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Prison Privatisation in Au Stralia The University of Sydney sydney.edu.au Associate Professor Prison Privatisation Jane Andrew, Dr Max Baker and in Australia: Dr Philip Roberts The State of the Nation 2016 Prison Privatisation in Australia: The State of the Nation Accountability, Costs, Performance and Efficiency Associate Professor Jane Andrew, Dr Max Baker and Dr Philip Roberts Contents Background 1 Purpose 2 Part 1: Prison Privatisation: The State of the Nation Findings 4 Limitations 5 Challenges for the Future 5 Part 2: Prison Privatisation: State-by-State Private Prisons in Queensland 8 Private Prisons in New South Wales 20 Private Prisons in South Australia 31 Private Prisons in Victoria 38 Private Prisons in Western Australia 49 Bibliography 60 Biographies 69 The project was partly funded by an industry partnership grant between The University of Sydney Business School and the Western Australian Prison Officers Union (WAPOU). The researchers independently determined the research design and analysis associated with this project. Neither funding body has had any influence on the findings of this report. Contact Associate Professor Jane Andrew [email protected] +61 2 90366277 Dr Max Baker [email protected] +61 2 90367084 Background Australia now imprisons more people than at any point in its history. As of June 2015, 36,134 people were incarcerated across eight states, and the national imprisonment rate stood at 196 prisoners per 100,000 people (ABS, 2015: Table 2). The total annual net cost of Australia’s prison system stands at $3.4 billion (Productivity Commission, 2014: Table 8A.12). As a result of the growth in prisoner numbers and a variety of pressures on the sector, state governments continue to look for new ways to deliver prison services that are thought to be both socially and fiscally responsible, including various forms of privatisation. Prison privatisations have been justified on a number of grounds. The first examination of prison privatisation in Australia, made through the Kennedy report of 1988, asserted that ‘In some particular areas the private sector can do it cheaper and better’ (Kennedy, 1988: 88). Subsequently, in 2009 the New South Wales General Purpose Standing Committee ‘Inquiry into the Privatization of Prisons and Prison Related Services’ concluded that ‘… the private management of prisons will also likely produce greater cost savings and efficiencies than if they were to remain in the public system’ (GPSC-NSW, 2009: 51). Similarly, in 2013 the Queensland Commission of Audit (QCA) claimed that ‘… greater efficiencies can be achieved by private operation of correctional facilities’ (QCA, 2013: 3–250). Equally, the Economic Regulation Authority (ERA), in a 2015 report on Western Australian prisons, remarked that ‘… private prisons are held to higher standards of accountability and transparency than public prisons’ (ERA, 2015c: 92). Accordingly, privatisation has been mooted as a way of providing prison services with greater performance, lower cost, better efficiency and stronger accountability but in reality, little is known about the consequences of privatisation and whether or not they deliver these benefits to the community. Private prisons now incarcerate 18.5% of the prison population of Australia (Productivity Commission, 2014: Table 8A.1), and clearly play a large part in the functioning of the custodial system in Australia. In fact, Australia has the highest rate of private incarceration per capita of any country in the world (Mason, 2013: 2). Out of a total of 101 prisons in Australia, private contractors operate nine facilities in five different states: two prisons in Queensland, two in New South Wales, one in South Australia, two in Victoria and two in Western Australia. Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory do not have private prisons and are therefore outside the scope of this report. Parklea (NSW), Arthur Gorrie (QLD) and Mount Gambier (SA) prisons all deal with remand prisoners. Port Phillip (VIC) and Parklea (NSW) both take maximum security prisoners. The remaining facilities house medium- and low-security prisoners, and do not take part in remand activity. As of 2015, there are only three private contractors responsible for managing custodial services in Australia. These are GEO Group (GEO), G4S and Serco. Private prisons are now responsible for over 6,000 Australian prisoners (Productivity Commission, 2014: Table 8A.1), and absorb a considerable amount of taxpayer money nationally. Despite this, research into private prisons in Australia is extremely limited. Indeed, there has been no single publication or study in the last ten years that has covered all of Australia’s private prisons in detail. The present report aims to deliver such a review and in doing so demonstrates that not only do privately managed prisons across Australia vary greatly in terms of their accountability, costs, performance and efficiency, but also that it is very difficult to assess these criteria because of a general lack of transparency. This comprehensive report of the sector seeks to address this information gap and, as a result, intends to better inform future public debate on prison privatisation. 1 Purpose The purpose of this report is to provide a description of Australian private prisons as they have evolved across the country. Our overview of private prisons in Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia will give an understanding of the ‘State of the Nation’ with regard to prison privatisation and its impact. As stated, our study considers private prisons in Australia against four key categories: accountability, costs, performance and efficiency. Accountability represents the avenues available for holding contractors responsible for their actions. Accountability comprises two dimensions. The first dimension of accountability consists of the mechanisms that the government can use to ensure that the services it purchases from private contractors are delivered to an agreed standard. This is what we refer to as ‘internal’ accountability, in that mechanisms make a contractor responsible to the government, but not necessarily to the broader public. The second dimension of accountability is ‘external’, and consists of mechanisms for making the public aware of the nature and performance of contracts between the government and private contractors. External accountability is therefore important, allowing the public to hold those responsible for the prisons’ operations to account. Accountability helps mediate assessments of cost, performance and efficiency. After all, a private prison can only be said to provide accountability if the performance, costs and efficiency of its services is clearly communicated to the public. Accordingly, the study that follows is as much concerned with identifying what kind of data must be made available to make private prisons accountable, as it is with establishing what information is available already. Costs reflects the expense to the state of having prisoners incarcerated in private facilities, including not only amounts paid to contractors, but also expenses involved in tendering contracts and monitoring performance, costs associated with contract failures, and the broader costs of the custodial system. Performance refers to the quality of services provided by a private prison operator. This definition is not limited to performance standards set by the state. Rather, it also includes a broader range of performance metrics not necessarily incorporated into private prison contracts. This aspect of the study will therefore indicate whether private prisons are meeting contractual standards, as well as provide an assessment of whether contractual standards themselves offer a robust measure of performance. Efficiency involves the relationship between the quality of services provided and their overall cost to the taxpayer. In practice, the meaning of efficiency can vary. Greater efficiency can entail an equal performance at a lower cost, a higher performance at the same cost, or even a lower performance at a radically reduced cost. This report consists of two parts. Part 1 provides an overview of our findings. Part 2 provides a detailed state-by-state analysis of the sector. 2 Part 1 Prison Privatisation: The State of the Nation 3 Findings This report explores the distinct nature of prison privatisation across states and the varied nature of their accountability, costs, efficiency and performance. While there is no uniform pattern that describes the experience of all states with regard to these categories, any evidence of performance improvements and efficiency gains remains patchy and opaque; systems of accountability vary significantly; public reporting remains poor; and the total cost of private prisons remains unknown. Overall, we find that there is not sufficient evidence to support claims in favour of prison privatisation in Australia. As a consequence, it is our view that no further privatisations should take place before an appropriate level of information is made available to policy makers and the public in order to properly assess the impact of privatisation on the sector. In addition, there is a need for more research that engages directly with those impacted by the sector: prison employees and prisoners. This lack of available publicly information makes it difficult to make any evidence-based claims about the consequences of prison privatisation in Australia. What we do know is that the way private prisons operate
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