Investigating community justice services and private sector delivery

The idea that private companies should make profits from the justice system remains a deeply controversial one – despite having a long history. In the 17th century, for example, merchant seafarers made their fortunes transporting convicts to North America to work as labourers on tobacco and cotton farms. Opponents contend that maintaining a safe, just and stable society is not a business opportunity, but the central responsibility of a civilised state; the primary motive should be social justice, not financial return.

It is an argument that cuts little mustard at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) these days, where competition is regarded as the principal mechanism for raising the quality of service: “Funded by taxpayers, but delivered by whoever is best suited to do so,” as the former Lord Chancellor Kenneth Clark put it.

In the summer of 2011, the MoJ published its competition strategy for offender services, setting out the government’s ambition that private companies should be at the forefront of delivering the promised ‘rehabilitation revolution’. The argument is simple: if entrepreneurs cut reoffending and improve outcomes and efficiency, they can make a profit, while the taxpayer makes a saving. The mantra in Whitehall these days is payment-by-results, and the MoJ is in the vanguard of this new thinking. All offender services are being opened up to the market, the only exceptions being those specifically prevented from doing so by statute: roles requiring police or judicial powers, for example, are excluded...

Read on at Ethos Journal

Ethosis aimed at public sector leaders, politicians, academics and policy specialists debating the future of public services today.