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Incentives for this are all weird. You have literal customer lock-in, so you can promise anything and deliver nothing. The recidivism metric would probably cau

• acchow 7y ago
  > You have literal customer lock-in You could let the prisoners freely switch to public while they're locked up. The main issue I have with this system is that the "consumers" making the choices (the prisoners) of product aren't paying for the cost. So incentives aren't really aligned.
• squiggleblaz 7y ago
  > The recidivism metric would probably cause private prisons to try to avoid or eject worst prisoners, so you'd end up with a 2-tier system, where private prisons are hotels for "nice" people, and public prisons are a hell-hole for the rest. Yes, so you'd have to run the metric based on who was initially assigned to the prison. "Oh, John was assigned to your prison, but one look at his record and you decided to expel him? Well, you're still responsible for his recidivism, because you chose to not serve him. Oh, Jack was assigned to state prison, and you tried to encourage him? Well, you're not responsible for his recidivism, because you selected him." But yeah, I agree in general that the thing about metrics is that they can be gamed.