Evaluating private prisons: A reply

Keith Bottomley and Adrian James made three main points in their recent art icle: (a) that the case has not yet been irrevocably made out that private prisons are cheaper than public prisons; (b) that there is no definitive ev idence that the regime quality of private prisons is superior; and (c) that when claims are made that privatisation accelerates or stimulates benefici al change in public sector prisons, 'the nature of the argument and the cas e to be made becomes yet more problematic' (Bottomley & James 1997:272). Th is latter point directly contradicts my own hypothesis that the ultimate ju stification for some degree of privatisation may well lie in the fact that it can, and already does, lead to cross-fertilisation of ideas and practice s across the two components of the prison system, thus bringing about impro vement of the system as a whole (Harding 1997:111, 134-49).