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