5 Private prisons
The differences between the public
and private sector
183. During the inquiry we heard that the introduction
of private sector prisons has had an impact on the role of the
prison officer as a whole. Professor Alison Liebling told us in
oral evidence:
…private sector competition…means there
are experiments with how low you can set the threshold for staff
numbers, pay, remuneration, those sorts of things. So in lots
of ways the role [of the prison officer] has become more demanding,
power has shifted upwards so managers manage staff much more closely,
there are targets and performance indicators, there is more transparency
about the performance of a prison, so I think prison officers
feel more closely monitored, visible, to external management.[196]
Professor Liebling also identified different strengths
and weaknesses in staff culture in the private sector prisons:
… it is really clear there are major differences
all the way up from the custody officer to the managers, and the
differences we have found - and there are others working on this
question with me - is that private sector officers trust their
senior managers more, they tend to be more committed to the company,
they are not kind of anti upwards, they look as if they have very
good relationships with prisoners but with a bit more investigation
we discovered they have more punitive attitudes than officers
in the public sector but are more vulnerable as employees, so
it is quite complicated.[197]
She concluded:
…in the private sector so far, because the staff
are inexperienced and less well-trained, they tend to struggle
a bit more than staff in the public sector with using their
authority, so what they do is tend to stand back from prisoners
quite a lot and then sometimes jump forward, so they are
a bit erratic and they can get it wrong at both ends of the
spectrum sometimes, and we see that. In the public sector staff
are much more confident; they can overuse their authority, as
everybody knows, but when they get it right it looks very different.
It is based on experience and it is a quite subtle, peace-keeping,
informal use of their authority that is very professional. We
do not always find it but I think we know what it looks like
when it works well.[198]
184. Stephen Shaw, Prisons and Probation Ombudsman,
agreed that there were differences between the private and public
sector prison but thought they had narrowed over time:
What has, I think, happened over the years is that
in most of the private prisons the rate of staff turnover, though
still high and much higher, I think, I will not say all because
I do not know, but in most of the private prisons the rate of
staff turnover remains much higher than in the public sector,
nevertheless staff have built up a great deal of experience, often
in some difficult circumstances, and I think at the same time
what has been, in institutional terms, the greatest single benefit
of private sector involvement has been in terms of decency and
treating prisoners as individuals, as flawed individuals but as
individuals with needs and needs that it is our duty as staff
to try to meet.[199]
185. Professor Andrew Coyle highlighted the differences
within the private sector prison estate:
…The National Audit Office, for example, in
its 2003 report, said the best private prisons are better than
many of the best public prisons, but the worst private prisons
are down there with the worst of the public prisons. What it said
was privatisation is neither a guarantee of success nor the cause
of inevitable failure, and I think that remains the case. You
have to take account of the fact that all private prisons are
new prisons. None of the private prisons are old prisons. When
private companies were given the opportunity to take over Brixton
Prison, no-one would put their hands up. If you look at the league
tables for best performing prisons, the private prisons, marginally,
are doing worse than the public prisons. I do not think that is
a terribly helpful comparison. What you also find is that it depends
on the contract. It also depends on the company. Some private
companies are doing better than other private companies, and I
think that does reflect both on the contract and on the resources
which are included in the contract.[200]
186. He added that best practice was not shared
across the sectors or between the different private companies
because of the Ministry of Justice's focus on competition:
In terms of learning across the board, one of the
consequences, of course, of what is called contestability is that
it leads to what is called "commercial in-confidence issues",
and that actually militates against sharing good experience across
the board. If the public sector is going to be competing with
the private sector, then it is not going to show all its cards,
and certainly the private sector is not going to show all its
cards to competitive private companies, let alone to the public
sector. So, sadly, and the Chief Inspector has said this, there
has been relatively little learnt from the experience since 1992.[201]
Professor Liebling said:
When private prisons were introduced there was a little
phrase in the legislation which I am sure said "as an
experiment", and it feels like it has been an experiment
in the organisation of prison work. I think there is a phenomenal
number of lessons to be learned from this experiment. Both sectors
have significant strengths and weaknesses, and I think the
service is missing a trick not sitting down and looking really
carefully at this natural experiment.[202]
187. It is clear to us that public and private
sector prisons have the potential to learn from each other. An
over-simplified view of 'contestability' appears to work against
the sharing of lessons between sectors. We believe the Ministry
of Justice should devise ways of ensuring that contestability
does not prevent best practice being disseminated across all prisons
in both public and private sectors.
196 Q 1 Back
197
Q 4 Back
198
Q 7 Back
199
Q 183 Back
200
Q 236 Back
201
Q 236 Back
202
Q 31 Back
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