Private vs government-run agencies: Either can fail in service delivery

[caption id="attachment_22101" align="alignleft" width="391"] United Parcel Service[/caption]

Gordon Matilla----While many people complained about the rollout of the Affordable Care Act's health care options and fault President Barack Obama and the Democrats for the inefficiency and errors that were dramatically displayed in the government website, the United Parcel Service is presently criticized for its delays in shipping Christmas gifts. One is a government program; the other privately managed.  It simply might mean that corporations and agencies must be individually evaluated for efficiency as opposed to criticizing one or the other as faulty or favored.

Many people complain about too much government and maintain that privately-run corporations can do a far better job at managing the affairs of business, and even social service and mental health programs.  On the other hand, across the board there have been examples of private companies failing in their attempts to provide services, just as government agencies sometimes fail as well.  The difference, however, is many in the private sector have had less oversight and therefore more likelihood of failure.

An example are the privately-run prisons.  Experts contend prisons managed by private corporations not only aren't necessarily more efficient in delivering services, often they exhibit poor management and poor outcomes related to treatment and recidivism.  In addition, many times the prisons themselves exhibit poor conditions and sometimes less qualified staff than those that are state or federally managed.  In fact some say that the promises made by private corporations seem to be like so much "fairy dust."

Criticisms should be given those who fail regardless of whether they are corporation or government managed, as experience has shown it is the individual situation or event that should be assessed as opposed to making generalizations about whether one way is right or not.  The post office may have its problems, but perhaps they did just as well delivering merchandise as UPS, or at least tried just as hard to get those gifts to the recipients as early as possible.

Jindal plans to sell prisons, but what are the issues involved?

[caption id="attachment_3991" align="alignleft" width="224" caption="Governor Bobby Jindal"][/caption]



Carol Forsloff - Jindal plans to sell two prisons, in Allen and Winn Parishes.  Gerald Long is uncertain about this, according to the Natchitoches Times.  But what are the issues in private ownership of prisons and do they do a good job?

It turns out private ownership of prisons, although touted by some, don't have a good track record.  One wonders how much research went into the decision about selling these prisons.  For example,

For-profit prison companies like Corrections Corporations of America were looked at over a period of years and found to have serious problems, despite their claims of being cheaper than publicly owned prisons.  As an example at the prison in Youngstown, Ohio the murders and mayhem taking place inside led to the company having a large series of wrongful death lawsuits.  There were numerous disturbances in the prison, and those reviewing the prison found lots of problems with prison management.

Some of the problems involved failure to provide adequate medical care to prisoner.  Here are some of the others:

• failure to control violence in its prisons;


• substandard conditions that have resulted in prisoner protests and uprisings;


• criminal activity on the part of some CCA employees, including the sale of illegal drugs to prisoners; and


• escapes,
  which in the case of at least two facilities include inadvertent
  releases of prisoners who were supposed to remain in custody.

These problems occur, according to studies made on private prisons because they often pay less and provide less training in order to save money.

Running a prison privately means running it for profit.  One author asks the legitimate question:  What kind of hysteria about crime might be fostered when profit is the potential?

Long says he "wants to have more information and details" before going along with Jindal's idea about privatizing these prisons.  Given what research has found to date, that's likely a good idea.