In New Zealand, a 40% Failure Rate Is Acceptable

Or so says the associate justice minister, who sees no reason to reconsider the country's relationship with Serco, the company that failed to meet 40% of the terms in its contract to operate a private prison there.

GEO Group's Favorable Treatment in NM

Just a quick link here to an article discussing ways New Mexico can reform its criminal justice system to reduce recidivism and costs.  Among the proposals is a request that the state re-work its contract with the GEO Group to reduce payments to the company after staffing levels were reduced at the Hobbs prison.  The state still pays the GEO Group the same amount they did when the staffing levels were higher, a differential of nearly $2 million that the state is now just paying to the GEO Group as profit.  You may also recall that the GEO Group was hit with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines by the state last year for repeated failure to maintain staffing levels; so the actual levels of staff are probably even lower than the already-reduced number New Mexico is overpaying for.

Mississippi Tosses GEO Group!

Mississippi, of all places, has had enough.  Not exactly known for its hospitable prison system, the state announced last Friday that it intends to terminate its contract with the GEO Group to operate 3 facilities, effective in July.  One of those facilities is Walnut Grove, which was recently the target of a lawsuit that brought sweeping change to the way Mississippi incarcerates its youth.  Plagued with violence, medical neglect, and persistent sexual abuse, the facility's conditions were so abysmal that the Department of Justice called it "some of the worst abuse" they had seen in any investigation of a prison or jail.  Children housed there used terms like "barbaric," "a war zone," and "the deepest depths of hell" to describe it.  The settlement in the lawsuit removed all juveniles from Walnut Grove and mandated that they never be held in solitary confinement.  Lest you feel bad for GEO getting slapped around so hard in the lawsuit, remember that they earned millions of dollars in profit by treating children like shit.

Now, the state will pursue a new company to take over operations of the prisons.  Apparently, it hasn't crossed the Governor's mind to just have the government run them.  Anyway, CCA probably has the inside track to take over the prisons, since they already contract with the state to operate two others and can probably offer the lowest bid, because they're the largest and operate the biggest economy of scale in the industry.  I imagine maybe the things like the murder and the multiple suicides in one of the prisons, along with GEO's request for $5 million more per year to operate the prison, caused the state to want to move in a new direction.  GEO, playing the perfect jilted lover, claims it's the one who initiated the split, because the facility had been "financially under-performing," which if true just proves how fickle and greedy their corporate mentality is.

Change is long overdue.  The federal judge who ruled in the lawsuit against Walnut Grove called it a "cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate, the sum of which places the [children] at substantial ongoing risk."  I have no faith in any private prison company to come in and operate these prisons much better - this is far from the first time the industry has dramatically failed to live up to its promises and the terms of its contracts.  Mississippi should think long and hard before inviting yet another for-profit company to operate these prisons. Keeping the door open for the private industry simply invites more abuse.  The state would be much better served by assuming responsibility for its prisoners.  In addition to the considerable improvement many prisoners would see in their living conditions, the state should not continue to funnel taxpayer dollars to an industry that profits by performing an inherently governmental function.  Especially when the state's own experience shows just how poorly that money is being spent.

Bay County's Experience With CCA

Just a quick link here to an article from a few weeks ago that recalls Bay County, FL's experience in having CCA manage their jail.  In the words of the Sheriff, the facility was "a horrible, nasty, unbelievable mess," and shortly after the county signed its contract with CCA, CCA began to jack up the price the county would pay per prisoner.  For what clearly amounted to high-quality services.  After the county resumed operations of the facility, they were able to save millions of dollars compared to CCA, even after performing extensive maintenance that CCA had neglected, since they eliminated the profit motive from the equation.

This came out during the whole commotion about the state legislature's boneheaded plan to privatize half the prison system, but serves as a great cautionary tale of the risks of privatizing any prison.

Privatization Vote in Michigan

The state of Michigan is likely to take up a vote that could send state prisoners to a GEO Group facility in Lake County.  GEO actually had operated the facility as recently as 7 years ago (and have owned it since), but lost its contract after mismanagement, fraud, and failure to perform in accordance with the contract, along with the fact that it was one of the most expensive prisons in the state.  So of course it makes sense to give the prison back to them.  Especially considering the need for prison beds in the state has actually decreased in recent years as they've scaled back the prison population.  As  new report points out, this deal would be a great benefit to the GEO Group, but no one else.

After the Revolving Door Stops Turning

A really interesting story came out of New Mexico last week that really speaks to the great benefit the industry enjoys in having former (and potentially future) employees working in government.  I have often complained of the political and contractual favoritism shown to the industry by former employees, but this one really struck me.

The new Secretary of Corrections has decided to finally start holding the GEO Group accountable for its terrible mismanagement of its facilities in the state, fining the company more than $1 million for failing to maintain  adequate staffing levels, which obviously presents a huge risk of violence.  This is the first time the state has really held any private prison company accountable for failing to meet contractual obligations.  The former Secretary, who had previously worked for the GEO Group, repeatedly declined to fine the industry for known failures to comply, saving the GEO Group nearly $20 million worth of fines in the process.  And it seems like the new Secretary is serious about holding GEO Group and CCA accountable for the millions of taxpayer dollars they get in contracts; he says he wants to review staffing levels at private prisons every single month.

And the fines could not have come at a more appropriate time.  Because a prisoner in a GEO Group facility in Clayton, New Mexico, was just beaten to within an inch of his life and is now on life support following the vicious assault.

PS - that former secretary of corrections, Joe Williams, who declined to fine the GEO Group nearly $20 million, landed himself a nice, cushy gig with, who else, the effing GEO Group.  He's the director of US operations, a position that I'm willing to bet pays a pretty decent salary.

Privatization = Government Waste

Proponents of privatizing government services (i.e. "conservatives") love to talk about supposed improvements in efficiency and delivery of services the private sector offers compared to the government.  In reality, attempts to privatize government services, including everything from military service to social security, are nothing more than government welfare for wealthy corporate donors and empowered individuals.  Politicians give contracts to companies and individuals who contribute to their campaigns and causes, not to companies who will perform the services in good faith.  The private prison industry is a shining example of this phenomenon.

Which brings me to this article.  I'll let the author speak for herself: "Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have continued to use troubled detention facilities despite documenting flagrant violations of their own detention standards, including poor medical care and mistreatment of detainees."

ICE's own records indicate a litany of areas in which private prison operators have failed to live up to contractual obligations and failed to operate safe, humane facilities.  Yet they continue to get contracts, due in large part to the millions of dollars the industry spends in lobbying and campaign contributions every year.

Lawmakers Call for Investigation of CCA Facility

Legislators in Montana have called for an investigation of the Crossroads Correctional Center, a private prison in Shelby, operated by CCA.  They have heard allegations of numerous failures of CCA to live up to its contractual obligations, including:

holding prisoners beyond their parole dates to continue to receive payments for them
limiting prisoners to 2 rolls of toilet paper and telling them to "use their hands" if they run out
forcing prisoners to sleep in the gym, in defiance of ACA standards
charging the state for vacant staff positions
failing to provide psychiatric services and accommodations for some disabled prisoners

Rarely do we get to see all these failures to provide adequate and humane care together in one facility.

Update on Arizona's RFP

The state of Arizona is currently seeking proposals from private prison companies to construct 5,000 new prison beds. This comes despite the fact that numerous private prisons already operate in the state (but they mostly take prisoners from other states, which is a whole separate mess), and that those private prisons have been proven to be more expensive than the government-run ones.

So the supposedly conservative leadership of the state apparently doesn't really care about fiscal responsibility. No surprise there.  But I sure hope they care about contract non-compliance and a failure to deliver efficient and effective services.  Because the groups vying to get the contracts for these beds all had awful track records.  A DOC spokesman said recently that the department would consider past performance in awarding the contracts.  If so, the GEO Group might not fare too well in the bidding process, because very recently they have had major issues operating the Walnut Grove Youth CF and the Eastern Mississippi CF.  Things like riots, stabbings, guards selling drugs, children being sprayed with chemicals while locked down, physical abuse, extreme malnourishment of prisoners, and abusing prisoners for displaying symptoms of untreated mental illness.  You know, little things.

Another company, MTC, is no better.  After 3 convicts escaped their Kingman, Arizona facility last year and killed an elderly vacationing couple, it took the company 8 months to implement new security measures.  Unfortunately, I don't think these issues or the ones that all other private prison companies seem to suffer from will stop the state from privatizing, partly because these companies are very effective PR machines, able to consistently sell bad products to the same consumers.  The good citizens of Goodyear, AZ didn't fall for the sales pitch, and emphatically declared their opposition to a private prison coming to their town.

The rest of the state's taxpayers may also be in luck.  Rep. Chad Campbell, the state's House Majority Leader, has called for a delay of the proposed 5,000 bed expansion.  As public hearings continue in various rural areas throughout the state to debate the relative merits of bringing a private prison to town, Campbell asks that the expansion be delayed until "after enhanced security, training, and monitoring policies are in place and shown to be effective at all existing private facilities."  Thank you Mr. Campbell for injecting some common sense into the situation.

Florida's Prison Privatization Mess

Florida is embarking upon the largest prison privatization plan in history.  As part of a last-minute budget amendment, the state legislature mandated the privatization of the correctional services of 18 counties in south Florida, for a total of nearly 30 correctional facilities.  No state has ever undertaken such an ambitious expansion of their private prison system, and for good reason; private prisons consistently fail to live up to contractual obligations, don’t save money, and provide less efficient services than government-run prisons.

But that hasn’t stopped Florida from forging ahead, even despite the fact that the Senate’s Budget Chief at one point even called this initiative an experiment to see if the state could save money by privatization .  While that’s not a gamble most sane politicians would ever want to make, JD Alexander was probably swayed, as were many other politicians, by the more than ¾ of a million dollars that the GEO Group spent lobbying the state legislature in the last election cycle.

Thankfully, one of Alexander’s fellow Republicans, Mike Fasano is able to easily identify the root of the deficiencies of private prisons, and has been challenging this plan from the get-go.  "Talk about a dangerous situation for the public! Because, in my opinion, privatizing our prisons, you bring a private company in, all they care about is the bottom line. That's why they're a company. That's why they trade on the New York Stock Exchange, that's why they trade on any exchange for that matter, they have stockholders, they have board members to be answerable to; therefore, they have to make a profit and by doing that, in my opinion, you put people at risk."  (The article cited here goes into a lot more detail on the lack of oversight and transparency of the industry, which in turn results in a breakdown of accountability)

In addition to Mr. Fasano’s agitation within the legislature, the Florida Police Benevolent Association, the union for COs in the state, has also come to the rescue of Florida’s prisoners by filing a lawsuit seeking to prevent the privatization push.  The lawsuit contends that the process by which the plan was passed actually violates the state constitution, part of which is designed to keep budgetary and policy decisions separate.  By utilizing the budget as the sole forum for discussing the plan, legislative leaders avoided a public debate that could have proven disastrous to the interests of privateers.   The legislature also pulled a nifty trick by tying the plan to the entire corrections budget, making it virtually veto-proof.

And as with all privatization ventures pushed by conservatives, this plan isn’t quite as rosy as it first seemed.  The state initially thought it was going to save nearly $20 million in operating expenses by converting these prisons to private operation.  But – oopsie! – both Governor Scott and JD Alexander, the budget chief, forgot to tell lawmakers about the $25 million the state would still be on the hook for in compensation for the literally thousands of state employees who will lose their jobs as a result of the privatization.  Now I know what you’re thinking – anyone could overlook a $25 million payout.  Well you’d be right, if you were talking about legislators who’ve already been purchased by the private prison companies that stand to make a killing off this deal. 

The White Knight, Mike Fasano, has now called for a hearing to review the privatization plan that had the hidden $25 million tab.  I really love this guy, because he just tells it like it is; “Unfortunately, the private-prison issue was pushed down everyone’s throats during the session and done very quietly and behind the scenes… There were never any public hearings.” ... "This is all about the almighty dollars for the GEOs of the world…It's all about political contributions that were made, and the taxpayers are going to pay the consequences." 

Almost Comically Corrupt

I say "Almost," because this story at its heart really deals with human lives and suffering, as impacted by the private prison industry (of course), but the blatant handout from New Jersey to CEC is just ridiculous.

So the state was looking for someone to operate a private prison with approximately 450 beds.  CEC, whose vice president is a close friend and confidant of anti-government governor Chris Christie (you know, the fiscal conservative who flies in a state-owned helicopter to little league games), seems to have had the proposal tailor-made for it.  So much so in fact, that they were literally the only company that could possibly comply with all the restrictions of the request, among them "that the facility be located within a two-hour drive of Newark, New York and Philadelphia and within a 10-mile radius of the Essex County Jail on Doremus Avenue in Newark; that the successful bidder have a facility already being used for correctional purposes; and that it be within 20 miles of a major airport."  

Anyhoo, as part of the request, Essex County said it was seeking an open and competitive bidding process "so [it] can obtain the most professionally delivered and cost effective services." CEC's parent company has already been the beneficiary of more than $500 million in contracts from the state, but apparently NJ thinks that a company that can wrongfully release half a dozen prisoners, including a convicted murderer, in the course of a year can do that.  Because CEC was the only bidder, and - surprise - they won the contract for nearly $10 million.  It seems sometimes as though the more we privatize government services, the more willing governments are to overlook complete breakdowns in contract compliance and delivery of services.  I tend to think CEC's close (aforementioned) ties with the Governor, and the tens of thousands of dollars it donated to an influential county executive might have helped.  CEC was so darn confident about its chances that it even posted announcements for openings at the facility before it had been announced that they won the contract.  As an immigrant advocate, Karina Wilkinson, said, "Essex County has shown that profits come before human rights."

Thankfully though, that wasn't the last word on these shenanigans - ICE and county officials have decided to re-evaluate the contract awarded to CEC.  Amy Gottlieb, of the American Friends Service Committee, hit the nail on the head when she said "The exposure of the unorthodox bidding process, the non-transparency of the bidding process, has maybe raised some questions."  I'll say.  Of course this hasn't stopped that influential county executive, Mr. Devincenzo, from defending the bidding process, which lasted all of 23 days (yep, because you can find a suitable partner for a multi-million dollar contract in 3 weeks), as "fair and open."

"Fair and Open."  And the Pope's a Muslim.

Just Ridiculous

New Jersey contracts out its halfway house services to a private, for-profit company called Community Education Centers (CEC). They do this despite the fact that the state has a law explicitly stating that the only companies to whom these services can be contracted must be nonprofit.

CEC made headlines (but I neglected to report on them) last year for the wrongful releases of at least 7 prisoners from a jail in Delaware County, PA. They, like all other private corrections providers, cut corners in every area of operations, especially staffing, which led to the wrongful releases and a host of other issues typical of the industry.

So the NJ state comptroller's office audited the company and its contract performance. You're going to be shocked at what they found. "The audit released Wednesday found the state failed to take appropriate action against state-funded halfway house providers following inmate escapes. The state also overpaid other providers and paid some providers that were not fully accredited."

I know. It blew my mind too. The state actually overpaid the company by more than half a million dollars in a few short years. Three of six halfway houses audited didn't even have on site secured facilities which they contractually obligated to have. The lack of these facilities led to the escapes which prompted the audit, but which were apparently not enough to warrant the state exercising its right to fine the company $30,000 per escape.

Yum!

A prisoner in Kentucky found a new source of protein in his soup last week; a dead mouse. Now I know prison food isn't supposed to be good, but I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be so bad that it kills rodents. This is just the latest in a series of troubling concerns that resulted in riots regarding the food preparation and delivery "services" provided by Aramark. Aramark is paid $12 million by the state annually to feed some Kentucky prisoners, but apparently even that's not enough money for them to be able to serve food free of dead rodents (and their governor can't figure out why they should audit them). Either that, or they're just cutting corners left and right for the sake of maximizing profits at the direct expense of human suffering, but no, a corporation couldn't do that. Right?

Unacceptable

New Mexico's government loves private prisons. They love them so much that they don't even care to collect information on their operating costs, because hey, why would a company that incarcerates people for profit try to use any underhanded business tactics?

The former secretary of corrections loves private prisons so much that he declined to fine the industry for up to $20 million worth of penalties for not complying with their contracts, costing his taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in potential revenue from companies known to have violated the terms of their contracts with the government.

It's actually kind of remarkable how poorly private prisons have performed in New Mexico, and the continued failure of the government there to do anything about it. 4 of NM's ten prisons are privatized, and the companies can be fined when they fail to maintain 90% staffing at any of the prisons. From January of 2010 to last month, two GEO Group facilities combined to fall below that threshold for 23 of a possible 28 months. No fine. Another prison, a CCA one, missed the mark in one out of every four months reviewed. No fine. In fact, at one of the GEO facilities, the staffing vacancy rate hovered above 1/4. ONE OUT OF EVERY FOUR POSITIONS WAS VACANT, for seven consecutive months. This creates dangerous situations not only for prisoners, but for the poor guards who actually work there. If there are supposed to be, say 4 guards for every 100 prisoners, but there's only 3, that means those 3 have more work, more stress, and are often asked to work overtime to cover the extra time.

It is simply unacceptable for New Mexico's taxpayers to be forced to continue to pay these consistently underperforming companies to not properly maintain a government function. Hopefully, the new administration will not simply continue to follow in the footsteps of the previous one, which allowed this problem to fester for far too long.

Contract Issues

The auditor for the state of Hawaii just released a nearly 80-page report blasting the state's interactions and contract with Corrections Corporation of America to house Hawaiian prisoners in facilities in Arizona. Among the findings:

The contract all but eliminated competitive bidding for the procurement of future contracts, ensuring all the state's privatized corrections dollars would flow directly into CCA's coffers.

CCA was essentially treated as a governmental agency rather than a private company seeking to make a profit, which is both factually inaccurate and laughably ironic, considering CCA spends millions of dollars lobbying against legislation that would simply force it to adhere to the same levels of oversight as government agencies.

Cost analyses of the contract have been fatally flawed by artificial cost figures based on a flawed methodology

And that management (of CCA) is basically "indifferent to the needs of policymakers and the public for accurate and reliable cost information"

The audit was so damning in fact that the auditor called for the authority of the Department of Public Safety to award contracts to be suspended.

I hate you, CCA

Where's the Logic?

I rarely write about the companies that provide specialized contracted services to prisons (as opposed to companies that manage entire facility operations), but you should know that they are their own inefficient, despicable mess as well. Linked here is an editorial out of Kentucky that discusses the state's planned decision to renew its contract with Aramark to provide food service to its prisoners. This is the same Aramark that has come under fire in numerous states for cutting corners in its food delivery, often serving rotted and barely nutritious meals to prisoners. Their food service is so bad in fact that it caused riots among prisoners in Kentucky and protests in Georgia over the company's failure to feed them properly. Throughout its history, Aramark has faced numerous allegations such as these, along with allegations of unfair labor and hiring practices. So yeah they're a model company.

Aramark has a $12 million per year contract to feed Kentucky's prisoners, a contract that says the state auditor should basically have complete access to their records of operation. However, when that office requested documents for an audit last year, they of course got a lot of pushback from Aramark, which refused to release everything the state had requested. So much pushback in fact that they are now being investigated for breach of contract. But even with the scant records provided, some of the preliminary findings of the audit include: "billing errors resulting in overpayments running into the tens of thousands of dollars, delays in service caused by food shortages, unapproved changes in menus, questions about the quantity of the food being served and a health department report on a possible outbreak of food-related illness among prisoners."

And the legislature plans on renewing the contract.

A Smart Investment

No, I'm not going to begin telling you that investing in private prisons is a good idea.  Don't worry.  Rather, the title is a reference to the investment(s) CCA has made in itself in the form of political contributions.  I have, on occasion, mentioned how CCA, the GEO Group, and other private prison operators lobby the federal government and cultivate political relationships through campaign contributions (For more on that, see pretty much every entry I've ever done on here).  Those contributions help to ensure these companies continue to secure contracts with state and federal governments to operate correctional facilities.

It turns out the money they invested in these political relationships have really paid off.  A recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which audits government contracts, found that CCA took in more than $800 million in contracts last year.  They were able to make all this money despite the fact that they have been cited for numerous safety violations and circumventing labor laws.  So you can feel confident knowing that your tax dollars are being funnelled to a corporation that repeatedly violates the terms of its contracts, fails to maintain safe facilities, and doesn't see the need to follow labor regulations.  Great.

Mass Incarceration and Profiteering

Diversity, Inc. has come out with two fantastic articles that detail how the private prison industry has helped contribute to the US far and away leading the world in its rate of incarceration.  We lock up more than one out of every 100 adults in this country, and more than 1 out of every 31 are in prison, or on probation or parole.  We have more people in prison, in both real numbers and percentage-wise, than Russia, North Korea, Iraq, or any other country in the world.  We have over 1 million more people in prison than China, despite the fact that they have more than 4 times our population.  And all this amidst the fact that rates of crime are actually dropping across the country.  So what happened?

The private prison industry happened.  After it was nearly crushed out, for a second time, in the late 90s following a series of abuses, lawsuits, and mismanagement, the industry was resurrected (largely) by the immigration detention boom that took place over the past decade and a half.  After CCA and GEO had worked through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to increase penalties for repeat felons and drug offenders in the 80s and 90s, in the late 90s and early 2000s they began to focus on immigration.  Both companies lobby the federal government and state governments, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, on immigration issues.  Additionally, both work with ALEC to promote and pass model legislation like SB1070, which guarantees them a steady flow of more and more prisoners for their beds.  The other article on Diversity, Inc. delves much deeper into the connections each company has with ALEC, and how they have used this conservative front group to promote their anti-American agenda.  (Yes, it's anti-American, because they're trying to incarcerate as many of us as possible, regardless of whether its sensible or moral to do so.)

As today's title link points out, the privateers exploited the poor planning of government agencies who passed tough-on-crime legislation but failed to build enough prison beds to handle the added capacity.  Able to design and build facilities in half the time it takes the government, using private funds, CCA and GEO capitalized on a market that had a high demand and very little supply.  As CCA's CEO readily admits, they want to continue to exploit those decisions in the future: "we have the salespeople and lobbyists pitching the benefits of privatization to the governors and legislators... they wake up one day and they don't have beds and will have to turn to the private sector." 

Unfortunately, private prison companies, especially CCA and the GEO group, have a tremendous foothold on the industry, especially in immigration detention.  By cultivating relationships with tough-on-crime and pro-business politicians, they have all but ensured their continued survival, and thriving, despite the fact that they have each established independent track records of negligence, abuse, contract noncompliance, and malfeasance.  Simply put, there is no place in our criminal justice system that should lend itself to someone making a profit, especially the incarceration of American citizens.  It's a sick, sick world out there.

Arizona is Indeed Seeking More Private Beds

Arizona just re-issued a request for proposals (RFP) for 5,000 new private prison beds.  Instead of following national trends towards reforming parole/probation, de-prioritizing drug prosecution, and increasing alternatives to confinement that have reduced prison populations in places like Texas and New York, they have just decided to solicit more prison beds.  This is the second RFP they have put out this year (after they tried unsuccessfully to sell then lease back the state government building.  Seriously.); the first was cancelled shortly after the escapes from the Kingman prison, amid the public perception that "hey, maybe private prisons aren't all they're cracked up to be."

This new RFP is slightly revised, and contains more stringent regulations on the oversight of the potential contract.  It has stronger enforcement mechanisms for non-compliance (meaning the government will be able to asses stronger penalties), stricter reporting requirements, and more formalized auditing procedures.  So basically whichever company wins the bid will be subject to greater oversight due to MTC's failure to maintain a secure facility.   While I am still adamantly opposed to increasing the amount of private prison beds, at least any beds that come about in response to this RFP will be better-regulated than the private prisons currently being operated in the state (in theory, anyway.).

Political Favors Reveal Lack of Oversight

I wrote in the past about how the Secretary of Corrections for the state of New Mexico, Joe Williams, declined to enforce penalties against CCA and GEO for contract non-compliance in the form of ongoing staff vacancies.  Mr. Williams was employed by the GEO Group for years prior to joining Gov. Richardson's cabinet, and apparently decided that consistent failures to abide by the contracts they have with the state on the part of CCA and GEO didn't warrant fines.  Well it turns out that Mr. Williams probably cost his state close to $20 million in uncollected penalties (which would be awfully nice to receive in this era of fiscal restraint and tight budgets).  But what is even more troubling is that that amount can't be verified because the Department of Corrections isn't even sure about how long the positions were vacant.

That's right; the government agency charged with overseeing private prisons in New Mexico can't provide oversight because they don't have access to the information.  "We do not have adequate records to demonstrate how long some correctional officer positions remained vacant,” corrections spokeswoman Tia Bland said.  Aside from the public's inability to access information about private prisons, it is preposterous to think that the government agency charged with overseeing a private company's responsibility to incarcerate prisoners is incapable of doing so because it can't access the information. 

Private prisons must be subject to stricter oversight.