In the tail winds of the visit by the new US secretary of state to El Salvador its president offered the United State to take in criminals – both out of the cohort of illegal immigrants as well as regular Americans for the purpose of hosting them in prisons in El Salvador for a fee. That fee was stated to be much lower than the cost of imprisonment in the US. I am not sure about the legality and practicality of such a move, but it is a surprising preposition.
Most recently I got to listen to the Washington county district attorney Kevin Bart at the local Rotary club meeting. He was updating the group about the operations of his department and the focus of current activities of the justice department. He highlighted that his office is determined to fight unchecked shop lifting and the threat of shop lifting becoming a common, expected and accepted behavior (like apparently cybercrime has). Visible grab and run type thefts in bright daylight impedes the public’s need for safety and the expectation for enforcement of that safety in their communities by law enforcement. In this context he shared that financial pressures are limiting or slowing down these efforts. The county can only operate their jail at half capacity and often must release prisoners to make room for the most severe crimes. In addition, the no-show count at court hearings has risen significantly – indicating that people that display criminal behavior take advantage of the lack of follow-up and continue their unlawful activities. Now in this discussion we are talking about county and state facilities and not facilities at the federal level.
Still, is outsourcing the law enforcement an option to get a handle on this situation? Assuming this is after all a budget and human resource shortage. I don’t know if the state and local criminals were included in the offer by the El Salvadorian president but since this offer is a business proposal I think it could in principle be conceivable to extend it. Kevin Bart mentioned the proven deterring effect of visibly declared intent of prosecution and practical action on crime prosecution – here if it was not unchecked. It is proven that as a result the crime rates are lower. I can imagine the prospect of a faraway prison or prison camp would certainly influence people considering running out of the store with unpaid goods.
A second consideration springs from that – funding shortage and high cost of operating in the US. Recognizing this has been the driver for many companies for decades to look for cheaper options to source manufacturing, services and materials from abroad. The proposal by the president of El Salvador as odd as it may seem strikes that very cord – but here for the public sector that has not had that lever in the past or has not considered it – at least to my knowledge at any significant scale. Perhaps this is different for material goods needed for the operation of facilities here in the US – like medical supplies: for example the masks we wore during Covid.
To me it highlights the deeper challenge of the economy and the current general drive to reverse the previous offshoring of manufacturing and services that contributes to the imbalance in trade. I would imagine that the operations cost of a prison is dominated by personnel cost. It is a service that does not have a large value-add compared to industrial services or even products in its immediate execution. So, it is a prime candidate for offshoring if available? Apparently, it may be so.
This is a reminder that a commercial undertaking must be cost competitive and technically competitive – in the local market but further in the world at large. Imprisoning criminals is a new and surprising example, but other services have been sourced from outside the US – for example telephone support in financial and IT matters. Continuous competition is what I experienced throughout my career and that is how we used to measure our business and how we derived the long-term strategy back then. I think this is still the case. I do believe that it is competitiveness that will ultimately lead to economic leadership and a prosperous economy including the establishment of high value-add manufacturing positions here in the US. Others are competing both with offers of lower labor cost or in several areas with advanced technologies. Prison services are just another perhaps unexpected example of that. No matter what field we look at – companies (and perhaps also governments) seeing economic opportunities will seek to materialize them.
Outsourcing the jail operation alone would not create a functioning system – the broader scope of the entire justice system would need to be adopted – here lawful representation and trials for the implicated people. Covid has taught us remote work – via teams of zoom – so the technology to allow us to work physically disconnected from the premises of our companies was proven. The desire to maintain and expand public safety is a strong driver to come up with solutions.