Studies examining privatization performance have generated mixed results, but under the right conditions, privatization can operate in the public interest. Look, for example, at private prisons, where we find cost savings that remain attractive, particularly to state governments. On the other hand, the Department of Justice (DOJ) in the Obama Administration announced that it would begin phasing out the use of private prisons for federal inmates. The DOJ noted increased security and safety risks in private prisons with only modest cost savings.39 That Obama-era policy change was, however, reversed by the Trump Administration and private federal prisons persist. Putting aside efficiency and dollarsfor a moment, you might think about an interesting observation from writer and journalist Brian Alexander who warns that privatization may convert us from citizens to mere customers who pay our water bill to a private company, but who no longer engage in thinking about and participating in the process of building a community, a state, or a nation. Our vital citizenship decisions would be reduced to mere consumer decisions.

Question 

Alan W. reportedly forced Carole M. to perform oral sex. Alan W. pleaded no contest to sexual battery and was sentenced to a year in jail (his second sentence for sex crimes). Rather than serving time in the Los Angeles county jail, the court permitted him to pay $100 per night for serving his time in a city jail where he enjoyed a flat-screen TV, a computer room, and a new bed. Upon learning of her attacker’s comfortable conditions, Carole M. said, “I feel like, ‘Why did I go through this?’” These “pay-to-stay” jails number at least two dozen in the Los Angeles area. Should criminals be able to purchase comfortable jail time? Explain. See Alysia Santo, Victoria Kim and Anna Flagg, “Afraid of Jail? Buy an Upgrade,” The Marshall Project, March 9, 2017 [www.themarshallproject.org/2017/03/09/afraid-of-jail-buy-an-upgrade].