Durkheim, Punishment, and Prison Privatization

Abstract

In a seminal statement, Emile Durkheim argued that punishment of crime has a salutary effect on society by reaffirming the collective consciousness. With few exceptions, Durkheim assumed that criminal punishment is done on behalf of society. With the rise of prison privatization, this assumption is increasingly called into question. For-profit firms carrying out punishment, though legally agents of the state, are motivated by private gain. This article asks: How might privatization modify the functional effects of punishment? It develops answers to this question by using insights from Durkheimian and neo-Durkheimian scholarship and the empirical case of modern privatized punishment in the United States. The article proposes three trajectories through which privatized punishment may (or may not) affect solidarity: Parity in Punishment, in which private and public punishers are seen as interchangeable; Public Interest, in which perceptions of greed and self-interest mar privatized punishment and sap it of its functional effects; and Sacred Transgressions, in which the private sector encroaches on sacred rites of punishment to the detriment of solidarity.