ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the growth of private prisons in Australia. It can be seen that about 20 percent of the projected Australian prison population could be held in a total of eight private prisons by the end of the twentieth century. Evaluating United States developments, the director of the Private Corrections Project at the University of Florida stated that the 'alternative created by correctional privatization has moved well beyond the "interesting experiment" status it had in the mid-1980s to the "proven option" status it enjoys'. Private prisons were coming on-stream at regular intervals. Australia was the second westernized Anglophone country to commission and open a private prison. Two other private prisons quickly followed: the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre in Queensland and Junee prison in New South Wales. The British government had also announced that it was committed to commissioning at least four more private prisons, with a total capacity of about 2800 beds.
