tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post2387856517690909241..comments2024-03-25T20:06:39.794-05:00Comments on Grits for Breakfast: Henson v. Levin: Are private prisons the answer, and if so, to what question?Gritsforbreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152152869466958902noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-52310207717813975852007-11-02T18:12:00.000-05:002007-11-02T18:12:00.000-05:00Scott,Marc's numbers on the cost of a private corr...Scott,<BR/><BR/>Marc's numbers on the cost of a private correctional facility are substantially off base. TYC's appropriation for the last biennium is over $32,000 per youth for private correctional facilities. Costs at Coke County were substantially above that number and did not include medical or psychiatric care. Private facilities do not provide the same thing for the money that a TYC institution provides. His assumption on costs and what a private facility provides for the money are totally off base.<BR/><BR/>Howard A. HickmanAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-56613549414122845322007-11-02T15:15:00.000-05:002007-11-02T15:15:00.000-05:00I have known Marc for a long time, well before he ...I have known Marc for a long time, well before he ever became interested in juvenile corrections. He tends at times to go off on tangents that align with his political philosophy without understanding the pragmatics or all the factors involved, so I generally take what he says with a grain of salt.<BR/><BR/>Howard A. HickmanAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-2695706772441553852007-11-02T12:34:00.000-05:002007-11-02T12:34:00.000-05:00The State Government is perfectly capable of opera...The State Government is perfectly capable of operating efficiently despite all the red tape. They are also capable of innovation.<BR/><BR/>The problem with TYC is poor management! <BR/><BR/>Efficiency and innovation require strong management skills and intelligent achievable goals. Both qualities are scarce in both public and private youth facilities in Texas!<BR/><BR/>You can pay someone a low wage and get poor work that has to be done over and over again (think recidivism). Ultimately the cost is exhorbitant. Or you can pay an expert a decent wage, get the job done right the first time and save a lot of money over the long run.<BR/><BR/>The State of Texas pays high wages for poor work and expertise especially at the Management level.<BR/><BR/>The cost in the lives of youth is very high.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-79901652223923775482007-11-02T11:49:00.000-05:002007-11-02T11:49:00.000-05:00It's an important debate. The line I agree with th...It's an important debate. The line I agree with the most in Levin's original piece is this one:<BR/><BR/>"The true promise of competition in corrections lies not in saving money while providing the same product as state-run prisons, but in harnessing the innovation of the private sector to develop programming that will reduce recidivism, since 99 percent of inmates are ultimately released."<BR/><BR/>It's true that private providers can offer experimental programs far more quickly because they lie outside the cumbersome bureaucracies of government. And the best private agencies are often founded and run by veteran public professionals and experts who have well formed ideas about what ought to be done.<BR/><BR/>I've actually seen this in action before, in New Orleans, where in the 1990s the city experimented with privately run case management services for MHMR cases. My wife worked for one of these providers and it was definitely more effective than the public agencies.<BR/><BR/>However, in juvenile justice, the norm is that most private providers sell their services to state governments in terms of cost savings. And that is the rubric within which most supporters of privatized services view them (Levin excepted). And their historical track record is poor: they have usually cost as much or more than public services, not just in terms of dollars spent but in PR disasters.<BR/><BR/>Given what we've seen lately from the current TYC administration and the legislature, my fear would be that privatization would follow precisely the track that Levin decries. It most likely would simply duplicate existing services on the cheap. And I can easily imagine TYC oversight focusing more on damage control than on building a good juvenile rehab program.<BR/><BR/>The current leadership hasn't exactly shown a penchant for seeking innovation - as the peremptory dumping of the Blue Ribbon report demonstrates.<BR/><BR/>I'd also point out that the much-touted Missouri model gives us an example of an innovative, forward-looking, and cheaper rehabilitation program that was developed under public auspices. So I'm not sure there's an automatic correlation between private providers and innovation.<BR/><BR/>Having said all that, I do think that a completely restructured TYC would have an important need for some private providers to devise pilot services. This could be an useful tool if TYC were to consider a genuine makeover.<BR/><BR/>But I don't know that privatization should be an end in itself, or that it should become the dominant model for either facility management or service provision.<BR/><BR/>Bill BushAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com