How are private prisons regulated?
The contract provides the primary regulatory oversight of private prisons. It can stipulate conditions on crowding, handling escapes, prisoner complaints, incidents, and so on. Moreover, performance in private prisons is monitored by an outside party; the same cannot be said for government prisons. T. Don Hutto, a former corrections commissioner in two states and now an executive for a private prison company, observes: “As a director of corrections, I did a better job of monitoring and evaluating private-sector contracts than I did of monitoring and evaluating my own operations. Through the contracting process, government can be more objective about the goals it wants to reach.” In addition, some states have recently passed legislation requiring private prisons to inform local officials about prisoners brought in from other jurisdictions, to notify them of escapes, and to compensate local law enforcement agencies for the cost of recapturing escapees.
