Cheaper, better, and more accountable? Twenty‐five years of prisons privatisation in Victoria

Datos Bibliográficos

ID11962011
AutoresValarie Sands (0000-0002-7519-2401, Monash Business School Monash University Caulfield East Victoria Australia, autor de correspondencia), Deirdre O’neill (0000-0003-4332-2117, Monash University), Deirdre O'Neill (0000-0002-1569-918X, Monash Business School Monash University Caulfield East Victoria Australia), Graeme Hodges (0000-0003-3350-6019, Monash Business School Monash University Caulfield East Victoria Australia)
Año2019
Volumen78
Número4
Páginas577-595
Fecha de publicación2019-05-21
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAustralian Journal of Public Administration (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0313-6647 • E-ISSN: 1467-8500
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-8500.12384
OpenAlexW2944959517
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas17

Twenty‐five years after the Kennett government began privatising prisons, Victoria has the world's highest proportion of prisoners in private prisons. When the privatisation project began, it was confidently expected that privately managed prisons would be cheaper, better, and more accountable than traditional public sector provision. This paper examines whether those anticipated benefits have been realised. In doing so, we assess system‐wide operating costs, specific measures of performance, and accountability of the prison system between 1992 and 2017. Using publicly available data, we conclude temporary lower costs occurred but have not been sustained. Similarly, performance improvements are mixed, and enhanced accountability is contested. Although the performance information now available on Victoria's prisons is superior to what was available in the pre‐privatisation era, successive Victorian governments have also overseen arrangements that severely curtail dissemination of such data. This has restricted the capacity of Parliament and the public not only to hold government to account for the operations of the prison system, but also to evaluate the efficacy and impact of the prisons privatisation project. We conclude a more definitive assessment will only be possible when current limitations on accessing performance and other data are lifted enabling greater public scrutiny of Victoria's prison system

Accountability · Business · Government (linguistics · Parliament · Performance measurement · Political science · Prison · Private sector · Public sector · Scrutiny · Community Development and Social Impact · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Public Administration · Public-Private Partnership Projects · Marketing