Organizing Prisons through Public-Private Partnerships: a cross-country investigation

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the private participation in prison services in three countries: Brazil, France, and the United States. We highlight striking differences in efficiency between these countries and argue that the explanation for these differences is not restricted to the way property rights are distributed (i.e. public vs. private management). Instead, our analysis suggests that understanding those differences also requires an analysis of the incentives provided by contractual choices as well as decision and revenue rights distribution and institutional constraints. The theoretical literature usually analyzes these blocks separately, and often focuses on property rights distribution. We argue that an efficient arrangement is the result of the way these elements are combined, giving rise to a distinctive governance structure.

History of privatized corrections

“…As previously mentioned, some European jurisdictions, particularly France, refer to prisons semi‐privees , by which is meant a situation where most aspects of routine management and service provision, other than custody , have been devolved to the private sector (Cabral & Saussier, ; Daems & Vander Beken, ; Kenter & Prior, ; Vagg, ). By and large, jurisdictions deriving from the Napoleonic Code have had little enthusiasm for privatized prisons; custodial matters are seen as a core government function, nondelegable.…”

“…The state retains ownership of the facility, whereas the private sector operates internal security, food, health, education, and general facilities. All external security and senior management roles (i.e., warden and deputy warden and security manager) are retained by the public sector (Cabral & Saussier, ). The performance of private prisons in Brazil has been anything but smooth, with riots regularly occurring.…”

Parcerias público-privadas (PPP) em megaeventos esportivos: um estudo comparativo da provisão de arenas esportivas para a Copa do Mundo Fifa Brasil 2014

“…In view of this, according to the World Bank (2012), bundling made possible by PPPs encourages the private partner to complete each phase of the project (construction, operation and maintenance) with more operational efficiency, minimizing the total costs incurred in the provision of equipment and public service. As a matter of fact, the integration between construction and operation creates additional incentives to mitigate behaviours that lead to a deterioration in ex post quality (Cabral and Saussier, 2013).…”

“…So, we can attribute our efficiency to the aspects of a flexibility in executing the engineering and structure of the PPP contract [...]. [Private Manager #9] As for contractual incentives coming from the bundling method (an integration of the sports venue's construction and operation under the responsibility of a sole agent) and the performance measurement of the private executing partner of the contract (Hart, 2003;European Commission, 2003;IMF, 2004;World Bank, 2012;Cabral and Saussier, 2013), the private partners of the five PPP projects received a greater incentive for improved performance in the indicators of implementation time period and stadium provision costs. This is because the concessionaire's poor performance in the construction and/or operation of public equipment influences the payment value of the variable public compensation, which could suffer a reduction depending on the performance measured, weighing the problems identified and presented in the section dealing with the cases being studied.…”

Public vs. Nonprofit Incarceration: The Case of the Netherlands

“…In their study on public-private partnerships in prison management, Cabral and Saussier (2013) argued that the achievement of an appropriate governance structure does not rely on the property rights distribution, but rather on the way incentives, contractual design, decision rights and the nexus of institutions interact. The ability of public or private managers to deal with and occasionally bypass imposed institutional constraints is essential in the choice of the contractual mode.…”