Managing the costs of modern corrections: Implications of nineteenth-century privatized prison-labor programs

The increasing use of incarceration during the 1980s has resulted in substantial enlargement of the American prison population. In addition, the costs of providing correctional services to this enlarged population has grown dramatically. One solution proposed to address the issue of escalating correctional costs is privatization. Through an examination of the early nineteenth-century New York experience with private-sector prison industrial programs, this article considers the value of privatization as a remedy to unacceptable correctional costs. Nineteenth-century problems are identified, and the implications of these problems for current privatization initiatives, both related and unrelated to prison industries, are discussed.