies that show that some of these private facilities have areas where officers are
outnumbered by over 100 prisoners. This means that officers have to worry about violence
being done to them by the inmates because they just flat out can’t control it because of the
sheer number of prisoners they are supervising. The other big issue that drives officers away
from private prisons sometimes is pay. Public prisons typically pay more than private prisons
because private prisons are for-profit. This means that if they don’t make more than what the
per dime is for prisoners then they are losing money. This means that they don’t have a large
margin for being able to pay their officers. The officers are typically also obtaining less training
than public prison officers and thus they are not prepared to handle their jobs and the stressful
events that can happen there. This was evident when Mohammed states, “private prisons have
no real incentive to rehabilitate prisoners. If they make their profit from criminal society, it goes
against business sense to reduce criminality. Staff overturn rate at private prisons can be
significantly higher than at public ones, suggesting a constant flow of inexperience in a high-
pressure environment. And security at the expense of cost-cutting can have disastrous effects
for civilians” (Mohammed, 2017).
Another issue that is brought up in this article is the well-being of the prisoners within
the facility. This is somewhat similar to the issues plaguing staffing issues. If there are less
officers in an area where there are a lot of prisoners, the likelihood for there to be violence
between the prisoners is high. This also means that the fact that officers don’t have the
appropriate amount of training means that they can’t handle the incidents that happen while
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their working. Not only is violence an issue, the ability to provide medical care to prisoners is
another issue. The private prisons are not as willing to pay for the prisoners to obtain medical
care because they also want to be able to stay in a profit-positive margin. The more they spend
on medical care the more they start to lose out of their profit margins.
Article 2 - Critique of Strengths and Weaknesses of the Article
Strengths
The first strength that I noticed while reading this article was that it was very easy to
read and understand where Mohammed was coming from. I very much enjoyed reading this
article. It does make it easier that I agree with an overwhelming majority of the article.
However, Mohammed does a great job keeping it simple while your reading the article. She
makes it to where it is easy to understand what she is saying and being able to stay with what
she is explaining. Even when she is giving her opinion on things, she is to pushy or arrogant
when stating her opinion.
The second strength that I observed while reading this article was probably my favorite
part of the entire article. Mohammed discusses an example of a lax in security at private
prisons. Examples especially when specific are a great way to draw readers in and keep them
engaged in their reading. In this article, Mohammed speaks about an instance when two
prisoners escaped from a private prison due to a lack of manpower. Once the prisoners were
out of the prison they went to a couple’s trailer and murdered them. If an example like this
doesn’t catch your attention when looking into the issue of lacking manpower, I am not sure
what will get your attention. Although this is a drastic example of what can happen when there
is a lax in security, it shows what can happen if the prison is not prepared.
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Weaknesses
The first big weakness that I observed in this article was very similar to the previous
article that I mentioned. In this article there is mention of politics and that is a very hard topic
to bring up while attempting to get your article to get out to many different people. It is very
easy to lose the attention of certain readers whenever politics are involved. In this article
Mohammed states, “under Trump, inmate numbers are expected to increase substantially,
following a crackdown on illegal immigration and a new insistence on mandatory minimums”
(Mohammed, 2017). This makes it difficult for those who dislike or like President Trump
because once they start reading it they may lose interest in the article, or they may get angry
and just stop reading.
The second weakness that I observed while reading this article was later in the article
when Mohammed states, “the government may give itself no other option. Even with a
decrease in inmate population under the Obama administration, current facilities are still
operating over capacity” (Mohammed, 2017). There is nothing actually “wrong” with any
portion of this paragraph in the article. I only state it is a weakness because I don’t necessarily
agree with Mohammed’s viewpoint. Although the last part of this statement is true, I don’t
necessarily agree with how she leads up to the statement. The reason I say this is because she
clearly doesn’t believe in having stiffer penalties for repeat offenders. I think this is absolutely a
problem and should be addressed with stiffer sanctions. Although this does create an issue with
overpopulation, it doesn’t if those that are committing non-violent petty crimes are released
without having to go to prison for long lengths of time.
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Summary of Articles
I very much enjoyed reading both of these articles in reference to this assignment.
These articles were very much eye opening for me because although I work in law enforcement,
I don’t have a lot of firsthand knowledge of prisons. Reading these articles opened my eyes to
the issue of privatization of prisons and also led me to dig a little further into the pros and cons
of doing so. I found that I agree with certain aspects of privatization of prisons but I also
disagree with a lot of things that go along with that. I believe that these private prisons should
be held to a standard when it comes to training and pay. They should be forced to match or at
the very least be competitive with public prisons near them. Privatization of prisons is a very
hot topic in certain areas of the United States and if people don’t have the correct information
then it is hard to come up with an educated decision on whether it is good or not.
Conclusion: Personal Reflection, Position, and Christian Worldview
While I was reading these articles the thing that I kept thinking about in reference to the
Bible was where the profit Jeremiah is imprisoned in the residence of Jonathan for spreading
God’s word. Jeremiah is later moved to another form of imprisonment. The reason I thought
about this is because it reminded me of the prison system and how it started and how it has
since evolved. I also thought about the book of Hebrews when we are reminded to think of
those in prison as though you are in prison with them. This has always stood out to me even
before this assignment. However, with this assignment it makes me realize that even if we are
not the one that is in prison the prisoners are still human beings and must be treated as such.
References
Masters, R., et al. (2024). CJ: Realities and challenges. 5th edition. McGraw-Hill Education.
Article Critique on Correctional Goals and Prison Privatization
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Pfaff, J. F. (2020). The Incentives of Private Prisons. The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and
History, 52, 992-1019.
Mohammed, F. (2017, May 15). The Problem With Privatizing Prisons .
https://daily.jstor.org/the-problem-with-privatizing-prisons/
