Measuring Prison Performance: Government Privatization and Accountability(Violence Prevention and Policy)

Gaes and his distinguished coauthors offer a comprehensive analysis of public versus private management of prisons, a competition that originated in the 1980s with the introduction of private facilities into the criminal justice system. The authors argue that prison performance must be measured in reference to the goals of a particular prison system and introduce the technique of multilevel modeling to allow for simultaneous measurement of the individual and the institution. They also show how their analytic framework can be applied to other criminal justice components_prosecution, adjudication, postrelease supervision, policing_and to evaluating the privatization of almost any publicly administered service. They contend that the ability to meaningfully compare public and private prisons can better inform penal policy and improve prison performance and accountability. This book will be a valuable resource for public administrators and policy analysts, corrections personnel and criminologists.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Introduction: The Motivation for the Book and a Statement of the Issues Chapter 2 Chapter 1. Conceptualizing Prison Performance Chapter 3 Chapter 2. Prison Audits Chapter 4 Chapter 3: Understanding The Measurement Context—Qualitative Assessment Chapter 5 Chapter 4: Multilevel Models and Behavioral Performance Measures Chapter 6 Chapter 5: Staff and Inmate Surveys as Performance Measures Chapter 7 Chapter 6: Cost Analyses Chapter 8 Chapter 7: The Relationship between Cost and Performance and the Role of Prison Labor Chapter 9 Chapter 8: System Level Measurement Chapter 10 Chapter 9: A Life Course Perspective of Recidivism Chapter 11 Chapter 10: Prison Performance Templates, User Friendly Performance Measurement Tools, and Contract Compliance Chapter 12 Chapter 11: Lessons from the Public Administration Literature Chapter 13 Chapter 12: Looking Backward and Looking Forward Chapter 14 References Chapter 15 Index Chapter 16 About the Author

About the Author :
Gerald G. Gaes is visiting scientist at the National Institute of Justice and a criminal justice consultant and was director of the Office of Research (Bureau of Prisons) until his retirement in August 2002. Scott D. Camp is a senior social science analyst with the Office of Research at the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Julianne B. Nelson is a consultant in the corrections field with more than twenty years of experience working on a wide range of topics as an economic and financial analyst. William G. (Bo) Saylor is the lead statistical research methodologist and director of research for the Office of Research and Evaluation (Bureau of Prisons).

Review :
Measuring Prison Performance breaks new ground in corrections. Long overdue, this book lays out the theory and methods to develop a practical way to evaluate prison performance. It integrates topics from the disciplines of public administration, economics, criminology, and criminal justice to provide unique insights. More than that, this book can be used as a paradigm to evaluate the performance of any public agency, and can be used as a model to make decisions about the privatization of public services. Gerald Gaes and co-authors Camp, Nelson, and Saylor have written what will undoubtedly be a preeminent resource in the analysis of performance from a multitude of perspectives in not only correctional environments but across the public sector as a whole. As governmental entities are called upon with increasing frequency to justify the allocation and utilization of scarce resources, they will turn to this work to help define and improve the substance and structure of their response. Other stakeholders will also benefit significantly from application of the principles outlined. As America has constructed a far-flung network of penal institutions, the obvious question remains unanswered: how should we measure the performance of prisons? This practical and provocative book presents a long overdue framework for evaluating the utility of these unique institutions. We can only hope that policymakers and practitioners will follow the illuminated path. Measuring Prison Performance is a must read for any practitioner, researcher, or public policy analyst who cares about the functioning of our nation's penal institutions. The book shows administrators how data can be used to supplement knowledge gained from audits, inmate data bases, and 'management by walking around.' The authors show us how to translate some of our nation's best practices into tangible and meaningful data, and by doing so, increase our ability to manage our prisons. The added bonus is that these same procedures can be applied to any government agency interested in increasing productivity, efficiency, and accountability. Bravo. Measuring Prison Performance marries public administration and corrections. This is an extremely important book by a team of sophisticated researchers who really know their stuff. A must-read for people who work at or just care about improving our prisons.