The New York Times has
recently published a couple of articles about
everything that is wrong with halfway houses in New Jersey.
Their biggest problem, aside from being located in New Jersey, is
that people are escaping from these privatized prison alternatives
at an alarming rate, mostly due to a lack of funding and the
necessity of cutting costs.

After decades of tough criminal justice policies,
states have been grappling with crowded prisons that are straining
budgets. In response to those pressures, New Jersey has become a
leader in a national movement to save money by diverting inmates to
a new kind of privately run halfway house.

The numbers are indisputable.The Times reports that
5,100 inmates have escaped from halfway houses since 2005, thanks
to terrible security and crowded conditions.

In a fun op-ed published today, Paul Krugman mentioned that
halfway houses often cut their budgets by skimping on labor costs.
Surely he is right. He also makes note that minor criminals are
often victimized at the hands of serious offenders in these
institutions. 

“So let’s see: Privatized prisons save money by employing fewer
guards and other workers, and by paying them badly. And then we get
horror stories about how these prisons are run. What a
surprise!”

But while Krugman asserts that these problems will always exist
in privatized prisons, the pro-liberty answer seems much less
fatalistic—just stop making so many damn criminals.

Sentencing people for drug crimes and commercialized vice are
handy ways to manufacture more criminals every day. As of 2009 in
state prisons, 17.8 percent of all inmates were present because of
drug-related charges, according to the Sourcebook of
Criminal Justice Statistics. In federal prisons in 2004, 54.1
percent of inmates were sentenced for drug offenses. And people
wonder why prisons and halfway houses are low on resources. They
have to hold exponentially more types and numbers of criminals than
they should.

If private halfway houses are failing, it is only because they
are forced to handle the absurdities of criminal law. Eliminating
drug and victimless crimes would not only free up resources
currently being spent on them, but presumably remove the risk of
prison violence against most minor offenders. Of course, this would
require an end to the War on Drugs. Which is going to happen any
day now. Right?

For Reason‘s coverage of the War on Drugs, see here and here.