일본의 PFI(민간혼합운영)교도소의 도입과 우리나라에의 적용가능성

Abstract

The Japanese government installed private prisons adopting the PFI (Private Finance Initiative) system and started their operation from 2007. This policy is considered a solution to problems such as increasing crimes resulting from worsening public security and overcrowded prisons due to more severe punishments and longer imprisonments. That is, the background of the installation of PFI prisons in Japan can be explained with overcrowded cells, the reform of sentence execution, the deregulation problem, etc. Specifically, with the recent trend of increase in the number of unsentenced inmates, first-offender prisoners and female prisoners, each sentence execution facility's occupancy rate rose high and this increased prison officers' workload, and these problems demanded solutions urgently. What is more, with the violence at Nagoya Prison in 2002, it was pointed out that prison administration in Japan had been closed to the public. Since then, there have been discussions on improvement in the transparency of sentence execution, and citizens' participation in prison administration has emerged as a new issue for realizing the idea Prisons Understood and Supported by People. On the other hand, the opening of the government regulation market to private sectors and inducing their participation leads to the creation of new jobs, the activation of local economy, the expansion of community population, etc., and therefore when the opening of the market is promoted using the system of the special zones of structural renovation as a part of deregulation policies, the operation of sentence execution facilities is an object of the renovation. Thus, this study reviewed details on how PFI prisons were founded in Japan and the meanings of the prisons, and examined the implications and applicability of PFI prisons for the expansion of privately operated prisons in Korea.