What Are We Talking about When We Talk about Privatization? A Qualitative Assessment of Privatized Corrections

Research on privatized corrections focuses primarily on for-profit prisons and tends to conceptualize correctional services as being strictly “private” or “public.” The current study argues that this conceptualization impedes theoretical and empirical assessments of privatization. To advance this argument, an analysis of data from interviews with individuals who work in or alongside correctional agencies is undertaken. The interviews sought insights about the meaning and implementation of privatized corrections, as well as how privatization compares to public corrections. The findings highlight the diverse nature of privatization. For example, governments, through their monitoring and oversight practices, may have an ongoing influence on the private sector’s operations. Taken as a whole, the study’s findings suggest that a more nuanced understanding of what privatization means may advance scholarship and policy about both private and public corrections.