The Nation - News from Feb. 28, 1988

Turning prisons over to private management is generally a poor idea that will not likely save taxpayers’ money and “will fully protect neither the interests of the public nor the prison inmates,” a liberal think-tank study reported. “The evidence on potential cost savings is too weak and too questionable to warrant so radical and risky an experiment,” the Economic Policy Institute said in a report issued in Washington. President Reagan’s Commission on Privatization in January announced support for increased private-sector involvement in a number of areas, including prisons. David Linowes, chairman of the President’s commission, said the report focuses on the wrong issue. “Cost is not paramount,” Linowes said. He said the problem of repeat offenders “is paramount” and in respect to them “the prison system has failed us.”