he 1960s" (Pray, 1987, p. 101). Platt (1994) contends that, in the 1990s, attitudes toward the politics of law-and-order issues, including a generalized preoccupation with the criminal justice system, have had the effect of altering the very foundation of prison-system debate. Platt takes the position that, although the overall crime rate declined from 1970 to 1990, the prison population over the same period increased.
Reynolds (1994, pp. 208-9, et passim), declaring that the American criminal justice system has failed to lessen the incidence of crime, argues that privatized contracting of prison-related services can effect such an outcome. In particular, Reynolds argues a connection between penal efficiency and privatization of traditionally public services, suggesting that private security firms could be used for nonemergency police functions, that prison labor could be diverted to the private sector, and that prison construction contracts could be entirely privatized. This idea represents a return to the 19th-century form of private participation in prison administration, when "inmate labor was often leased to private contractors. Its low price meant a valuable competitive advantage, and the awarding of contracts for it unavoidably invited graft and corruption. Some states began to restrict the use of inmate labor by the mid-1840s" (Pray, 1987, p. 96).
The steady increase in the prison population, together with public demands for incarceration of criminals, has been confirmed by other sources (Vath, 1993). Additionally, charges of racial and economic discrimination in the disposition of criminal cases by the traditional prison establishment have increased (Platt, 1994, pp. 7-9). Thus, the issue of penal administration, which has come more strongly to the fore over the same period, has become politicized in various ways.
Meanwhile, Dallos reports that prison-industry insiders sees privatization of prison management as a co...