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1 Charles H. Logan & Bill W. McGriff, Comparing Costs of Public and Private Prisons: A Case Study 1 (1989)

handle is hein.death/csppr0001 and id is 1 raw text is: U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs National Institute of Justice James K. Stewart, Director Reprinted from NIJ Reports No. 216 September/October 1989 Comparing Costs of Public and Private Prisons: A Case Study by Charles H. Logan, Ph.D., and Bill W. McGriff, C.P.A. hat are the total governmental costs of imprisonment? Would these costs be lower or higher if prisons were run by private companies under contract? Many jurisdictions today are asking the second question without a requisite understanding of how to answer the first. This article illustrates how one jurisdiction, Hamilton County, Tennessee, calculated answers to both questions. Hamilton County found that contracting out prison management generated annual savings of at least 4 to 8 percent-and more likely in the range of 5 to 15 percent- compared to the estimated cost of direct county management. This is believed to be the first pub- lished study comparing the actual costs of public and private operation of a prison facility. Results in differ- ent corrections systems may vary. However, other jurisdictions may be able to profit from-and improve upon-this approach to analyzing correctional costs. The methodology used overcomes the major difficulty in comparing correctional expendi- tures-the problem of hidden costs. Hidden costs of corrections Generally, reports of government correctional costs are taken from a single budget, either that of a facility Charles H. Logan is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut. Bill W. McGriff is County Auditor for Hamilton County, Tennessee. This report is part of a larger work to be published as Charles H. Logan, Private Prisons: Cons and Pros (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 1990). The research was supported by the Visiting Fellowship Program of the National Institute of Justice.

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