| New public management (NPM), a reform movement that has shifted the provision of goods and services away from government towards private institutions, is firmly entrenched in the United States. The Hollow State, a metaphor used synonymously with contracting out, reflects the growing trend of using nongovernmental networks---often nonprofits but also for-profit organizations---to deliver social services to vulnerable populations. With more than 700,000 individuals released from prison each year, most of whom face formidable barriers to successful reentry, the partnering of criminal justice, social services, and community based services is becoming the preferred solution for addressing the soaring costs of America's burgeoning correctional system.In addition to a simple analysis of the efficiency and effectiveness of these third party relationships, which often lump together nonprofit and for-profit organizations as though they were the same, there are ethical implications intrinsic to these relationships that are not only important to the public goals of the contracting decision, but differ according to the organizational form. Using a qualitative research design based on interviews with reentry experts and a teleological ethics framework to focus on the unintended consequences of the contracting relationships, this dissertation examines key distinctions between nonprofit and for-profit agencies that facilitate prisoner reintegration.The results of the study suggest that although nonprofit and for-profit reentry organizations share many legal and behavioral characteristics, they continue to exhibit a number of important differences. These distinctions---fundamental values, capacity building efforts, treatment models, and accountability---underscore that nonprofits simply do something very different from either business or government. However, these differences are eroding. In the competitive environment of the NPM paradigm, where sectoral differences are devalued, the nonprofit sector is adopting more business strategies, including some of the for-profit sector's less transparent and self-interested behaviors. The latent implications of this evolution include the loss of important democratic traditions such as social capital and the perceived legitimacy of the nonprofit sector. In the policy area of reentry, implications also include the potential for exploitation of a long overlooked means---prisoners---in an effort to reach the desired ends, the winning of contracts. |
