CCA On Defensive After July Youngstown Break
It took a month before all six escapees were back behind bars, but the tragic fallout continues after the July 25th break from the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown, Ohio, which is owned and operated by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
As a result of the escape, some 300 maximum-security prisoners were ordered to be transferred to other facilities by Oct. 1. Several inmates were moved to a New Mexico CCA prison where they attacked five staff persons shortly after arrival. Two inmates were transferred to a CCA prison in Tennessee, despite a federal judge’s order to separate them. Once in Tennessee, one inmate stabbed the other to death.
AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee has issued a statement calling on the state to close the prison, saying, “The prison break is the latest link in a chain of disturbing events that provide hard evidence of CCA’s inability to run a prison professionally and safely.” Meanwhile, the city of Youngstown, in contract re-negotiation talks with CCA, has called for a $5-per-day inmate fee and control over the classification of inmates.
Ohio Civil Service Employees Association/AFSCME Local 11 continues to lead the charge against the private-prison giant CCA in Ohio, seeking to improve state regulation and oversight, as well as to repeal a law that calls for two more privately operated prisons in the state.
Opened in May 1997, the Youngstown facility already has seen two murders, at least 19 stabbings and numerous assaults on inmates and COs. Just two days before the July prison break, CCA told a federal judge that all violent prisoners had been removed from Northeast Center.
Ohio’s legislative prison-oversight committee held a series of hearings following the break, which revealed insufficient security, including an inadequate number of officers in the prison yard and on perimeter patrol at the time of the escape, and a failure of the fence-alarm system.
Ohio newspapers have reported an exodus of COs from the facility because of poor training and dangerous conditions. A number of COs reported dangerous-duty assignment without any training in the use of firearms.
While CCA reports it has improved security at the Youngstown prison, the only justice done to CCA thus far has been dished out by Wall Street. In the two weeks following the Youngstown escapes, CCA’s stock fell by 25 percent. By November, Wall Street’s discontent with the nation’s largest private operator of prisons was reflected in a 49 percent drop in stock value for the year to date.
Another CCA Break...
Four dangerous inmates escaped from the CCA-operated South Central Correctional Center in Clifton, Tenn., in mid-October. All four have been recaptured. Reports say a section of fence around the prison-yard ballfield had been cut, providing the escape route. Just a month before this latest CCA break, Tennessee Gov. Don Sundquist (R) announced he was giving up on his drive to privatize the state’s $450 million prison system.
Officials Speak Out on CCA
Following the summer Youngstown escape, officials in Ohio had this to say:
“This company has been as deceitful and dishonest as any we’ve ever dealt with. In January, they said there weren’t any maximum-security inmates here, and then in June, they admitted to 160. What the hell’s a maxi? Jack the Ripper?”
Youngstown Mayor George McKelvey
“I have been increasingly concerned with the management and operation of the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center since it opened last year. The most recent incident ... has justifiably increased the concerns of local citizens, not to mention the added costs of local law enforcement of hunting for these escaped inmates.
“ ... advise me what steps we can take to close this prison.”
Ohio Gov. George Voinovich in a letter to state Attorney General Betty Montgomery. Montgomery later replied that there were no current statutes through which the governor could close the prison.
