Prison privatization: a perspective on core governmental functions

Prison privatization in the US illustrates the challenge of privatization to the traditional state monopoly over “inherently governmental” functions. From a perspective on core governmental functions, this paper provides a new logical explanation of this phenomenon and argues that prison privatization demonstrates the political rationality of governments. Conservative social control and economic neoliberalism were two major political reasons for prison privatization in the US. These factors aggravated the instrumental problems of the public prison system and reinforced the urgency to address them. This logic is applied to explain the variation in the magnitude of prison privatization in the 50 states. Drawing on the results of a Tobit analysis, this paper confirms that both political factors and instrumental factors significantly influence the preference of state governments for prison privatization.