Policy Matters Ohio, 12/15/2011
This study reviews Ohio's September 2011 moves to further privatize some of its prisons and finds that they could be a drain on public funds. The state announced it would sell one of its prisons, privatize the management of two others, and combine under state control the operations of two more. This is the second report on prison privatization researched and written for Policy Matters by veteran journalist Bob Paynter.
American Friends Service Committee, Arizona Program, 12/2/2011
This report discusses the preliminary findings of the full report to help the public understand the scope of the problem caused by prison privatization in Arizona and to encourage more discussion and review before any more public funds are spent on private prison beds.
ACLU , 11/2/2011
This report is an indepth examination on the private prison industry, highlighting the way in which mass incarceration provides a huge windfall to the private prison industry, irregardless of public welfare.
Frontier Group
U.S. Pirg Education Fund
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10/28/2011
This report describes the quality, cost, corruption, and access issues 28 states experienced when they contracted out the monitoring and control of traffic violations to private companies.
PBS Need to Know Series, 9/16/2011
The first episode of Need to Know's begins with a question being heard in this year's campaign: What is the role of government? Are there things that citizens, or even private companies can do instead of government? As communities across the country struggle to make ends meet, leasing public assets to private investors is an increasingly attractive way to generate much needed cash. "City for Sale" stories come from Chicago and Harrisburg, Pa.: two of the many cities that face urgent budget problems despite deep spending cuts and tax increases. Correspondent Rick Karr reports.
Project on Government Oversight (POGO), 9/12/2011
This report compares the total annual compensation of federal and private sector employees with federal contractor billing rates in order to determine whether the current costs of federal service contracting serves the public interest.
Policy Matters Ohio, 8/2/2011
The new state budget calls for a massive sell-off of Ohio public assets worth billions of dollars. Among the properties that may be privatized are the Ohio Turnpike, six prisons and the liquor distribution business. The budget also authorizes local and exempted village school districts to contract out their bus transportation, universities to enter into agreements transferring buildings and parking facilities to outside entities for up to 99 years, and cities to lease their parking meters for up to 30 years. Little evidence has been put forward that the public will benefit from these privatization moves, which raise numerous questions. This August 2011 brief describes privatization moves in the Ohio budget.
US PIRG Education Fund, 7/19/2011
High-speed rail PPPs and efforts toward rail privatization abroad have a mixed track record. The report reviews a number of international cases of better and worse cases of contracting in Europe and Asia. Public officials in the US should use a set of common-sense principles to evaluate public-private partnerships - and should refuse to pursue PPPs that do not serve the public interest.
In The Public Interest, 6/15/2011
This backgrounder brief explores problems related to the privatization of municipal services, and provides examples of experiences from cities around the country that have considered or have privatized critical services. Specifically, this brief examines privatization in the following areas: park maintenance, street maintenance, garbage collection, building inspection, information technology, printing services, and "contract cities."
