I'm being a little bit facetious. When the government actually owns/operates the labor or equipment they can do a lot more. In the prison example state COs are certainly better than rent-a-cops.

It's just unfortunate that's how most administrators work. The traditional debate about public vs private usually focuses on different tradeoffs and incentives of the public - but if they are just paying market vendors it's greatly diminished.

I agree the officer story is the most significant difference, with state COs being more like police - likely to be well trained, have a long term stake in the career, and having somewhat of a social service culture.