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| On the Agenda | | | Video Conference |  | | | Family Group Conferences | | | | Cost of Crime | | | | A Refuge for the Victims of Trafficking In Women | | | | Vehicle Confiscation | | | | Automatic Electronic Enforcement Project | | | | Electronic Monitoring | |  | Prison Privatization | | | | Security On Public Transportation | | | | Israel-USA cooperation | | | | "City without Violence" Program | | | | Policing high school studies | | | | Prison Space Forecast in Israel | | | | Victims of Crime Services | |
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The handing over of state prisons to private management is gathering pace in many states around the world, the prime motivating factor being the tight limits on public budgets for prison building and operation and the need to find lower-cost alternatives. Privatization allows modern new facilities to be constructed at a relatively rapid rate and more economically than the state can. It also catalyzes the public prison system (in Israel operated by the Israel Prisons Service (IPS)) to bring itself up-to-date and make efficiencies.
Over the last twenty years, more than two hundred prisons of varying levels of privatization have been built, the greater part in the US, the UK, Australia and France, and the trend is spreading to many other Western states as well as to South America.
The Direct Financial Savings Generated by Private Prisons: International Data
The experience of privatization worldwide shows that the quality of private prisons matches that of public facilities and in fact surpasses it on most criteria, including prisoner living conditions and respect for prisoners’ rights, the level of services provided and the quality of prisoner care and rehabilitation.
Despite the difficulties of cost comparison, private prison management demonstrates a clear saving over public sector management. Over and above the direct monetary saving there are also the economic benefits that derive from speed of construction, from the efficiencies it stimulates in the public sector, and from the financial risks transferred from the state to the private concessionaire (construction and operational cost-overruns, maintenance costs, etc.).
Before a privatization tender could be issued in Israel, the legal basis for prison operation- the Prisons Ordinance- had to be amended to permit the IPS to draw on the assistance of private entrepreneurs in the construction, operation and management of prison facilities. The topics governed by the new amendment include:
- The terms of the concessionaire’s permit to operate a prison;
- Delegating the authority to run a prison to the private sector — to the concessionaire and his employees;
- Supervision mechanisms to ensure sound administration and protection for prisoners’ rights;
- The involvement of the state in the administration of a private prison;
- The powers of the IPS Inspector of Prisons;
- An Advisory Committee.
The Legislative Process
The Knesset gave the necessary amendment to the Prisons Order (Privately Operated Prisons) its second and third readings on 24th March 2004, but not until the Minister of Public Security, Tzachi Hanegbi, his deputy, Yaakov Edri, and his Director-General, Shmuel Hershkovitz, had conducted a long process of negotiation and debate with the relevant Knesset committee. Also involved in the legislative process were the other government ministries who would be affected by the change, Finance and Justice, plus the IPS, the Inbal Co.’s Projects Department, and other interested agencies, such as the Civil Rights Association, the Public Defender, the Criminology Association and figures from the academic world.
Israel’s Current Situation with Regard to Privatization
The IPS operates 24 correctional facilities of different kinds, housing a population of 12,500 prisoners. At present the construction of only one privately-operated facility is planned. Only when the lessons from this project have been analyzed and digested, and not before then, will it be decided whether to set up additional privately-run facilities. |
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