Publications

Privatization Watch

COLORADO: School officials in Denver were disturbed to find out that their district’s pension fund made money from a company that the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) set up to buy its prisons, CCA Prison Realty Trust. Some school board members have begun questioning whether certain types of businesses are appropriate for a school district’s investment portfolio.

CONNECTICUT: AFSCME Council 4 defeated Gov. John Rowland’s (R) proposal to spend $7.6 million in the new budget to export 350 inmates to out-of-state facilities. According to Council 4 Exec. Director Mike Ferrucci, “Common sense dictates that public dollars ought to be spent employing Connecticut residents for needed services in our own state.”

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Congress has mandated that the Federal Bureau of Prisons house thousands of the D.C. inmates under its care in private facilities. These facilities will be located within a 300-mile radius of the nation’s capital.

FLORIDA: A Wackenhut security guard purposely left a door open at the Broward County Work Release Center so that two inmates could walk to freedom, according to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. The guard has been arrested and charged with two counts of aiding and abetting an escape. The arrest came a day after Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne announced a plan to have Wackenhut build a new jail that the Sheriff’s Office will run.

Two lawmakers have proposed a bill that would make private companies pay full medical costs for prisoners housed at the facilities they operate, rather than have the state pick up all medical costs over $7,500, as is now the case. The proposal would also ban private prisons from importing out-of-state inmates to fill vacant beds in the state. The current law allows such importing, though none has yet occurred.

INDIANA: Wackenhut is teaming with Geupel Demars Inc. in proposing to build and manage the new addition and renovation of the Johnson County Jail. Smith Consulting Services, which is evaluating the construction proposals for the county, reports: “[Privatization] is not cheaper on a day-to-day basis. The cost of heating and cooling a space is the same no matter who is running the jail.”

KANSAS: CCA paid its 1997 property taxes for the Leavenworth Detention Center under protest, arguing that 90 percent of its property should be classified as residential. The property is currently classified as 100 percent commercial.

NEW JERSEY: A jury convicted three private prison employees of Esmor Correctional Services (since renamed Correctional Services Corporation) of abuse in the vicious 1995 beating of immigrants who had rioted at a federal detention center to protest their mistreatment. According to authorities, the detainees were forced to march while saying, “America is number one,” as they were punched and kicked. Other abuses by employees included grabbing and pulling an inmate by his penis with pliers, and dragging inmates by their beards and pushing their heads into toilets.

Since then, CCA has taken over the administration of this INS detention center. In May 1998, the former administrator of the detention center filed a lawsuit alleging that he was wrongfully terminated by CCA after raising concerns about the company’s forcible sedation of detainees.

NEW MEXICO: AFSCME Council 18 helped defeat a proposal calling for the state to financially bail out Wackenhut by purchasing two prisons that the company is currently constructing, while allowing Wackenhut to keep the profits from managing the facilities.

NORTH CAROLINA: U.S. Corrections Corporation, which was recently purchased by CCA, is building two 528-bed prisons in Pamlica and Avery counties. Several lawmakers want the company to convert them into 934-bed prisons, largely by double-bunking inmates. Other lawmakers, however, have pointed out that USCC would have 68 COs supervising 528 inmates.

OHIO: Washington, D.C., inmates being housed in a CCA facility in Youngstown have been joined by the Ohio city in their federal class action lawsuit against CCA for excessive force. CCA has acknowledged 13 stabbings, including two homicides, since the facility opened last May. In mid-March, a federal judge in Ohio ordered D.C. to stop sending inmates to the Youngstown facility. Lawmakers also passed a bill in March setting standards for prisoner care and addressing other prison privatization issues — including specifying that the state and localities are responsible for quelling inmate riots and capturing escapees from the Youngstown facility, with the associated costs chargeable to CCA.

OKLAHOMA: Because of major inmate uprisings, state corrections officials are removing 174 prisoners from a Texas prison operated by the Bobby Ross Group. Part of the reason for the removal is that Oklahoma officials cannot file new felony charges when the inmates commit new crimes, because the offenses occur out of state.

PENNSYLVANIA: In light of public opposition, Houston-based Cornell Corrections is looking for a new site for its proposed 1,900- to 2,200-bed facility. Some 80 residents and elected officials pelted Cornell representatives with angry questions at a public meeting to explain the private firm’s proposal to build a facility at the Mid-State Airport.

TENNESSEE: Lt. Gov. John Wilder (D) withdrew his bill to privatize as much as 70 percent of the state’s prison system. Key members of the state senate opposed the bill, saying they were skeptical that it would save much money.

A study of the CCA-run South Central Correction Center in Clifton, for 1993-94, verified what AFSCME has repeatedly contended: CCA boosts its corporate profits by “spending less on employees.” The study showed that CCA paid about $1.8 million less in salaries and benefits than the state did at comparable prisons. The study was commissioned by the state legislature.

CCA wants to begin a prison industry program at the Hardeman County facility in western Tennessee. The company gets a per diem for housing state inmates, but now also wants to retain money deducted from inmate wages for room and board credit. The Hardeman County facility is owned by the county, operated by CCA, and houses state prisoners. “It looks like it would be double dipping,” said Doug Jones, chairman of the board of the Tennessee Rehabilitative Initiative in Correction, which oversees all prison industries programs.

TEXAS: The firm that operated the Brazoria County Detention Center when inmate abuse was captured on videotape and broadcast nationwide last summer got out of the jail business in Texas. The negative publicity from the videotaped incident was too much for Capital Correctional Resources Inc. of Jackson, Miss., to overcome. Brazoria County commissioners canceled the CCRI contract, effective May 7. “It should have been [canceled] a long time ago,” said County Commissioner Jim Clawson.

VIRGINIA: The state’s first private prison opened this spring in Lawrenceville, with its first inmates arriving in late March. Built and managed by CCA, the medium-security facility has 1,500 beds.

Sources: Albuquerque Tribune; Associated Press; Denver Post; Environmental Impact Report; Indianapolis Star; The Kansas City Star; The News and Observer Publishing Company; Prison Reform Trust; The [Bergen County, N.J.] Record; The Richmond [Va.] Times Dispatch; [Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.] Sun-Sentinel; Tampa [Fla.] Tribune; The Tennessean; Tulsa [Okla.] World Capitol Bureau; The Washington Post; The Washington Times.

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