NCJ Number
86542
Journal
Corrections Magazine Volume: 8 Issue: 6 Dated: (December 1982) Pages: 27-32
Date Published
1982
Length
6 pages
Annotation
Private corrections services have been eliminated or severely reduced because of the recession, government cutbacks, tax-cutting legislation, and a hardening public attitude toward offenders.
Abstract
The community-based alternative to prison fostered by private vendors is severely threatened, since public corrections agencies are in retreat, both financially and philosophically, from the private sector. The surge of private corrections services came in the 1960's, nourished by Great Society dollars. Halfway houses and juvenile halls were joined by everything from drug programs and therapeutic communities to drop-in centers, coffee houses, hotlines, and a host of 'alternatives' to prison. This growth was further enhanced in the early 1970's by the movement toward deinstitutionalization of mental health patients. Support for private-sector corrections began to recede around 1976, and then in 1981, as the economy slumped further and State legislatures were faced with cuts in Federal aid and declining local tax reserves, corrections budgets were cut 10 to 20 percent. Almost every halfway house in the country has been hurt by Federal cutbacks. Two years ago, membership in the International Halfway House Association stood at 2,000; now it is 1,500. Private-sector corrections services have been hurt in budget considerations by an absence of reliable cost-effectiveness studies that would give them an empirical base for competing with competitive claims for public funding of prisons and jails. Their position deteriorates further under the tendency of the public corrections bureaucracy to protect its own survival interests and the growing represssive attitude of the public toward offenders, which favors incarceration rather than community services.