Privatizing the agencies that find foster parents made the job cost a lot more.
A little of that increased cost provided a raise for the foster
parents, but most of it went to the business owners, through a
tax-dodging scheme.
Privatizing the supervision of convicts on probation was supposedly
going to do a better job of keeping them out of crime, and more
efficiently. It didn't work.
This is what I would have expected, for two reasons — one specific,
and one general.
The general reason is that privatizing government services usually
does a bad job. It has to cut corners in order to squeeze out profit.
It has to pay people less, so it gets workers who are less capable
and has them spend less time on each job (convict).
The specific reason is that human contact helps guide people away from
crime. The way these companies increase "efficiency" means less human
contact.