Reweaving the Penal Net Through Piecemeal Privatization: A Comparative Case Study of Electronic Monitoring Implementation in Colombia and Chile

Benjamin J. Mackey

Advisor: Robert J. Norris, PhD, Department of Criminology, Law and Society

Committee Members: Sue-Ming Yang, Andrew Novak, Faye S. Taxman

Online Location, Online
April 01, 2025, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM

Abstract:

Across the world, public sector agencies contract with private sector companies to run and reform penal systems. Operating internationally, the largest of these companies act as multinational correctional service providers (MCSPs) to bring technologies and innovations from their home country to host country governments with which they contract.  These innovations represent forms of piecemeal privatization, wherein sub-components of penal systems like transportation, food, treatment, and electronic monitoring (EM) services are outsourced to the private sector.  Relatively little is known about how piecemeal privatization affects penal systems and those enmeshed within them.  Som scholars have suggested that the new penal practices and norms associated with privatization may re-weave the “net” of social control, adjusting its width to encompass more or fewer individuals and/or altering its density to increase or decrease the severity of punishment.  However, evidence is inconsistent across contexts, and the role of piecemeal privatization (and MCSPs in particular) in re-weaving the penal net remains unknown.  To fill the gap, this dissertation offers a mixed-methods comparative case study of one form of piecemeal privatization in Colombia and Chile.  Specifically, this dissertation examines the role of MCSPs in the implementation of EM in each country, whether implementation was associated with short- or long-term changes in their incarceration rates, and how and why EM contributed to broader changes in each country’s penal net.

Qualitative findings from key informant interviews and archival data sources indicated that MCSPs catalyzed and were highly active in the early exploration and preparation phases of EM implementation in Colombia, but their role was far more delayed and peripheral in Chile.  Nonetheless, MCSPs in both countries wielded forms of discursive, epistemic, and/or material power by bridging the inner context of the implementing agency with the outer context of the national and international service environments.  However, interrupted time series analyses showed that EM implementation was not associated with significant short- or long-term reductions in the incarceration rate in either country, despite the promise of such reductions being a central rationale behind the adoption decision.  Instead, implementation was associated with a long-term increase in the incarceration rate in Colombia, while it had no statistically significant effect in Chile.  Further analyses of EM use revealed that its effect on the penal net varied across time, place, and target population, and Toda Yamamoto causality tests indicated that these variations were associated with citizen perceptions of insecurity, country resource levels, and MCSP involvement.  Ultimately, these findings suggest that piecemeal privatization may not only widen the penal net, but narrow, densify, or lighten it depending upon the implementation context, approach, and the implementers themselves.