I think it mostly comes down to having good contracts in place between the prisons and the state so that the prisons have the correct incentives. I do not have a good knowledge of how the contracts work.
I think the contracts in place are temporary and need regular renewal. If a contract for a private prison is not renewed after x years then the building and management will revert to state ownership.
I believe there are both state-run and private run prisons in the UK. They are compared and in some sense this acts as a check and balance because of one system is working much worse than the other it drives change.
I note that prisons are private but that parole services are state-run (or at least reverting to be state run as they did not work privatised).
I do not have a lot of information on it. Maybe start with: https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/our-work/policy-making/government-outsourcing
I think it mostly comes down to having good contracts in place between the prisons and the state so that the prisons have the correct incentives. I do not have a good knowledge of how the contracts work.
I think the contracts in place are temporary and need regular renewal. If a contract for a private prison is not renewed after x years then the building and management will revert to state ownership.
I believe there are both state-run and private run prisons in the UK. They are compared and in some sense this acts as a check and balance because of one system is working much worse than the other it drives change.
I note that prisons are private but that parole services are state-run (or at least reverting to be state run as they did not work privatised).
Hope that helps