At Privatized Prisons, the Bottom Line Trumps Safety

Where a culture of violence is rampant, public and staff safety come second to profit

Where a culture of violence is rampant, public and staff safety come second to profit

A damning, in-depth report of the private prison industry, issued by AFSCME last year, got another round of support in a new CNBC report detailing violent conditions inside the privately run Idaho Correctional Center (ICC).

AFSCME’s report, “Making a Killing: How Prison Corporations Are Profiting from Campaign Contributions and Putting Taxpayers at Risk,” detailed some of the worst cases of violence and death in the nation’s privately operated jails. It found these prisons had higher levels of violence and inmate and staff deaths than public facilities.

Reporters for CNBC have since turned their cameras on the private prison model in place in Idaho, claiming the prison was so violent it’s called “gladiator school.” Twenty-four inmates filed a class action suit against the prison’s management. Why? “Because of the assaults,” former corrections counselor Todd Goertzen said in the CNBC report. “If you’re going to ICC, you’re going to fight or die, basically.”

What happened inside the Idaho jail, says CNBC reporter Scott Cohn, “is the story of a dangerous business: the billions of dollars that flow into the American prison industry and the companies that profit from it.”

The shocking revelations did not surprise Allan MacLean. A member of Local 3940 (Oregon Council 75) and its president for two years, MacLean has known all along that for-profit prisons are so poorly administered that they jeopardize officers’ safety, and inmates often end up running the show. He considers himself fortunate to work in a unionized workplace at Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario, Ore. The state-run corrections facility across the border is only 68 miles away from the Idaho prison, but they are vastly different in terms of prison conditions.

The difference is that the ICC is operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest prison privateer, which oversees some 75,000 inmates in more than 60 facilities. A unionized state-run facility, on the other hand, is a different situation. Safer inside. More secure to the community outside.

Indeed, “There are many reasons to worry about prison privatization,” said Amy Hanauer, executive director of Policy Matters Ohio. Reacting to a recent study which showed that selling off Ohio prisons might also end up costing the state more, she points out that “Private prisons are less accountable than public facilities and may spend less on safety.”

Culture of Violence

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed the class action suit on behalf of the ICC inmates, charged that CCA’s management “promotes and facilitates a culture of rampant violence… the direct result of ICC officials turning a blind eye to the brutality and a reliance on violence as a management tool.” Other inmates who joined the lawsuit also complained that proper medical care was routinely denied in an effort to cover the extent of their injuries. CCA eventually settled the ACLU lawsuit and agreed to make improvements.

“Corrections is a very dangerous job,” notes Marty Hathaway, a 32-year veteran at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville and a member of Local 2985 (Iowa Council 61). “But these corporations are not concerned about public safety. They want to cut corners to make a dollar. I work for the citizens of Iowa, not for a private company. Only professionals like me can be relied on to protect the public.”