Report on CCA Confirms Perils of Private Prisons
Problems at Corrections Corporation of America’s Northeast Ohio Correctional Center (NEOCC) in Youngstown are so extensive it should downsize the 1,650-inmate facility by more than a third and improve management, according to a 330-page report written by a team of corrections experts for U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno.
The problems the report highlights mirror many of the concerns AFSCME has repeatedly voiced about the perils of prison privatization.
Reno asked for the report after Ohio’s former governor (George Voinovich, a Republican who has since been elected to the U.S. Senate) called for the prison’s closure because of several recent violent incidents and escapes by six inmates. The prison opened 18 months ago to house mostly District of Columbia prisoners who were transferred from a D.C. corrections facility.
The report looks at NEOCC’s treatment of its inmates. It finds that CCA’s $182 million five-year “flawed contract” with the District of Columbia to house District inmates is too expensive. The contract also imposes few requirements on CCA and contains minimal provisions for enforcement, the report states.
CCA’s Feeble Contract
Such a feeble contract made it difficult for NEOCC to be prepared for the prison’s opening. Therefore serious problems began immediately. The prison was overwhelmed by a precipitous rush to fill it. NEOCC, nevertheless, continued to receive inmates.
The problems were compounded because CCA failed to perform rigorous case reviews and to select carefully the population for transfer, the report says. CCA was irresponsible in accepting several hundred inmates, who required separation from other inmates because they were violent offenders.
But CCA mixed together minimum, medium and maximum-security inmates. CCA then improperly placed them with other D.C. prisoners already at NEOCC.
One day alone, CCA accepted transfers of 156 prisoners, overwhelming staff members who could not keep up with inmate classification, medical screenings and inmate searches, the report says.
CCA accepted and kept those cases, without developing adequate procedures for managing their safety, becoming aware of deficiencies only after a homicide.
Inmate Dies from Knife Attack
Inmate Bryson Chisley, a drug offender, died after two other inmates attacked him with shanks.
The report refers to the events surrounding the death in December of medium-security inmate Chisley as “a devastating convergence of security lapses.”
A culmination of over three months of research and interviews, the report questions CCA’s long-term commitment to solving its problems, given the corporation’s “limited sense of public accountability” to the town and Ohio.
“Expediency often prevailed over good judgment and sound management procedures,” the report says.
The report says that of the 318 officers on CCA’s staff, only 63 — about 20 percent — had prior corrections experience. It also states that minority representation is missing in the higher echelons.
This report comes at a crucial time for CCA. The nation’s largest private prison company is lobbying to win federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) contracts calling for the construction of a 2,200-bed housing complex and training center in Washington, D.C.’s poorest neighborhood. Citizens there have frequently stated their aversion to the CCA-proposed prison.
The District would pay CCA $70.40 a day per inmate, amounting to $56 million a year. The BOP says it is reviewing the Justice Department report before it awards CCA the contract. For copies of the report, write to: U.S. Department of Justice, Publications & Documents, 950 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20530-0001; or read the report on the Web site.
