Should private providers run the youth secure estate?

YES
Will Tanner, senior researcher, Reform

Ministry of Justice performance figures show that the private sector has a lot to give in the prison estate, including in youth secure services. Across the estate, official data suggests that contracted prisons generally perform better and have lower reoffending rates.

Ashfield Young Offender Institution (YOI), the only privately-run YOI in the estate, performs better than comparable public sector institutions on both the official resource management and reducing reoffending metrics, and has lower reoffending rates for long-term prisoners.

The government should market-test the youth estate to let the best providers – public or private – compete to deliver the best service.


NO
Juliet Lyon, director, Prison Reform Trust

For vulnerable, challenging children, prevention, early intervention, public health and welfare solutions are better than imprisonment. With government trying to reduce unacceptably high reoffending rates and costly prison numbers, it’s reckless to open up to market forces and risk growing vested interest.

Reform’s selective use of data masks decidedly mixed results. Generally, private prisons are more overcrowded and less safe than their public counterparts.

Proportionately we hold more prisoners privately than anywhere in Europe and even more than in the US.

Until, and unless, there is clear, objective evidence to recommend it, ministers should be very wary about further privatisation.


YES
Paul McDowell, chief executive, Nacro

Nacro has no ideological bias about the role of private, voluntary or public sector providers in the criminal justice sector.

What matters to us, as a crime reduction charity, is the effectiveness of the provision in reducing offending and improving crime reduction outcomes.

For far too long we have been caught up in an unhelpful debate about public versus private, when in reality we need to be focused on what successfully cuts crime and protects victims.


NO
Andrew Neilson, director of campaigns,the Howard League for Penal Reform

It is morally reprehensible that any company should profit from the incarceration of some of the most vulnerable children in our society. Evidence from the US has shown that creating a private justice industry pushes up demand.

The Howard League has campaigned against the privatisation of the children’s secure estate since secure training centres were first proposed in the 1990s and our fears that they would have a more punitive ethos reliant upon, among other abuses, the overuse of restraint, have come to reality. A privatised youth justice system prioritises cutting costs and protecting shareholders – rather than cutting crime and protecting children.