Well Kept: Comparing Quality of Confinement in a Public and a Private Prison Executive Summary

• NCJ Number: 128799
• Date Published: 1991
• Author(s): C H Logan
• Length: 10 pages
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)

Annotation

A comparison was drawn between a Federal prison, a public women's prison, and a private women's prison, the latter two located in New Mexico, in order to evaluate the quality of management and internal operations. The criteria proposed for comparative evaluation adhered to a retributive philosophy of criminal justice in which the purpose of prison is punishment rather than rehabilitation.

Abstract

The confinement model of imprisonment produces eight dimensions for evaluation: security, safety, order, care, activity, justice, conditions, and management. Empirical measures and indicators of prison quality were drawn from institutional records and from surveys of inmates and staff (inmates were not interviewed at the Federal prison). A relative score, the Prison Quality Index, was calculated so that each of the three facilities could be ranked both overall and within each dimension of quality. Although all three institutions met standards of quality, the private prison outscored the State and Federal prisons on six of the eight dimensions. The State prison took second place overall. The pattern of superior quality of confinement at the private prison was supported strongly by staff surveys and more moderately by official records data. However, inmate surveys ranked the State prison over the private prison. Stricter governance of inmates at the private prison may account for this difference between staff and inmate surveys. 1 table, 2 figures, and 7 notes