Privatization without Profit

• In Event: Privatization in the Criminal Courts

Abstract

Although the U.S. criminal legal system remains overwhelmingly public, key aspects of its operations have fallen into private hands. Researchers have documented the involvement of for-profit companies in lucrative activities such as lending money for bail, constructing carceral facilities, and controlling amenities within jails or prisons. Often, those companies’ profits come directly from the pockets of the mostly poor individuals who live under criminal legal control. While privatization, profit, and predation are often intertwined, we argue in this paper for a broader examination of the drivers and consequences of privatization in the criminal courts. Drawing on ethnographic and interview data from five jurisdictions in New York State and on public IRS data on the nonprofit sector nationally, we find that the criminal courts rely heavily on private nonprofit organizations to provide the treatment for substance use disorders and other mental illnesses, anger management classes, and community service opportunities that have become common conditions of criminal legal supervision. We analyze the forces driving this engagement—in the absence of profit motives—and its implications for state capacity, public accountability, and the impacts of criminal legal involvement on the lives of individuals.

Authors

• Gabriela Kirk-Werner, Syracuse University

• Mary Ellen Stitt, University at Albany, SUNY