Measuring Prison Performance: Government Privatization and Accountability

Gaes and his distinguished coauthors offer a comprehensive analysis of public versus private management of prisons, a competition that originated in the 1980s with the introduction of private facilities into the criminal justice system. The authors argue that prison performance must be measured in reference to the goals of a particular prison system and introduce the technique of multilevel modeling to allow for simultaneous measurement of the individual and the institution. They also show how their analytic framework can be applied to other criminal justice components_prosecution, adjudication, postrelease supervision, policing_and to evaluating the privatization of almost any publicly administered service. They contend that the ability to meaningfully compare public and private prisons can better inform penal policy and improve prison performance and accountability. This book will be a valuable resource for public administrators and policy analysts, corrections personnel and criminologists.

Gerald G. Gaes is visiting scientist at the National Institute of Justice and a criminal justice consultant and was director of the Office of Research (Bureau of Prisons) until his retirement in August 2002. Scott D. Camp is a senior social science analyst with the Office of Research at the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Julianne B. Nelson is a consultant in the corrections field with more than twenty years of experience working on a wide range of topics as an economic and financial analyst. William G. (Bo) Saylor is the lead statistical research methodologist and director of research for the Office of Research and Evaluation (Bureau of Prisons).