Since 1987, Arizona\u2019s Department of Corrections has been legislatively mandated to produce cost and quality reviews for its private prisons, in part to judge how they compare with state-run facilities. The data on costs were collected, but in recent years, it took a lawsuit by the AFSC for the Department of Corrections to release quality comparison data. Finally, in December it complied. The results were damning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main purpose of a prison is to reduce crime,\u201d said the AFSC\u2019s report. \u201cThe only measurement available of how well a prison performs this function is its recidivism rates.\u201d Yet, \u201cnone of the corporations operating in Arizona measure recidivism.\u201d The report noted that at the private facilities there were higher staff turnover and lower staff qualifications, as well as more cases of violence than in state prisons.<\/p>\n
One might think that, faced with evidence that the state isn\u2019t getting enough bang for its buck, Arizona legislators would rethink their commitment to putting ever more prisoners into private facilities. Instead, in a move Orwellian even by the gutter standards of Arizona politics, they\u2019ve simply tried to bar the state from collecting the evidence. On February 27 the legislature proposed a budget bill eliminating the requirement for a cost and quality review of private prison contracts.<\/p>\n