Outsourcing Prisoners to Different Countries - Potential Benefits and Risks - Coursework Example

Running head: outsourcing. Outsourcing Outsourcing prisoners to other countries Institute Date: Abstract This paper will elaborate on outsourcing prisoners to different countries with an intention to identify the potential benefits of doing so. It attempts to accomplish this task after a thorough research on potential profits, gaps, risk factors, and other inevitable considerations from a legislative and economic perspective. Review of previously conducted researches are expected to act as a guide in identifying possible hindrances, issues, benefits to the government and other units, and potential risk analysis. Outsourcing prisoners to other countries I. Introduction Outsourcing typically refers to contracting out a range of public services and/or responsibilities to other private organizations or entities in order to achieve different types of benefits such as correctional expenditures, reduce costs, reduce crime, improve law and order, and achieve other types of correctional measures. From the perspective of criminology, according to the National Council on Crime and Delinquency indicated that the practice of state and local correctional agencies contracting with private entities for medical, mental health, educational, food services, maintenance and administrative office security functions have shown significant rise; notably, the correctional agency maintains control over policy decisions and the quality of service provided by the private agency, using a monitor to maintain policy control and management of the private facility (Price, 2006). The most significant reasons for outsourcing parts of work or entire work to other units are reduced costs and increased profits along with improved efficiency in yield. Williamson’s (1975) analysis indicated that independent, competing service providers are potentially more economical and innovative than captive workers (cited in Mahoney, 2005; p.72). Besides these, work and services obtained from prisoners is said to be beneficial for taxpayers by reducing recidivism and promoting social duty to help criminals return to the society, with the use of cheap labor (Hollis, 2008). Historical background Privatization is believed to have been the result of American President Ronald Regan’s and the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s advocacy of selling off government assets and reduce the role of government in all forms of undertakings and business. This is said to have begun in the early 1980s in Britain and strengthened through the decade, when a special momentum was gained by the publication, “Privatizing Federal Spending: A Strategy to Eliminate the Deficit” (Price, 2006; p.13). Along with various other public sector units such as the health care, water management, garbage collection, prisons were also privatized. Contemporary trend Recent reports from California prisons have reported overcrowding of prisons on California by almost 137.5% of their total capacity, causing high costs and medical problems in most of the inmates. The Wall Street Journal quoted Ponce stating, ‘the contracts give the bureau flexibility to manage a rapidly growing inmate population and to help control overcrowding.’ Estimated indicated that outsourcing incarceration to prison companies can reduce government’s cost of housing the prisoners by as much as 15%; in addition to this, private operators guarantee to build prisons more quickly and operate with much lesser expenses than government. Their reduced payroll costs and inexpensive locations help in achieving this task (Chen, 2008). Chen (2008) also quotes that one of the concerns expressed, by Kent belonging to the ACLU’s National Prison Project, with respect to the private prisons is that most of the for-profit prison companies tend to cut essential costs that need to be provided to maintain a safe and constitutional environment for prisoners. II. Findings: Using the concept of outsourcing prisoners as a correction measure across the world has yielded positive and negative results. Overcrowding, being quoted as one of the main reasons for outsourcing prisoners only indicates the high-rising levels of crime and criminal activities. Reports indicated various types of crimes contributing to this increase including domestic crimes such as burglary, kidnap, murder, rape, physical violence etc; civil crimes such as fake documentation, illegal immigration, forgery, etc; international crimes including terrorism, money-laundering, drug trafficking, prostitution, slavery, etc. In most of the countries, convicts in various types of crimes are kept together. Only a few countries have the facility of separate prisons for distinct crimes. However, overcrowding as a resultant of increased crime rate also causes transfer of criminals from one prison to another and/or sharing prisons with more than the capacity of the cell. Although these, apart from the economic benefits, could be the reasons for outsourcing of prisoners to different locations and countries, certain other advantages have also been reported from this practice: Advantages of outsourcing prisoners to other countries/locations: Firstly, outsourcing prisoners to other countries/locations or to private prison companies resulted in reducing government costs with the use of more economically efficient private vendors with specialized skills, which may not be available in the public sectors. Also, these private units being profit-driven try to operate efficiently in order to generate profits. At the governmental level, the unparalleled decentralization of public programs and responsibilities disturbed the smaller, less bureaucratic government sectors, thereby further reducing costs incurred by these insignificant sectors. Thus, government benefited from reduction in costs incurred due to maintenance of prisoners and also from elimination of the less bureaucratic government sectors operating at local or lower levels. Secondly, budgetary concerns at the public sectors running prisons triggered privatization of prisons, with federal and state officials seeking private prisons to reduce overcrowding in public prisons and obtain additional prison beds. This entire process not only resulted in reduced costs for the public sectors, but also resulted in improved efficiency. The public sectors achieved this by creating competitiveness and choice among the private companies selling their prison services at most reasonable costs with promising efficiency levels. Thirdly, the private sectors are free from issues of unions and other sorts of obligations in terms of finance, voter involvement, and other governmental approvals. Hence, contracting out prisoners to these privately run prisons can be more promising than governmental bodies in terms of deriving more work form the prisoners at much lower costs. Disadvantages of outsourcing prisoners to other locations/countries: Foremost among the drawbacks of outsourcing prisoners was lack of good conditions for the prisoners in lieu of making profits, as evidenced by the reports of American Civil Liberties Union which filed lawsuits involving several prison companies over the past decade for providing poor treatment of inmates with little or poor medical help and mental care (Chen, 2008). Secondly, some other civil rights activists referred to outsourcing of prison activities to other countries as a pervasive strategy used to abuse basic human rights, or contracting of violations from sources outside a government, company or area (Gordon, 2003). Although these prisons are run by private sectors, they are bound to follow the economic and legal obligations set by their respective constitutions. Hence, differences in civilian rights will prevail and the outsourced prisoners are bound to follow the rules and regulations of the country they have been imprisoned in. Although, theoretically the correctional agency or the native country’s government maintains control over policy decisions and the quality of service provided by the private agency (Price, 2006), practically controlling and/monitoring these facilities in other countries is almost impossible. In such cases, prisoners do not get a fair treatment as imposed by their governing laws and regulations, whether in positive or negative manner. Thirdly, shift of criminal focus to areas or jurisdictions containing less intense criminal regulations has been evidenced. Prisoners shifted to other locations or countries tend to influence other prisoners or people and/or get influenced by other prisoners. This can be disastrous to the objective of combating crime through criminal justice and imprisonment. For instance, evidences indicated that, in Israel municipalities outsourced authority of dealing with local crime problems to private companies. This is reported to have resulted in shift of criminal focus to areas which did not employ private companies and where flouting of laws was easier (Broude & Teichman, n.d). From another perspective, rates of transnational crime, global crime, and international crime have increased. At an international level, scope of crime has adopted two forms: desirable crime and harmful crime. Desirable crime is referred to activities such as money laundering which causes economic benefit to one jurisdiction and harms another jurisdiction. These crimes are usually politically driven. Harmful crimes, usually resultant of outsourcing of crime by one nation in order to reduce the net cost for the state, to another nation; drug crimes are the most prevalent harmful crimes resulting with the influence of transferring prisoners to other nations or states (Broude & Teichman; n.d). Extensive evidences of this spreading nature of crime have been reported since very long time; and, outsourcing of prisoners could be one of the contributing factors for increased rates of crime. Potential risk factors Misuse of outsourcing practices for prisoners can pose a potential risk factor. For example, recent reports have indicated that some countries use the outsourcing option, as a medium of rendition of suspected terrorists, sending them to other countries known to practice torture for the purpose of arrest, detention, and/or harsh interrogation so that these suspected criminals will be subjected to harsh interrogation techniques which are otherwise prohibited in the original country (Garcia, 2006). This again violates the civil rights of prisoners. In addition to this, increasing rates of crime cannot be avoided. Another potential risk factor in outsourcing prisoners emerges from change or modification of imprisonment sentence or parole rules, which may be misused by the prisoners for their own benefit. This personal interest may involve criminal interests or economic gains. It can also lead to extortion, money laundering and other forms of crime. III. Conclusion and Recommendations Referring to Price’s (2006) assertion related to privatization, the practice of contracting-out or privatization has always yielded in better profits and efficiency, the result of which has been mass outsourcing in all sectors such as various public sectors and private sectors including manufacturing and service industries. The intention of outsourcing prisoners is also based on these grounds. Based on various researches and evidences obtained from the literature, outsourcing prisoners to different locations/countries can be a good practice to reduce governmental costs, increase prisoner efficiency, use labour at lower costs, contribute to recidivism, and shift focus of governmental funds and activities to other reforms for public benefit. Taking an advantage of the benefits of outsourcing prisoners should not ignore its drawbacks and potential risks involved. The most notable aspect of globalization is that most of the nations have vastly benefited from globalization strategies; however, most of the nations are also facing the threat of globalization in the form of increased criminal activities through terrorism and increased medical problems caused either due to drug abuse or rapidly spreading dreadful diseases. Consequent to reaping the benefits of improved economic conditions, causes for concern related to controlling and checking criminal activities has become the most important focus at all levels of public and private sectors. If outsourcing prisoners to other locations/countries is to be continued as a best practice to improve governmental costs, reforms and control measures have to be put in place in order to minimize and eliminate potential risks involved. Measures proposed by various government entities and public sectors including the Human Rights activists groups (Chen, 2008) point at imposing limitations of outsourcing prisoners to other locations on the prisoner’s background, the type and intensity of criminal charge. Adherence to civil rights should be the responsibility of the native government and control measures to ensure non-violation of these rights should be strictly followed. Use of community corrections for passive offenders can help in reducing the number of criminals that need to be housed. If these approaches seem impractical, newer ways of dealing with increasing crime rates need to be thought of; or even, different, yet ethical, ways of bringing cost-effectiveness measures would be required in order to reduce outsourcing of prisoners. Overall, it can be concluded that outsourcing prisoners to other locations/countries cannot be equated with outsourcing of other services owing to the potential disastrous impact that outweighs its intended advantages. References Books: Garcia, M.J. (2006). Renditions: Constraints Imposed by Laws on Torture. In McPhee, R.D’s (Ed.) The treatment of prisoners: legal, moral or criminal? New York: Nova Publishers. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=y2CMg3kP5bsC&pg=PA184&dq=outsourcing+prisoners+to+other+countries&lr=#v=onepage&q=outsource&f=false Hollis, W. (2008). The Role of Prisons in Offsoring. In Gupta, A’s (Ed.) Outsourcing and Offshoring of Professional Services: Business Optimization in a Global Economy. U.S.A: Idea Group Inc. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=WnMSxcux44wC&pg=PA223&dq=outsourcing+prisoners+different+countries&lr=#v=onepage&q=prison&f=false Mahoney, J.T. (2005). Economic foundations of strategy. U.S.A: SAGE. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=ubmygBCwlDsC&pg=PA72&dq=Williamson+Markets+and+Hierarchies+Analysis+and+antitrust+implications&lr=#v=onepage&q=Williamson%20Markets%20and%20Hierarchies%20Analysis%20and%20antitrust%20implications&f=false Price, E.B. (2006). Merchandizing prisoners: who really pays for prison privatization? U.S.A: Greenwood Publishing Group. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=DGJ43cRyhi8C&pg=PA13&dq=outsourcing+prisoners#v=onepage&q=outsourcing%20prisoners&f=false Articles: Broude, T and Teichman, D. (n.d). Outsourcing and Insourcing Crime: The Political Economy Of Globalized Criminal Activity. http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=teichman Chen, S. (2008). Larger Inmate Population Is Boon to Private Prisons. The Wall Street Journal. Published November 19, 2008. Retrieved on November 10, 2009 from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122705334657739263.html#printMode Gordon, N. (2003). Strategic Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations. http://dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Gordon_Outsourcing-Abuse.htm Read More