Privatize the County Jail System

Los Angeles County’s expensive Twin Towers jail sat empty for a year while the sheriff and county supervisors waged a political battle over funds to run it. Two small county jails are closed because there are no funds to operate them. Meanwhile, jail crowding has increased, and the county is forced to release prisoners early to make room for new ones. In just over a year, five murder suspects were mistakenly released. At the same time, prisoners who have done their time are often mistakenly held too long, and compensating them costs the county an average of $1,300 a day. The Sheriff’s Department announced short-term remedies earlier this month, but they are not enough.

No doubt about it; there are serious and fundamental problems with the county jail system. At the bottom of the problem is money: money to open Twin Towers jail and money to upgrade data management and processing systems to avoid costly and grievous errors in controlling prisoners. There has been little discussion of how to get beyond the status quo and really address the funding problems.

The long-term solution is to contract the county jail system to private operators. This would save the county money in the long run and free sheriff’s deputies from guard duty to focus on law enforcement.

The private operation of jails and prisons is a widespread and growing practice. In 1995, the number of privately operated adult prisons grew by 15%, to 109 facilities. New privately operated jails are in the works in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, New Mexico, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Texas, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons is expanding its program of private operation contracts.

Private corrections firms have proved themselves all around the country. Many studies comparing private and public correctional facilities have demonstrated that private jails offer at least as high quality service as the public operators do.

More important, contracting the operation of jails can save a lot of money. Philadelphia expects to save $45 million over seven years by having its new county jail privately operated. On average, a jurisdiction can expect to save 10% to 15% on operating costs.

What would contracting jail operations to a private firm do for Los Angeles County? First, it would drastically reduce the number of mistakenly released prisoners and would relieve the county of financial responsibility for mistakes in prisoner releases.

The Sheriff’s Department cannot upgrade its system for tracking prisoners because its regular budget just covers routine operations. It is far easier and often cheaper for a private company to borrow the funds needed to install an up-to-date system. If court settlements to prisoners held too long come right out of private operators’ profits, you can believe they will mend their ways.

Second, contracting county jails would cost less. Assuming pessimistically that a contract would save the county 10%, that could fund more than 150 new deputies to patrol our streets.

In a time of shrinking budgets, a policy that saves money and permits the sheriff’s department to focus on its core mission of dealing with crime just makes common sense.