404 not found error: searching for truth in privatized corrections through online material

Abstract

In the last three decades private involvement in correctional service has transformed. Since the 1980s private interest in correctional service has evolved from the delivery of tertiary and secondary services such as transportation, food, and medical services toward the provision of primary services such as design, construction, and complete management of correctional facilities. In an attempt to fill a gap in the literature surrounding correctional privatization, I examine to what extent corporate published online material explores the issue of incarceration, underlying theoretical ideology of prison, and what general and specific information is presented to online readers. Using a content analysis, results indicate inaccurate and incomplete information is presented to online readers culminating with incarceration constructed as the only choice to combat crime. Results also indicate strong Neo-liberal doctrine underlining the material, specifically, strong support for continued privatization, offender commodification, continued deregulation of public service, belief in the free market, and the transfer of government to corporate control. Together, these themes highlight the extension of a new economy of the power to punish.