The Effectiveness of Juvenile Correctional Facilities: Public versus Private Management
利用佛罗里达州青少年罪犯数据，比较私营营利、私营非营利、州营和县营四种管理类型对再犯率和成本的影响，发现私营营利设施虽短期成本低，但因再犯率上升长期效益被抵消。
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.