job better. Their arguments took on more force as the country endured an economic recession during the early 1980s that forced cutbacks across the board. Private companies run state lotteries, collect garbage, and run social service programs. Why not let private companies operate prisons, too?
This confluence of events led to the prison privatization movement, and it started with the federal government. The administrations of President Ronald Reagan (1981-89) and President George Bush (1989-1993) both pushed prison privatization. They argued that government, by definition, is inefficient, and that the private sector can do many governmental tasks more efficiently (and thus more cheaply). Reagan and Bush, though, offered mostly rhetoric and few policy initiatives (Schlosser, 1998).
A Democratic leader, President Bill Clinton (1992-2000), actually furthered prison privatization to a greater extent than either of his Republican predecessors. Clinton saw a way to reduce the government's workforce, one of his priorities, and sa
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