Industrial Issues of Private Prisons: A Union's Perspective (From Private Prisons and Police: Recent Australian Trends, P 91-105, 1994, Paul Moyle, ed. - See NCJ-160698)

• NCJ Number: 160701
• Author(s): D Belton
• Date Published: 1994
• Length: 15 pages
• Sale Source: Pluto Press Austrialia Limited
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: Australia
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

This paper describes the objectives and policy of the Prison Officers Association of Australia (POAA) with respect to privatization in corrections.

Abstract

It also summarizes the experiences of prison guards in Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea with respect to private sector involvement in corrections. A case study of Western Australia is presented, focusing on the development of an appropriate union response that opposes privatization but supports all correctional guards regardless of whether they are employed by the public sector or the private sector. The consultative approach is provided as a practical example of how genuine labor reform can occur without necessarily involving the private sector. Such an approach is used in the world's most enduring successful economies such as those in Northern Europe and Japan, which have genuine participation and consultation with the workforce and have not privatized their correctional functions. The POAA recognizes that corrections does not generate revenue; they are paid by the taxpayer. It believes that the private sector's proper role in a country with a mixed economy is to pursue profit through true wealth-generating activities. The POAA also believes that current interest in privatization in corrections is producing misconceived social experiments already discredited in other times and places and that long- term benefits to society have not resulted from the privatization of corrections. 8 references (Author abstract modified)