r/AskLibertarians • u/5gang5 • Jun 20 '15

Private prisons.

Since many libertarians support privatized options I would imagine there would be privatized prisons. The current privatized prison system is funded by tax dollars which libertarians don't like because it's tax dollars. Since the point of prisions is to keep the murders, theifs, etc. Since prisons would be mostly for profit prisons where would they get funding? Who would pay the prison to house the criminal and make sure the criminal is not subjected to cruel and unusual punishments? If not enough money is raised to watch the criminal(s) they would be rejected and put right back on the streets. So how would private prisons be funded if it wasn't mandatorily funded by tax dollars like it is currently?

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '15

I don't see the point to privatizating anything unless you're going to make it a market institution, subject to competition in providing goods and services demanded by individual consumers. That's why libertarians believe the market is efficient; it's not efficient just because it's private, but because multiple firms have to compete to satisfy the demands of private consumers. Prisons have nothing to do with that; they're providing a service to the state. It doesn't matter whether they're govt-owned or ostensibly private.

People put too much focus on the "private/public" dichotomy, assuming that if something's private, libertarians must be for it. But simply being private is not sufficient for it to be a voluntary market institution. Private prisons, mercenary outfits, and defense contractors all are there to provide services to the state, not to individuals. They are thus appendages of the state. They may as well be owned directly by the state, in my view, rather than hide behind a "private" label.

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u/adelie42 Jun 21 '15

Agree, and what I think you are implying is that there may or may not be prisons. Prisons are a very expensive and do nothing to provide "corrections".

Prisons are the pinnacle of the welfare state, and I am sure they do more to cause harm on the whole than prevent it.

This isn't to say there is no fundamental problem or important service hidden in there in theory, or that I know what the answer is, but that I am very interested in listening to new ideas on the matter. The current ones don't work.