Privatizing criminal correctional facilities results in better public service at a lower cost than government operation. Today, the federal government, 32 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia are authorized to contract for private corrections.

• At the end of 1994, 19 private companies had contracts to operate 88 secure adult facilities in the United States, including medium- and high-security prisons, designed for 49,154 prisoners.

• Taxpayers save at least $150 million per year, because it costs at least $20,000 per year, to keep a prisoner and private operation saves 15 percent.

• Contracting out speeds the construction of new facilities and decreases construction costs by 15 to 25 percent.

One reason contracting out reduces costs is that private sector fringe benefits, especially retirement plans, are less generous than those for government employees. Private prisons are designed to operate more efficiently with fewer personnel. Other advantages of private operation are that it enhances the flexibility to add or modify services and decreases the growth rate of bureaucracy.

The quality of services in private facilities is also better. A careful comparison of New Mexico and West Virginia prisons using 333 empirical indicators of quality by University of Connecticut sociologist Charles H. Logan found that "the private prison outperformed the state and federal prisons, often by quite substantial margins, across nearly all dimensions."

• Only one privately operated facility has been closed for inadequate performance since the mid-1980s, and not a single private facility is operating under a consent decree or court order as a consequence of suits by prisoners.

• Yet about 75 percent of American jurisdictions now have major prison facilities or entire systems operating under judicial interventions.

• Private prisons comply with the standards of the Commission on Accreditation for Corrections and have a much higher accreditation rate than government prisons.

Source: "Private Prisons Succeed," NCPA Brief Analysis No. 191, November 21, 1995, National Center for Policy Analysis, 12770 Coit Rd., Suite 800, Dallas, TX 75251, (972) 386-6272.