Private Versus Public Incarceration: Incarcerated Individuals’ Experiences and Perceptions of Environmental Quality

Propensity score matching and regression analyses of the National Inmate Survey are used to examine individuals’ experiences and perceptions of environmental quality in public versus private prisons across key domains of prison life, with an emphasis on needs, behaviors, victimization, and attitudes. No differences are identified for women. Males in private prisons are more likely than men in public prisons to perceive there to be inadequate staffing and are less likely to report maintaining ties with people outside of prison. Men in private prisons are also less likely to report crowding to be an issue. We discuss implications for evaluating a central tenet of privatization: that the quality of private prisons be comparable to, or better than, that of public prisons.