EDMONTON – A large number of studies and articles available on the Internet show that privatizing prisons in the United States and other countries has proved to be an expensive and risky proposition.

As properly trained publicly employed corrections staff are replaced with inexperienced and low-paid staff, and the profit motive results in cut corners instead of an emphasis on public safety, the result in many locations have been a nightmare.

The material describes soaring inmate violence, danger to jail visitors, lax security, abuses of inmates and major escapes.

They show how poor pay and benefits, not to mention dangerous working conditions, results in high turnover and understaffing in private jails.

They show how the corporate profit motive shift the mission of private correctional facilities from public and inmate safety to controlling corporate expenditures.

Significantly, they show that U.S. lawmakers – after bad experiences with the private prison industry – are turning away from the idea as a failed experiment.

Legislators in several states have cracked down on private prisons with tough regulations, others – such as New York and Illinois – have passed laws banning the privatization of prisons, correctional facilities and related services.

In 2000, no new state issued a request for proposals for private prisons.

"Clearly, this experiment has been a failure, even a disaster, for U.S. states," says AUPE President Dan MacLennan. "It would be wrong thinking for Alberta to go down the same failure littered path.

"It’s particularly sad that we’re wasting taxpayers’ money considering this idea when the government itself concedes that Alberta’s jails are the best run, and least expensive to run, in Canada," he said.

For just some of the thousands of articles showing the dangers of prison privatization, please click on the links below.

Click below for additional information about private prisons.

Central North Correctional Centre Transferring to Public sector Operation - Gov't of Ontario

Let’s throw away the key on private prisons – Calgary Herald, May 31, 2002

Experiment in private prison, Penetanguishene. Enthusiasm for superjail fizzles on privatization bid - Kitchener Waterloo Record, Sept. 13, 2000

Bailing Out Private Jails - The American Prospect, September 2001

Privatizing Prisons Is a Risky and Costly Scheme - Alternatives, Summer 2001

Private Prisons - The Nation, January 1998

Private Adult Correctional Facilities: Fines, Failures and Dubious Practices - OPSEU Online

Making Crime Pay - Canadian Bar Association, October 2001

Wackenhut's Free Market in Human Misery - CorpWatch.org

ACU Private Prisons Watch Archives

Prison Privatisation Report International