There has been a general trend in the Western World over the past number of years (and in particular the UK and USA) towards running down public services instead of improving them.
This is not an accident.
Rather it is a deliberate policy by Governments who are ideologically well disposed towards privatisation – believing it to be more efficient, better value for money and thereby saving the Government money. (In my opinion public service unions must also take some responsibility for this over the past 50 years or so, though I am sure that others might disagree fundamentally with me here)!
Over the past number of years (and relevant to this website, with its focus on child protection) the Probation Services in England have recently experienced privatisation. In Chris Mills Child Protection blog (30 June 2019) he mentions research to show that this has turned out to be what he calls a disaster.
The increasing tendency to medicate or the move away from person centred approaches described in the two previous posts pale into insignificance when we look at the trend in the USA (and now becoming popular in the UK also) towards privatisation of prisons.
Currently, in the USA, (ironically, I believe, since 1984 [1]), private companies make profits out of running prisons, and in some States even children are incarcerated in private prisons. (In the USA, imprisonment has reached the extent where sociologists have coined the term mass imprisonment to describe it).
Enriching private individuals and companies by contracting out incarceration of people (including children) is a trend that, in my view, has nothing to offer crime prevention in any society in the world. Even if a private prison works well (and, I have knowledge that some of them do) is there not something unethical about large corporations who have shares in the stock market etc. benefiting from imprisonment?
While there does not seem to be much discussion on it in Ireland as yet, it is something that all persons concerned with human rights should be worried about.
Obviously it is my belief that this trend should be (and would be) resisted by the vast majority of the population but because of the huge influence that the UK and USA have in Ireland I don’t take anything for granted.
It is important that creative methods of supporting families gain a firm foothold (certainly amongst voluntary agencies, but also among statutory agencies, where they should also be promoted vigorously) before any ideas such as privatisation of prisons and other Justice services that might be flagged by the commercial sector gains any momentum.
One of my fears in this respect is that, no matter how illogical something seems, or how unsuitable something is culturally, it sometimes takes on a life of its own and gains currency here in Ireland, politically, even though it has failed and/or is seen to be failing elsewhere. It is then rushed through as a solution and implemented hurriedly.
Consider, for example, the construction of high rise flats in Ballymun in Dublin in the 1960’s. No doubt the planners had the best of intentions, but it was not that well thought through and (as far as I am aware) most of the flats have now been demolished, a mere 60 years later.
[1]. ‘1984’ was a book written by George Orwell in the 1930’s that predicted how the world would change into a place where there was total Government surveillance of people’s private lives, manipulating them to be happy with the fact that their lot was to be in a state of perpetual war. I just thought that it is ironic that modern-era privatisation of prisons began in that year. Also, I often wonder what George would think if he knew that, because of the Internet, we now have voluntarily and quite happily given up our right to privacy altogether.