Private providers claim that they offer superior management skills, streamlined decisionmaking, the ability to expand or contract rapidly, flexibility in labor policies, and more efficient purchasing procedures. Opponents argue that adding the profit motive will reduce justice and accountability and will sacrifice inmates' welfare for the pursuit of profits. They also believe that employees will be harmed through wage and benefit cuts and that private providers will lobby for harsher sentences and more incarceration. Most observers believe that the crucial question is whether private contractors will merely run an outmoded and inhumane system more efficiently or whether they will implement real improvements. People on both sides also agree that controls are essential to ensure that public safety and inmate care, rather than private profits, are the basis of correctional policy. Only three States, including Massachusetts, have laws authorizing privately operated State prisons, and only two allow contract jail operations. The laws reflect widely varying views of the best way to govern private prisons. This study was conducted at the request of the Massachusetts Legislature. Footnotes and table.