For Immediate Release
Monday, July 27, 1998
Statement by AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee In Reaction to Governor Voinovich Call to Close CCA’s For-Profit Prison
"The prison break is the latest link in a chain of disturbing events that provide the hard evidence of CCA’s inability to run a prison professionally and safely. To say the facility was having certain start up issues is an understatement. How many inmates have to escape or be murdered to reveal the problems when a profit motive is part of prison incarceration?
"Governor Voinovich should be applauded for taking the necessary step to close the CCA operated prison. I want to be clear: the Youngstown facility is not an anomaly. For-profit prisons are chiefly concerned with turning a profit. When disturbances and escapes arise, it is the taxpayers who must once again foot the bill.
"In pursuit of high profits, private prison firms cut corners when it comes to correctional officer training and inmate to correctional officer ratios. This practice guarantees two things: big pay-offs for stockholders and big risks for the general public.
"Crime shouldn’t pay -- and taxpayers shouldn’t pay CCA."
AFSCME’s Corrections arm, AFSCME Corrections United (ACU), represents 100,000 corrections employees throughout the country including 10,000 corrections employees in Ohio.
