During Corrections Officers Week, A CO Speaks Out About Privatization

by Jon Melegrito  |  May 11, 2012

Paul Wilson is a member of the ACU National Steering Committee, which held its Spring meeting in Washington, DC, during Corrections Officers Week. (Photo by Jon Melegrito)

The battle to preserve quality public services is not over in Louisiana.

Corrections officer Paul Wilson knows the big business interests, who want to privatize his and other prisons, will be back. But as long as he’s president of Local  3803, he’s not about to let prison operators like GEO or Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) have big fun on the bayou. As in, big profits from running state corrections facilities.

A corrections officer for 19 years at the Avoyelles Correctional Center (AVC) in Cottonport, Wilson says “we have been able so far to beat back private prison operators from gaining a foothold in the state. And we are determined to keep it that way.”

Last year, Gov. Bobby Jindal tried but failed to sell some of the prisons. Legislators didn’t like the idea of balancing a budget with one-time revenues from a prison sale.  Louisiana State Treasurer John Kennedy compared the strategy to “a junkie selling the television set and radio to generate money for his next fix.”

Eager to please his corporate backers, Jindal tried again this year. Again – thanks to Democrats and Republicans who opposed the move, Jindal bowed to public pressure and backed off from the sale.

“But we know these profit-hungry corporations and their allies in Baton Rouge [the state capital] will keep pumping campaign money to politicians to get their way,” Wilson says. “We won’t let them. There’s too much at stake to hand over the prison to private control.”

Wilson’s immediate concern is the financial impact to his 300 coworkers at AVC. “Privateers claim they will save money for the state,” Wilson says. “But I’ve read studies that show most of the savings are achieved by dramatically reducing salaries and benefits for employees. Many of our members won’t be able to feed their families. I know our members are worried about bankruptcies and house foreclosures, not to mention losing their jobs.”

“Expect high turnovers because of poor pay and benefits,” he adds, “and the hiring of inexperienced officers who will settle for lower wages. That’s a recipe for danger. When you have overcrowding and staff shortages inside prison walls, that fosters disturbances, break outs and even hostage situations. When that happens, you endanger the staff, inmates and the general public.”