A Major Headache for CCA
"My motivation is simple: The private prisons are a failure, and we keep the public safe. We know how to do it."
Kevin Bibbee, a CO from state-run Belmont Correctional Institute in St. Clairsville, Ohio, sums up why people like him make the annual bus trip to Nashville, Tenn., to demonstrate at the shareholders’ meeting of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
Last May, corrections employees from the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association (OCSEA)/AFSCME Local 11, were joined by anti-prison-privatization forces from the Public Safety and Justice Campaign, Restorative Justice Ministries and the Michigan Correctional Organization/Service Employees International Union. As they chanted "CCA, Go Away" outside the meeting, a few of their counterparts attended it to grill the for-profit’s CEO, John Ferguson.
They took Ferguson to task on the issue of the excessive use of stock options, which enrich the CEO and top managers at the expense of shareholders and the public. Mike Marette, AFSCME’s assistant director of corrections, told CCA’s top man that he and his supporters would recommend that shareholders sell their stock. Ferguson asked Marette if he had considered other alternatives. Marette replied: "There are no other options because what you’re doing is similar to Enron and WorldCom," whose corporate malfeasance has cost investors billions of dollars.
Tim Shafer, president of the OCSEA Corrections Assembly, added sharply: "The common shareholders have no power to make policy, make changes or have a voice in the operation of the company. A small group of investors own the majority, and they’re the ones who make the policies, pick their CEOs, decide who’s going to get what and how much bilking they can do of the common shareholders."
Recently, CCA has been wrapping up settlements with investors who accused management of failing to disclose information about a corporate restructuring that caused the firm’s stock to plunge 93 percent.
In addition, the group got Ferguson to admit that CCA will receive a tax rebate. It will be used to pay off $30 million in debt. The company had already received a previous bailout by the federal government. In 2000, the company was swamped by huge debt and on the verge of bankruptcy. Yet, the Federal Bureau of Prisons awarded CCA three contracts worth $760 million over 20 years to house inmates who are non-U.S. citizens.
Later, Marette, Shafer and others met the protesters outside to brief them on the proceedings. Two former female inmates who had just happened to be walking by joined them. One gave an impromptu and critical analysis of the differences between for-profit vs. public prisons.
"The county jail and the penitentiary acted like they cared about me," she recalls. "They told me things I could do so I wouldn’t keep coming back; CCA does nothing like that. To them, I guess they want me to come back so that they can make more money.
"When I go to jail I have no self-respect or self-esteem. I have nothing. And the way to get me to change is not to continue to kick me when I’m down. Make me pay for my crime. But don’t make me pay for it by jeopardizing my health and cleanliness."
Don’t expect OCSEA members to give up the fight. Their plan is to continue to expose the ill-gotten gains of privately run facilities, shape public sentiment and force federal, state and local officials to keep prison management in the public domain.
Second-year protester Mitch Gooding, a CO from Lima Correctional Institution, is in all the way. "When I came here last year, I so much enjoyed getting involved that I said I was going to start doing it every year. Hopefully this will grow every year, with people from other states who are dealing with privatization climbing on board."
