![handle is hein.journals/sfkunvlwrv2017 and id is 1 raw text is:
Charter Prisons: Private Prisons 2.0 or a Race to the Top?
Hannah L. Cook*
The reputation of private prisons has taken a beating during the last few
years. Undercover reporting in private prisons has revealed horrifying
conditions and violence.1 Scholars have largely turned against private prisons,
supporting their opposition on both philosophical and practical grounds.2
Further, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced in August 2016 that it
would phase out the use of private prisons.3 However, few alternatives to
private prisons have been proposed. This Article proposes an alternative:
charter prisons, run through public-private partnerships, which will be capable
of providing more services to prisoners without increasing the cost to
taxpayers.
WHAT IS A CHARTER PRISON?
Andra Ghent may have first proposed charter prisons in a Wall Street
Journal commentary piece in 2015.4 However, Ghent's proposal was modest:
provide private prisons the same amount of funding per prisoner as public
prisons, and provide the prison that produces the lowest recidivism rates at the
lowest cost with more customers (prisoners).5 The first round of private
prisons used this model, operating on the idea that the market, left to its own
devices, would generate cheaper and more effective prisons than government
could. However, recent investigations have demonstrated this model is deeply
flawed.
Prisoners have a complex array of needs beyond food and shelter that must
be addressed in order to keep them from reoffending. As of the early 2000s,
* J.D., University of Chicago Law School. All views expressed herein are exclusively those of the author.
1. See Shane Bauer, My Four Months As a Private Prison Guard, MOTHER JONES (July/Aug. 2016),
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-prisons-corrections-corporation-inmates-
investigation-bauer [http://perma.cc/Z8XY-RH5H] (telling undercover prison guard's story).
2. See Avihay Dorfman & Alon Harel, The Case Against Privatization, 41 PHIL. & PUB. AFF. 67, 91-96
(2013) (setting forth philosophical objections to delegation of state function); Avlana K. Eisenberg,
Incarceration Incentives in the Decarceration Era, 69 VAND. L. REV. 71, 96-100 (2016) (arguing structure of
incentives for private prisons pits rehabilitation against cost savings); Andra Ghent, Taking the Charter School
Approach to Prison, WALL ST. J. (May 3, 3015), http://www.wsj.com/articles/taking-the-charter-school-
approach-to-prison-1430689149 (explaining conflict between cost-saving and reducing recidivism).
3. See Sally Q. Yates, Phasing Out Our Use of Private Prisons, DEP'T JUSTICE (Aug. 18, 2016),
https://www.justice.gov/opa/blog/phasing-out-our-use-private-prisons [http://perma.cc/AZ8T-BH94]
(explaining plan to ultimately end use of private prisons).
4. See Ghent, supra note 2 (coining and explaining charter prison model).
5. See id.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/sfkunvlwrv2017&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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