A just-released draft report by In the Public Interest, a nonprofit contracting watchdog, offers nationwide look into just how the push for privatization is screwing up everything, from sick nuns to broken roads to beaten foster children.

.School-cafeteria workers in New Jersey saw their hourly wages cut by $4 to $6 an hour after their jobs were privatized. "We use our personal sick days just to get paid so we can pay rent for the next month," one told investigators.

.Denver contracted with a Portuguese company to run a toll-road for 99 years. That firm successfully prevented the construction of a free road nearby, citing its contract. The city is stuck unable to build new roads nearby for a century unless it richly compensates the toll-road operator.


.65 percent of private prisons require the states and cities they work with to meet inmate quotas, forcing governments to find inmates to keep the jails up to a profitable capacity.

Eager for quick cash, state and local governments across America have for decades handed over control of critical public services and assets to corporations that promise to handle them better, faster and cheaper. Unfortunately for taxpayers, not only has outsourcing these services failed to keep this promise, but too often it undermines transparency, accountability, shared prosperity and competition – the underpinnings of democracy itself. As state legislatures soon reconvene, policy makers likely will consider more outsourcing proposals. Out of Control: The Coast-to-Coast Failures of Outsourcing Public Services to For-Profit Corporations serves as a cautionary tale for lawmakers and taxpayers alike.