Prison Privatization and Public Discourse

该项目审查了在大规模监禁的背景下报纸上关于监狱私有化的报道。将国家的强制职能委托给私人承包商被一些人视为政府性质的根本转变，而另一些人则认为这仅仅是一种效率措施。确定这一问题是否以及如何在新闻来源中被描述，对于理解公共话语和政府政策之间的关系非常重要。相关新闻报道载于1985-2005年四个州的四份“全国性”报纸和1995-2005年另外六个州的区域性报纸的电子档案中。这10个州在使用私人监狱的程度上各不相同。新闻故事被编码为监狱私有化话语的突出性（数量和可见性），演员用来谈论私人矫正的框架（例如，政府的性质、成本、安全），行为者的要求的效价（即，支持或反对），以及各种类型的行为者的地位（例如，惩教管理人员、私营惩教公司、工会领导人、民选官员）就私营惩教提出申诉。分析探讨了监狱私有化程度在不同时间和地点的话语变化。由于媒体扩散效应，预测了时间内新闻源之间的一些相似性。尽管有这些扩散效应，新闻来源之间的差异也预测，由于国家的差异，在政治突出的问题和配置的政治行为体。三种类型的国家预计存在：不启动，没有私人监狱或建议，很少有新闻报道的问题;不反对，监狱私有化没有争议，新闻报道很少，只关心成本和效率;和冲突，有私人监狱的建议，积极反对他们，新闻报道，包括关键帧。结果揭示了公共话语的演变，既响应和限制政府责任的转变。

This project examines newspaper stories about prison privatization in the context of mass incarceration. Delegating a coercive function of the state to private contractors was viewed by some as a fundamental shift in the nature of government, and by others as merely an efficiency measure. Determining whether and how this issue was portrayed in news sources is important for understanding the relation between public discourse and government policy. Relevant news stories are located in electronic archives of four "national" newspapers based in four states for 1985-2005 and regional newspapers located in an additional six states for 1995-2005. These 10 states vary in the extent to which they used private prisons. News stories are coded for the prominence (volume and visibility) of prison privatization discourse, the frames actors used to talk about private corrections (e.g., nature of government, costs, safety), the valence of actors' claims (i.e., support or opposition), and the standing of various types of actors (e.g., corrections administrators, private corrections firms, union leaders, elected officials) in making claims about private corrections. Analysis examines variation in the discourse across time and place in relation to the extent of prison privatization. Some similarities across news sources within time due to media diffusion effects are predicted. Despite these diffusion effects, differences between news sources are also predicted due to state differences in the political salience of the issue and the configuration of political actors. Three types of states are predicted to exist: non-starter, with no private prisons or proposals for them and little news coverage of the issue; unopposed, where prison privatization occurs without controversy and news coverage is scant and concerns cost and efficiency only; and conflict where there are proposals for private prisons, active opposition to them and news coverage that includes critical frames. Results shed light on the evolution of public discourse as both a response to and a constraint on shifting governmental responsibilities.