Human Rights and Prisons - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

Wackenhut Corrections Corporation, Cornell Corrections, Group 4, Serco,
Kalyx, and Corrections Corporation of Australia (a subsidiary of Corrections
Corporations of America) – have enjoyed significant financial returns from
their management of penal establishments. This situation has led many to
argue that such punishments should be solely inflicted by state agencies. In
New Zealand, this stance led the Labour Party to stop the contract of
Australian Correctional Management (ACM), who ran the Auckland Central
Remand Prison (ACRP) from 1999 to 2005.
The introduction of private prisons has raised numerous issues. These relate,
among other things, to:
The Treatment of Prisoners – Drawing primarily on the US experience,
the edited collection by Coyle et al (2003) demonstrates that private
prisons have led to degrading prison conditions, the increased misuse
of force, decreased security and inadequate services (relating to
health, education, work and programmes for prisoners). Overall,
contributors all claim that private prisons have resulted in the widescale
violation of prisoners‟ human rights. While the US case is generally
cast as one in extremis, these charges have also been made against
private prisons in Australia and the UK (George, 2003; Nathan, 2003;
Taylor and Cooper, 2008, see also Inspectorate Reports). The UN‟s
Human Rights Committee (2010) has also shown concern at prison
privatization in relation to whether private companies will meet the
human rights protections accorded to New Zealand prisoners.
The Treatment of Staff – International literature is fairly consistent in
terms of arguments about the treatment of staff. Private providers tend
to employ fewer and younger/less experienced staff than public
prisons, and privatization is regularly determined to be detrimental to
staff pay and conditions (Mehigan and Rowe, 2007; Taylor and Cooper,
2008). Sachdev (2008:89) notes that „The evidence that the pay and
conditions in private prisons are markedly inferior to those in the public
sector is overwhelming and mostly uncontested‟. He also presents
data to show that, as a consequence of pay conditions, labour turnover
rates in private prisons are ten times higher than public prisons.
In May 2009, the PSA surveyed its Corrections members on the issue
of private prisons in New Zealand. Over 70% respondents (the survey
response rate is unclear) had a strongly negative view of privatised
prisons. Over half of all respondents were particularly concerned about
staff safety, pay and conditions, staff turnover, costs, prison
performance, prison accountability, the ability of private prisons to
respond to particular groups and prison culture.
Costs – Concerns about prisoner and staff treatment generally revolve
around the idea that private companies make expenditure cuts to
secure a profit. Yet, lower costs are a key motivating factor for
governments to pursue private tenders. For instance, Infrastructure
Minister Bill English said that the public-private partnership in New
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