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February 26, 2005
Presentation to Mises summer fellows: July 15,2004
The Impossibility of State Justice: Private Prisons in a Free Society.
Presentation to Mises Summer Fellows: 11:00am July 15, 2004.
Introduction:
When I gave Dr. Block the first draft of this paper, he returned it claiming I had written two papers on two unrelated topics. One on the economics of prisons, and the other on anarchy, and he gave me the advice to pick one and stick to it.
At that point in time he was right, so I focused my attention on the problems and issues of prisons and produced analysis explaining the free market's superiority of production and management to apply to these prison inefficiencies.
Legal accountability, financial costs, intra prison violence, prisoner conditions and medical care, addiction, applications of the death penalty, gangs, black markets, prison labor, crowding issues, rehabilitation, and recidivism
A fast glance at the statistics associated with these issues brings value to the study of prisons. State operated prisons are in a dismal state of efficiency and justice.
Nonetheless this analysis was premature. The question at hand is not, how privatization can handle each particular problem of the prison industry. The question is what is the appropriate role of prisons in a free economy? Once answered, we can answer these former questions well armed and ready.
Prisons are an industry made up of firms dedicated to protect justice. The implementation of justice is a more roundabout process than the exchanges that take place between prison firms and their contractors. Just as McDonald's could not successfully operate as it does today, ceteres paribus, without farmers growing potatoes for its fries, prisons cannot successfully operate without functioning systems of police and courts. To understand what legitimate place prisons have in the provision of justice one must understand what place each of these distinct industries has in the provision of justice.
Modeling Rothbard's what has government done to our money I attempted to begin my analysis by assuming a world with no need for prisons. Prisons attempt to provide justice so I began with an assumed world without the need of justice.
So we start by answering, what is the appropriate role of justice? To apply praxeology to this case is to ask, what conditions of human action provide for an ever pressing need of justice? The condition of human reality is scarred with unavoidable conflict. Justice is the process of resolving the three examples of conflict. Explain with diagram.
Rothbard's moral condition of the non aggression axiom leads to free market efficiency.
We see that the goal of a firm dedicated to justice is to provide for the needs of consumers faced with injustice.
So we offer definitions for the terms used in the industry of justice in the most obvious order, tracing justice from injustice to rectification.
Rights: Property and human rights are the same.
-This paper accepts Hoppe's position and proceeds from there.
Law: A free market will lead to standards defined to protect rights and eliminate victimless crimes.
Benson, Friedman, and the Tannehills discuss this.
Laws against non violent crimes are more costly to enforce and impose. The imposers have less incentive in doing so.
Crime: The breaking of a law, or the violation of property such as murder, rape, and theft.
Time preference influences the incentives of criminal behavior just as it does for all purchasing decisions and human action in general.
Criminals: Individuals guided by time preference to break laws.
Victims: Individuals who feel the loss of a criminal's behavior.
Police: A firm dedicated to protecting innocent individuals against rights violations, or dedicated to investigating crime that has occurred and specializes in administering force so individuals don't have to.
Benson and Tinsley have shown the preference for private police and security.
Rothbard's claims that subpoena is unjust. It is unjust when a state insists the sole right to do so. It is not unjust when protected by the mechanism of competition. Subpoena the innocent v. the guilty.
Courts, Judges: Third party arbitrators who specialize in ruling and determining the extent of rights violations.
Benson and the others have shown this to be preferred on the market as well. The Law merchant is the historical example. Just as money becomes standardized so does law.
Sentence: The mechanism imposed upon a criminal to make the victim whole again. Examples: wage garnishing, liquidating assets, indentured servitude, imprisonment.
Restitution: The payback from criminal to victim of his debt through his sentence
Which sentence most effectively succeeds in restitution?
Prison: We can't say how much prisons will be used in a free market if at all, depending on the profitability and success of other sentencing mechanisms. To predict such would be the equivalent of claiming that red shirts will sell more than blue on the free market.
We can only outline what an appropriate prison may look like. A controlled living environment used to minimize the risk of a criminal's default on his indebted restitution.
What examples will a prison work best? When a criminal is likely to flee from justice. More prominent in today's society than has been given credit by libertarians reliance upon reputation and ostracism.
-When a criminal is a constant threat to society.
-When prisons are faster than other sentencing mechanisms at facilitating restitution.
Conclusions:
A successful free market in prisons rests upon the successful free market application of these previous industries. Now we can understand why the initial paper was accused of being off topic. A justification for a free market in prisons is a reliance on a free market in all justice services. It is a refutation of minarchy and a support of free market anarchism. The two topics are related and we can see why.
Future Research:
Now that we understand the legitimate applications of prisons in a free market we can move on to interpret how the government uses prisons? This will be able to shed light on current policy issues of privatization, decriminalization, recidivism, etc.
The topic of privatization is the most noted in the economics of prisons. What is most important to make note of is the difference between the prison industry and other areas of justice services. Benson describes how each of these industries is moving closer and closer to the private sector as budget constraints force the state to divest its monopoly. Police, security systems, self armament, and private arbitration are all successful opting out mechanisms for private individuals, but nothing similar is offered in terms of prisons.
Private prisons are just being contracted out by the government. No justice facilitation devices are available on the market for individuals to prefer over the public system. The government has monopolized force. This is the crux of its power. Show the cost benefit analysis of social contract theory.
I will look for a historical explanation of where we went wrong. Do the dates of prison budget allocations, construction, and operation coincide with the theory that states rely upon them to wield coercive power over their citizenry?
And I will expose the general negative affects that the acceptance of Social Contract Theory has had on our justice system.
And finally after this analysis is complete I can hope to offer a free market solution to take society in the direction of justice provided through prisons.
Posted by djdamico at February 26, 2005 8:06 PM