Privatize the LA County Jail System
Los Angeles Times -- 11-20-96
by Adrian T. Moore, Reason Public Policy Institute, Los Angeles CA
The county’s expensive new Twin Towers jail sat empty for a year while the sheriff and county supervisors wage a political battle over funds to open it. Two small jails are closed because there are no funds to operate them. Meanwhile, jail crowding has increased, and the county is forced constantly to release prisoners early to make room for new prisoners. In just over a year, five murder suspects were mistakenly released. At the same time, prisoners who have done their time are often mistakenly held too long, and compensating them costs the county over $1300 a day. No doubt about it, there are serious and fundamental problems with the county jail system. At the bottom of the problem is money: money to open the new Twin Towers jail, and money to upgrade data management and processing systems to avoid costly and grievous errors in controlling prisoners. So far there has been little discussion of how to get beyond the status quo and really address the jail system’s funding problems. The real, long-term, solution to funding the county jails is to contract them to private operators. This would save the county money in the long run, and free sheriff deputies from guard duty to focus on street crime. Yet the county treats this idea the way most people treat a homeless person on the sidewalk: as something they pretend is not there, but carefully maneuver around. The private operation of jails and prisons is a widespread and growing practice. In 1995, the number of privately operated adult prisons in the U.S. grew by 15 percent, to 109 facilities. New privately operated jails are in the works in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, New Mexico, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Texas, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons is expanding its program of private operation contracts. Private corrections firms have proven themselves all around the country for years now. Many studies comparing private and public correctional facilities have been conducted that demonstrated that private jails offer at least as high quality service as the public operators do. More important, contracting the operation of jails can save a lot of money. Suburban Philadelphia expects to save $45 million over seven years by having its new county jail privately operated. On average, a jurisdiction can expect to save 10-15 percent on operating costs by contracting with a private firm to run the jails. What would contracting jail operations to a private firm do for Los Angeles county? Several things. First, it would drastically reduce the number of mistakenly released prisoners and would relieve the county of financial responsibility for mistakes in prisoner releases. The sheriff’s department cannot upgrade its system for tracking prisoners because their regular budget just covers normal operations. It is far easier, and often cheaper, for a private company to borrow the funds needed to install an up-to-date system. When court settlements to prisoners held too long come right out a private operator’s profits, you can believe they will make sure that prisoners are released on time. The same goes for mistaken releases of murder suspects. If private jail operators are financially liable for such mistakes, they will have every incentive to invest in a system that prevents them. Second, contracting county jails to a private operator would cost less than having the sheriff’s department operate them. Assuming pessimistically that a private contract only saves the county 10 percent, that could fund over 150 new deputies to patrol our streets. That is not counting the deputies out on patrol instead of guarding the jails. Think how much difference in crime and safety that could make in your neighborhood. The county needs to stop ignoring the obvious option of private operation of the county jails, and treat it seriously. In a time of shrinking budgets, a policy that saves money and permits the sheriff’s department to focus on their core mission of dealing with crime just makes common sense.
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