Private prisons risky, says expert

A visiting criminology expert from Cambridge University says that turning prisons over to the private sector is a "high risk" strategy, but one that could lead to the best outcomes under the right conditions.

Professor Alison Liebling, who is in New Zealand to attend the Prison Fellowship Conference this weekend, said the argument that private was bad and public was good had no merit.

She has just participated in a study of private prisons in England and Wales that included five of 11 privately-run prisons there.

"Performance is very varied. We found some private prisons outperformed all other prisons, but the private sector also ran very bad prisons.

"A lot depends on local circumstances, local management, the design of the prisons."

The New Zealand Government intends to open up Mt Eden Prison to private management as well as contract out the new prison at Wiri, South Auckland, as a Public Private Partnership to be running by 2014.

The move has been met with strong criticism from unions as well as the Labour and Green parties.

Professor Liebling said it was a "high risk strategy", but one that could pay off under strict conditions.

She said private prisons that squeezed profits from the least possible number of staff on lower wages were the ones that often did not perform.

"They do sometimes go below the threshold and that's when their prisons are really problematic. Directors of private prisons have often campaigned to their own company for more staff once they've worked out they just can't operate the prison in this way.

"It is high risk because it goes wrong quite often. At least two of the prisons in England and Wales have suffered from losses of control."

But she dismissed union criticisms that private prisons had no incentive to rehabilitate prisoners because it would wipe out their own client base.

"There is a constant supply [of prisoners]. Some of those anxieties are misplaced. What the private sector wants to do is outperform the public sector.

"People working in prisons in the private sector know it's in their interests [to perform well]."

She said the Government needed to set the right contract with private management, including high penalties for not performing, which Corrections Minister Judith Collins has signalled.

Professor Liebling earlier told the Prison Officers Association of Australasia conference in Wellington that good staff-prisoner relationships lead to lower suicide and reoffending rates and a decrease in the loss of order.

Good relations focused on not abusing authority, but still letting it be known who is in charge.

The right dynamic should be an important part of prison officer training and professional development, she said.

"We know that things go wrong when staff are inexperienced, we know that staff get assaulted when they are inexperienced."