|
By DAVID PHINNEY
NEW YORK -- Looking for cheap labor,
inexpensive land and obliging local officials to build your
next prison?
How about locating in
Mexico
?
Arizona
is doing just that-considering plans to ship its convicts to
a private prison across the border.
However, officials warn the plan
isn’t a done deal.
“We’re just in a holding pattern
right now,” Arizona Department of Corrections spokesman
Michael Arra cautioned
But in the new socioeconomics of
private prisons, it doesn’t always matter where the
inmates come from -- or where they go. Some companies
eagerly ship prisoners thousands of miles around the country
to cut costs and improve profit margins.
Communities Ready to Cut Deals
“The governmental customer is looking
for one single thing and that is how to save money,” says
Susan Hart, spokeswoman for the Corrections Corporation of
America
, the nation’s largest private-prison firm. “We can save
money. It is primarily a cost-efficiency -driven process.”
Private prisons in
Arizona
now welcome inmates from
Alaska
.
Puerto Rico
sends convicts to corporate-run jails in
New Mexico
. Prisoners who broke
Oregon
state laws find themselves serving time in
Tennessee
.
Hawaii
sends women criminals to
Texas
.
A key part of the business plan calls
for finding communities ready to cut deals for the jobs a
new prison can deliver.
“Every month I see another prison
going up around the country as part of an economic
development program,” says Adrian T. Moore, a
privatization expert with the Reason Foundation, a
libertarian think-tank. “They bring in a lot of money to
the local economy.”
Legal Loopholes, Flights of Freedom
But like any business, prison companies
are secretive about what goes on behind their walls.
Sometimes, the community that courted the private prison
company pays an unexpected price.
When two inmates hopped the fence at
the
Houston
Processing
Center
in
Texas
, local officials were stunned. They figured the private
facility was just a holding pen for illegal immigrants.
Little did they know the owner contracted out empty beds for
some 200
Oregon
sex offenders-including the two that escaped.
The
Houston
police were even more surprised when they discovered
Texas
lacked specific laws that make it illegal to escape from a
private prison. Jumping the fence of a private prison was no
worse than quitting a job. Yet, the Corrections Corporation
of
America
expected the police to track down the convicts -- and pick
up the tab for doing so.
Eleven days later, the escaped
prisoners were busted-for auto theft. The
Texas
legislature rushed to pass laws addressing the matter, but
other states continue to learn the hard way.
One year after the first private prison
opened in
Youngstown
,
Ohio
, the legislature there passed its first laws applying to
it. Politicians were furious when they learned the company
that ran the prison, CCA, had brought in hundreds of
dangerous inmates from
Washington
,
D.C.
’s overcrowded prison.
‘A Case of Dumping’
Youngstown Mayor George McKelvey says
he appreciates the jobs, but mistrusts the prison operator,
CCA.
“
Ohio
stopped out-of-state landfill a while ago because people
don’t want it in their communities,” says McKelvey of
the private 1,700-bed prison.
“This is a case of dumping, too,”
he says. “The dumping of undesirables from other states. I
don’t know how receptive the community would have been if
we knew they were going to bring in
Washington
,
D.C.
’s worst criminals.”
CCA officials said the disagreement
stemmed from a misunderstanding about the specifics of the
security classification
Youngstown
’s prison had, and that all new prisons go through
adjustment periods.
Others note that interstate transfers
are routine in the federal system as well.
“If you were popped for a federal
crime in
Seattle
, there is a very real chance you could serve time in a
federal prison in
Miami
,” notes Charles Thomas, criminology professor at the
University
of
Florida
.
That wasn’t the case with state
prisons, however, until private companies discovered their
winning formula.
“If you are tried and convicted in
the name of the state, then you should be held by the
auspices of the state,” says
American
University
law professor Ira Robbins, who has written against
privatization for the American Bar Association.
“I want to see the name of the state
on a guard’s uniform, not ‘Acme Corrections’ or
whatever. I want them to know they have violated the
state’s norms and be reminded of that by the state, not
just someone who is making a profit on the inmates.”
|
