Thursday, November 1, 2012

Hybrid Governance in Arizona Prisons and other public services


Hybrid governance with Prisons


By Carl R. ToersBijns, former deputy warden, ASPC Eyman, Florence, AZ


The age of hybrid governance is already upon us. Arizona today has made a clear decision to allow private prison contractors to occupy vital middle ground between our public-owned prison system and numerous and various private-sector organizations. The ideology is capitalistic and powerful as is has already established firm roots in the daily practice of running our prisons today.

 

What hasn’t been talked about is the parasitic nature of this relationship and how it is designed to absorb more government functions as time goes by. No longer an emerging market, private prison contractors have established the practice and future of public governance based on lessons learned from the past and have merged sizable government stakes, subsidies and management decision making that reflect a practice of preferential treatment in more than many ways.

 

There is no doubt that this merger has compromised those leading elements of the public sector’s regulatory environment as they evolve existing regulations to meet the new hybrid status between government and private industries.

 

This changes the traditional roles of the past and created an infusion of ideologies beyond the traditional division between labor and market demands. In fact, this merger is almost invisible and when active to the fullest extend, will remain blurred creating confusion to the taxpayers as to what actual role the government plays versus the role of private business in our state.

 

There is no secret between the cooperative levels of this state’s governor and elected officials towards private prison groups as there has been significant wealth distributed between the two parties.

 

Today, Arizona is witnessing a massive agenda of proliferation in the number of new contracts and business dealings with new parastatal entities around the state as well as outside the state. It impacts the entire criminal justice system including the administrative and judicial elements of law with little or no scrutiny of how business is conducted under this new hybrid process.

 

Public authorities have been compromised to be managed privately and secretively based on private enterprise standards not subject to open meeting laws or other regulatory requirements.

 

Power diffusion is the key in this methodology as more decisions are conducted in the shadows of corporate strength and weaker public infusions to the table. Operating in such a closed market with little scrutiny will change the integrity of government and allow growth or development of mediocrity in performance and corruption for many who are willing to ride this train as a parasite leeches off the body.

 

Thus on the pretense of improving state run agencies and reducing inefficiencies, the privatization of public service will be handed over to those corporations that can meet the productive needs of this market.

 

Power diffusion continues even in the shadow of strength. Recent decades have witnessed a gradual revival of parastatals that foreshadowed their present surge. They gained access to international capital markets and have leveraged investment to expand operations.

 

By floating shares on exchanges, contracting with auditing firms, establishing independent boards of directors, restricting subsidies from the government, and improving recruiting standards and managerial incentives, parastatals have been able to make themselves competitive with the private sector justifying their creation and existence by those that praise the concept.  

 

Today there are very few, if any, areas of governance that have not been placed in the custody of parastatals entities that undertake commercial activities on the government’s behalf. They range from public transportation, medical care, economic and logistical support of state utilities down to the smallest micro purpose of government services such as the maintenance of parks, recreation and other support agencies.

 

There are reasons for this transition.  First and foremost, state governments are broke. They lack funding and in fact are unable to manage current needs as they exist. Frustration has led to exploring alternatives and aside from the traditional practices of raising taxes or other fees they have considerable needs to improve the infrastructure and manpower requirement to meet the full demands placed on them by law and other regulatory mandates.

 

In short, parastatals are the entities everyone wants to do business with because in places where politics is an opaque void or a byzantine labyrinth, they “get things done.” Collectively, these types of parastatals have been crucial for rising powers to capture the commanding heights of personal wealth and finance.

 

Their recruitment of top investment-banking and private-equity talent and riskier investments are a major departure from decades of more conservative asset management by central banks allowing hybrid governance to coexist in many places.

 

It’s a sign of the times and Arizona is smack in the middle of such financial relationships, endorsements and futuristic expectations of spreading this hybrid governance concept to other states in due time.

 

Source:

http://www.mckinsey.com/features/government_designed_for_new_times/the_rise_of_hybrid_governance

No comments:

Post a Comment