Empty Promise 3: Private Prisons Provide Good, Quality Jobs
Private prison companies often build facilities in areas that are economically depressed, gaining local support by promising secure, good-paying jobs.
REALITY: Private Prisons Don't Provide Good, Quality Jobs
- According to The Corrections Yearbook, 2000, the average annual starting salary for public corrections officers was $23,002, compared to $17,628 for private prison guards. The poor pay undoubtedly contributes to the high turnover that exists in private prisons, a whopping 52.2 percent, compared to 16 percent in publicly run prisons.
- Plenty of anecdotal evidence substantiates a high level of staff turnover in privately operated prisons. Wackenhut Corporation, now the GEO Group Inc., won a contract to build and operate the East Mississippi Correctional Facility. City and county officials hoped the facility would create up to 350 jobs. News reports from 2005 revealed that the facility currently employs 220 people with an annual turnover rate of 65 percent.
- For several years, CCA has had a number of operational problems at the the Hernando County Jail in Florida. For instance, from November 2005 to January 2006 there were three inmate suicides at the jail. A 2005 quality assurance audit outlined problems at the facility, including high turnover, and pointed out that 51 percent of the staff had less than one year of experience. The report also noted that the warden and chief of security had only been on the job for three months, and the assistant warden had less than a year's experience.
- A 2005 audit of Florida's juvenile justice system found that private prison companies pay direct care staff less than the state. For instance, the starting salary for state residential employees is $22,571 while the private companies have an average starting salary of just $17,160 and a median salary of $18,663. The Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability also found that the training requirements for private employees are lower than those of state employees.
- In 2005, the U.S. Department of Labor required Management and Training Corporation to pay $169,105 in back wages to employees at five locations. A nationwide audit of the company revealed that security personnel had not been paid for pre- and post-shift time worked. The violations occurred at correctional facilities in Grafton, Ohio, and Santa Fe, New Mexico.