IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlawec/y2005v48i2p549-89.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effectiveness of Juvenile Correctional Facilities: Public versus Private Management

Author

Listed:
  • Bayer, Patrick
  • Pozen, David E

Abstract

This paper uses data on juvenile offenders released from correctional facilities in Florida to explore the effects of facility management type (private for-profit, private nonprofit, public state-operated, and public county-operated) on recidivism outcomes and costs. The data provide detailed information on individual characteristics, criminal and correctional histories, judge-assigned restrictiveness levels, and home zip codes--allowing us to control for the nonrandom assignment of individuals to facilities far better than any previous study. Relative to all other management types, for-profit management leads to a statistically significant increase in recidivism, but relative to nonprofit and state-operated facilities, for-profit facilities operate at a lower cost to the government per comparable individual released. Cost-benefit analysis implies that the short-run savings offered by for-profit over nonprofit management are negated in the long run due to increased recidivism rates, even if one measures the benefits of reducing criminal activity as only the avoided costs of additional confinement.

Suggested Citation

  • Bayer, Patrick & Pozen, David E, 2005. "The Effectiveness of Juvenile Correctional Facilities: Public versus Private Management," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(2), pages 549-589, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:y:2005:v:48:i:2:p:549-89
    DOI: 10.1086/497526
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/497526
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/497526?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anderson, David A, 1999. "The Aggregate Burden of Crime," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(2), pages 611-642, October.
    2. Kenneth Avio, 1998. "The Economics of Prisons," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 143-175, September.
    3. Bayer, Patrick & Pozen, David E., 2003. "The Effectiveness of Juvenile Correctional Facilities: Public Versus Private Management," Center Discussion Papers 28484, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Knutsson, Daniel & Tyrefors, Björn, 2020. "The Quality and Efficiency Between Public and Private Firms: Evidence from Ambulance Services," Working Paper Series 1365, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 01 Jul 2021.
    2. Anita Mukherjee, 2021. "Impacts of Private Prison Contracting on Inmate Time Served and Recidivism," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 408-438, May.
    3. Patrick Bayer & Randi Hjalmarsson & David Pozen, 2009. "Building Criminal Capital behind Bars: Peer Effects in Juvenile Corrections," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(1), pages 105-147.
    4. Fredrik Andersson & Henrik Jordahl & Jens Josephson, 2019. "Outsourcing Public Services: Contractibility, Cost, and Quality," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 65(4), pages 349-372.
    5. Bergman, Mats A. & Johansson, Per & Lundberg, Sofia & Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2016. "Privatization and quality: Evidence from elderly care in Sweden," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 109-119.
    6. Kevin T. Schnepel, 2016. "Economics of Incarceration," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 49(4), pages 515-523, December.
    7. Yu XIA, 2012. "What’s the Role of Schools in Juvenile Crime?," International Journal of Business and Social Research, LAR Center Press, vol. 2(4), pages 97-114, August.
    8. Yu XIA, 2012. "What’s the Role of Schools in Juvenile Crime?," International Journal of Business and Social Research, MIR Center for Socio-Economic Research, vol. 2(4), pages 97-114, August.
    9. Hall, Maximilian J.B. & Liu, Wenbin B. & Simper, Richard & Zhou, Zhongbao, 2013. "The economic efficiency of rehabilitative management in young offender institutions in England and Wales," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 38-49.
    10. Andersson, Fredrik & Jordahl, Henrik, 2011. "Outsourcing Public Services: Ownership, Competition, Quality and Contracting," Working Paper Series 874, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    11. Rubli, Adrian, 2023. "Trade-offs between access and quality in healthcare: Evidence from retail clinics in Mexico," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    12. Lindqvist, Erik, 2011. "Planned treatment and outcomes in residential youth care: Evidence from Sweden," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 21-27, January.
    13. Yazzie, Rebecca A., 2011. "Availability of treatment to youth offenders: Comparison of public versus private programs from a national census," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 804-809, June.
    14. Singleton, John D., 2017. "Putting dollars before scholars? Evidence from for-profit charter schools in Florida," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 43-54.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carole Billiet & Sandra Rousseau, 2014. "How real is the threat of imprisonment for environmental crime?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 183-198, April.
    2. Ezra Friedman & Abraham L. Wickelgren, 2006. "Bayesian Juries and The Limits to Deterrence," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 70-86, April.
    3. Altindag, Duha T., 2012. "Crime and unemployment: Evidence from Europe," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 145-157.
    4. S. Ravid & Suman Basuroy, 2003. "Managerial Objectives, the R-Rating Puzzle and the Production of Violent Films," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm383, Yale School of Management.
    5. Ghulam, Yaseen, 2021. "Institutions and firms’ technological changes and productivity growth," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    6. Louis Hotte & Tanguy Van Ypersele, 2008. "Individual protection against property crime: decomposing the effects of protection observability," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(2), pages 537-563, May.
    7. Gnutzmann, Hinnerk & McCarthy, Killian J. & Unger, Brigitte, 2010. "Dancing with the devil: Country size and the incentive to tolerate money laundering," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 244-252, September.
    8. Daniela Barni & Alessio Vieno & Michele Roccato & Silvia Russo, 2016. "Basic Personal Values, the Country’s Crime Rate and the Fear of Crime," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 1057-1074, December.
    9. Bethencourt, Carlos, 2022. "Crime and social expenditure: A political economic approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    10. Paolo Buonanno & Daniel Montolio & Josep Raya-Vílchez, 2013. "Housing prices and crime perception," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 305-321, August.
    11. Deiana, C, 2016. "Local Labour Market Effects of Unemployment on Crime Induced by Trade Shocks," Economics Discussion Papers 16529, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    12. Thomas Bourveau & Renaud Coulomb & Marc Sangnier, 2021. "Political Connections and White-Collar Crime: Evidence from Insider Trading in France," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(5), pages 2543-2576.
    13. Philip J. Cook & John MacDonald, 2010. "The Role of Private Action in Controlling Crime," NBER Chapters, in: Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs, pages 331-363, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Konstantin Chatziathanasiou & Svenja Hippel & Michael Kurschilgen, 2020. "Property, Redistribution, and the Status Quo," Munich Papers in Political Economy 02, Munich School of Politics and Public Policy and the School of Management at the Technical University of Munich.
    15. Entorf, Horst & Winkler, Peter, 2001. "The Economics of Crime: Investigating the Drugs-Crime Channel. Empirical Evidence from Panel Data of the German States," ZEW Discussion Papers 01-37, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    16. Samuel Nunn & William Newby, 2011. "The Geography of Deterrence," Evaluation Review, , vol. 35(4), pages 354-378, August.
    17. Heckman, James J. & Moon, Seong Hyeok & Pinto, Rodrigo & Savelyev, Peter A. & Yavitz, Adam, 2010. "The rate of return to the HighScope Perry Preschool Program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 114-128, February.
    18. Divya Sadana, 2023. "Effects of Early Childhood Exposure to Pollution on Crime: Evidence from 1970 Clean Air Act," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 84(1), pages 279-312, January.
    19. Philip J. Cook & Jens Ludwig, 2010. "Economical Crime Control," NBER Working Papers 16513, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Fernando del Río, 2019. "Property Rights, Predation, and Productivity," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(3), pages 1154-1188, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H0 - Public Economics - - General
    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • K0 - Law and Economics - - General
    • K4 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:y:2005:v:48:i:2:p:549-89. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.