Essay Sample on Privatisation of the Criminal Justice System in the United Kingdom

Privatisation describes the contracting practice that transfers public accountabilities, roles and capital assets, whether wholly or partially from the public governance to the private establishments (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2015, p. 192). The handover of responsibilities from public administration to private management carries a lot of weight in that it exhibits a wide range of improvements such as heightening the quality and efficiency of the extra government activities, shrinking the government and even reducing taxes. On the other hand, the management approach for the privatised functions undoubtedly leads to cutting of costs. The approach also improves conditions for involved parties in efforts to attain profits and compete for contracts from the governments (Goodman & Loveman, 2016). Across the globe, governments are seeking to chase other objectives, such as providing better working conditions and increased employment opportunities. Therefore the governments are seeking private organisations to manage most of the departments, including the prisons.

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Over the last thirty years, the justice scheme in the U.K has seen radical changes, including forming associations with the private sector (Hamerton & Hobbs, 2018). Today, the prison system in Britain is one of the most privatised compared to other nations in Europe. The partnership with the private sector has been demonstrated by initiatives within the legal defence, prison system, offender services and the police. The private sector has the capacity to satisfy most of the needs required to run the prison system. Some of these needs include medical care, program budgets, prison staff and other essential services. However, privatization means that multinational companies are making huge profits from electronic tagging and prison administration. This paper provides a comprehensive discussion on the privatization debate concerning criminal justice in Britain. It also discusses the new penology and Cultures of control theories concerning privatization.

The Path to Privatisation

According to Schmalleger & Smykla (2015, 445), privatisation of criminal justice takes shape in three different ways: private management, private development and contracting out. Private management involves the transfer of commercial enterprises, assets and administration roles from the government to the private sector. Secondly, private development is applied in the designing and financing the correctional facilities. It also includes owning a property and renting it to the government through a purchase or lease contract. Finally is contracting out, which involves private investors contending to perform government activities which may include the provision of medical services, vocational and education programs, maintenance, and industrial training.

The Conservative Government took a leap towards privatising the prisons in the 1990s by offering interim contracts to private firms to run a given number of public prisons. During that period, the involvement of the private firms was assumed to be inherently superior to old public structure. It was motivated by the need to cut cost in the public sector (Hamerton & Hobbs, 2018). The labour party, on the other hand, made advanced research on the use of the private establishments in the criminal scheme. The administration followed the recommendations of several reports, including the Lord Laming's to bring in the aspect of management in the prison service. The government also monitored how the United States had managed to privatise their prisons and then pursued the project through the "Private Finance Initiative" (Hamerton & Hobbs, 2018).

The United Kingdom moved forward to introduce three private prisons that were based on the “management only” concept. According to Pozen (2004, 260), “By April 1994 there were three private prisons holding inmates in the United Kingdom, at Wolds, Blakenhurst, and Doncaster.” Later on, the government introduced the DCMF (Designed, Constructed, Managed and Financed) mode of privatisation. With the new privatisation model, reformatories were put up and run by investors based on the “Private Finance Initiative” (Pozen, 2004, 261) . Also, these contracts would expire after twenty-five years, and then the ownership is transferred to the Prison Service. Later on, the government introduced the “maintain and manage contacts” (Trades Union Congress, 2014). Under these contracts, the public prisons were leased to private operators who would run them while maintaining the infrastructure and facilities for a maximum of fifteen years. According to Dunt (2018), fourteen prisons have been privatized in the United Kingdom currently and which are under the management of security firms like Sodexo Services, G4S and Serco Services.

The privately-owned prisons stand to face penalties in a situation they fail to adhere to the performance objectives set forward by the government. An example is where the Britain government took back the management of a privatized prison in Birmingham in 2018 (Dunt, 2018). This was after an inspectorate report identified that it had not adhered to the four assessment areas which included resettlement, respect, safety and activities. The prison had been under private management by the G4S group from 2011 (Dunt, 2018). The report by Peter Clarke (Chief Inspector) indicated that the prison was experiencing a crisis that lowered its standards. The move was welcomed by POA (a trade union for prison staff) which held that private prisons needed to stop prioritizing profits over the needs of the prison staff. It was clear that G4S had been driven by profits that had comprised the safety of prison staff (European Public Service Union, 2019). Public prisons that fail to meet the set requirements are also likely to be privatized to improve their performance conditions.

Reasons for Privatisation in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom first introduced the concept of private correctional facilities in 1992. Though the idea seemed controversial, it has since developed and largely accepted in the justice system. The introduction of the privatised penal system was based on the need to improve the conditions of the poorly managed public system. One of the main reasons for privatization is that the government sought to control the concerns on overcrowding in U.Ks justice system and share the cost of detaining criminals. According to Pozen (2004, 261), there were concerns about the rising number of incarcerated individuals which brought about overcrowding in public facilities and associated problems such as high cost of maintenance and crisis. Also, the government developed a conceptual preference to encourage free enterprises in assuming some of the public roles.

Another reason behind privatization was that the private corporations were able to offer state-of-art designs for the correctional facilities and which are efficient to construct and operate based on value engineering qualifications. Moreover, the Britain government considered private prisons to have better management and more accountability compared to the public prisons (Jones & Newburn, 2005). In regards to this, supporters of privatization believed that it brought much-needed competitive pressure and innovation to the traditional unionized labor system, which seemed to be quite inefficient. On the higher end, there was an argument that private prisons would have the capacity to specialize in the provision of unique facility duties.

The New Penology and Privatisation of Criminal Justice in the United Kingdom

The modern penology theory introduces new concepts of managing the criminal system. According to Feeley and Simon (1992), justice systems should not only focus on rehabilitating and punishing wrongdoers, but they should identify new approaches to manage lawbreakers. The theory proposes widening of justice systems and even sharing correctional responsibilities with the community (Ackerman et al., 2014, 5). Other examples provided in the new penology theory includes the use of electronic monitoring and boot camps in ensuring the effectiveness of the justice systems.

The new penology theory was adopted in the privatization process as a means of cutting down the costs, revolutionizing working procedures and refining the existing regimes by reducing and sidestepping resistance from the prison union. According to Liebling & Crewe (2012, 289), “there was almost complete consensus that the public sector was ‘in thrall to the POA’ and could not have been reformed at the speed that it was without a competitive threat.” Therefore the primary reason for the privatization of correctional facilities in the U.K was meant to control the powers of POA.

The government considered POA to an awkward union that continually opposed changes in the system and which drove up costs unreasonably. By setting competition from the private sector, it would be possible to bring in new changes much quickly (Liebling & Crewe, 2012, 293). The new management concept, courtesy of new penology theory, created competitiveness that has since enabled public prisons to improve enormously. Federal prisons learned to deliver, failure to that, they risk being handed over to better management.

Garland’s Cultures of Control

Garland’s theory explains the modifications in the criminal system in both Britain and America by describing how two principal social forces have influenced them: neoconservative politics and social modernity. Garland describes the new policies in the justice system and which are associated with fundamental issues in governing modern-day societies (Garland, 2012). The society has changed, thus reshaping the criminological thought and the system used to administer justice.

Some of the adaptive responses in the criminal justice as described by Garland include privatisation which brings in the idea of managerialism in delivery of public services through the private sector. According to Garland (2012), privatisation involves either stimulation of new behaviours or stopping already existing habits. Therefore the first process to privatising criminal justice is identifying corporations that have the capacity to run correctional facilities in the most efficient way (Garland, 2012). Therefore, one aspect of modernising the criminal justice is transferring some of the responsibilities to the private sector to avoid the domination of a single union. The theory proses introduction of alternative forces to streamline the functionality and management of the existing systems.

Controversies in Privatisation

Conversely, parties opposed to the privatisation idea raised some concerns which revolved around the staffing levels and the impact of these prisons on the incarcerated populations. In 2003, the National Audit Office raised the question on the level of expertise and experience among the private firms in running correctional services (Dunt, 2018). NAO argued that the environment in privatised correctional institutions was less safe since the officers there were less experienced.

Another issue revolved around the public grants awarded to help in running of the private prisons. Some parties felt that the grants were being directed from improving the prisons. The private prisons seemed to invest more on electronic surveillance of prisoners to reduce the number of staff. The government was also questioned on how it would succeed in financing the construction of prisons to accommodate the ever-rising penal populations.