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.

Seeking New Opportunities

GEO just submitted an unsolicited proposal to the state of Virginia to take over thier sex-offender monitoring center. Under the proposal, the state could privatize hundreds of beds for sexually violent criminals, who can be held indefinitely.

This opens a whole new scary front in privatization. If the state does indeed decide to privatize these services (and my gut tells me a flood of cash from GEO and its subsidiary, GEOCare might find its way to Virginia's legislator's pockets in the near future), the ramifications are terrifying.

GEO makes more money the longer it incarcerates people. It currently has no motivation to rehabilitate offenders of any type, and the distinct lack of programming and vocational instruction available in private prisons is testimony to the fact that they don't want to improve public safety or people's lives; they just want to maximize profit at literally any cost, including the welfare of society at large. But to turn over the keys to literally indefinite detention of sex offenders would be the equivalent of the state handing GEO a blank check. GEO would undoubtedly seek to maximize the stays of all its residents, because they don't earn money for helping them stay out of prison.

I think this is an effing horrible proposal.

What's Happening in Florida

Lots of news from Florida recently, all of which I’ll try to compile into this one post. Most of this is at least a week old though. My bad.

First, I wanted to just link to two excellent editorials that appeared in the Miami Herald and the Tampa Bay Times. Both detail part of Florida’s long and sordid history with contracting out prison management to private companies. Among the issues that have plagued private prisons in Florida are a failure to properly document the costs of private prisons (resulting in disputes to claims of cost-savings), “lax contracts, spotty state oversight, overbilling by contractors and less legal accountability for abuses.”

The Herald editorial also documents a prison riot that occurred in 2004 at a private Florida juvenile center for girls. The girls rioted in response to cost-cutting measures taken by the private company in pursuit of maximizing profits. These measures included “increased number of lockdowns, cancellations of physical and outdoor activities, cancellation of educational classes, cancellation of various therapy sessions, cancellations of volunteer programs, cancellations of special activities.” The editorial then goes on to properly point out the influence that literally millions of dollars in lobbying money has had on the Florida legislature, which is now poised to further expand the state’s use of private prisons.

Next, here’s a link to a great interview with Dr. Michael Hallett which delves into the connection between the drug war, our country’s ridiculously disparate rates of incarceration, and the private prison industry. The disparities between incarceration rates of African Americans and Caucasians as a result of the “War on Drugs” is a topic for a different blog, but the connection between the rise in our rates of incarceration and the rise of private prisons is clear.
Dr. Hallett says, “If the question is why did we have to privatize prisons, the answer would be the drug war.”

Now, I’ll leave you on this last bit. The GEO Group donated $25,000 to the new Florida House Speaker’s Political Action Committee (PAC). The PAC, called the “Florida Freedom Committee” is one of those new super-PACs created after the Citizens United ruling that can pool corporate money for candidates or political causes. A bunch of major corporations seeking to expand their business interests in Florida donated generously to this PAC. This comes in addition to direct campaign and issue contributions by the GEO Group, and the hundreds of thousands of dollars they have spent lobbying. Clearly GEO is spending a lot of money wooing legislators in its home state, hoping to secure some political favor.

And it looks like all this money has been rather effective. The title link goes to an article detailing some of the recent developments in the Florida legislative session. Among them is the fact that the House caved to pressure from the Senate, but really from GEO’s influence through the above-mentioned PAC and other forms of monetary influence peddling, to go along with a plan to privatize the correctional work of 18 counties in the bottom half of the state. This would privatize as many as 18,000 more prison beds in the state.

The Senate Budget Chief, JD Alexander, has apparently become much more confident in his claims of cost-savings. Recently, he was touting this plan as an experiment to determine whether cost-savings could be achieved (albeit a fucking stupid experiment, but an experiment nonetheless). Now he “has insisted that the shift could save at least 7 percent in operating expenses at each facility turned private.” That’s an incredible conclusion to come to with absolutely no evidence to support it and a great deal of evidence that runs counter to that claim. I guess Republicans will just never stop lying to their constituents when it serves the interests of their corporate sugar daddies.

Ohio's Governor is an Idiot

Ohio Governor John Kasich is yet another cookie-cutter republican looking to defund and cripple unions, slash taxes for the wealthy, and turn over government functions to his cronies in the private sector. No news there. However, I was not aware that he is also apparently incapable of thinking rationally about his budget.

Kasich has proposed cutting more than $30 million from his department of corrections budget for this year, the largest cut the department will have ever taken in its history if enacted. He plans to do this primarily by privatizing more of the state's prison system. So aside from the fact that privatization doesn't actually save any money compared to government operation of a prison, he uses some odd logic to justify his cuts.

"By transitioning to a blended public and private corrections system, officials hope to cover the budget gap, decrease the increasing violence in the system and stabilize both funding and the violence."

Well guess what, Mr. Kasich, you're absolutely, in no way shape or form, going to wind up with lower levels of violence by handing control of your system to an industry notorious for inefficient management and poor training of its staff. Any unfortunate Ohio prisoner who gets transferred to a private facility will merely become a commodity to the industry, and will most certainly face crueler conditions and less constructive activities (remember, idle hands are the devil's playthings).

Thankfully, though, not all of Mr. Kasich's constituents are as simple-minded as he. A veteran CO took the mic at a recent news conference and caused a mild uproar when he began questioning the motives behind the move, especially in light of the fact that Gary Mohr, Kasich's new secretary of corrections, used to be employed by CCA, and the generous campaign contributions CCA made to Kasich's campaign. The CO, Bob White, "was escorted out of the building by fellow correctional employees after swearing during a third visit to the microphone. But he left to a standing ovation from part of the crowd, several who shouted in agreement that they were as angry as he was."

I'd have been yelling right there with you. Thank you Bob White for having some sense, and the huevos to stand up for what's right.

Shortsighted Solution

Governor John Kasich in Ohio is a big fan of private prisons, depsite the fact that one of the most notorious lawsuits against an industry leader (CCA) arose from major problems at a facility in Youngstown, Ohio. He is so big a fan, in fact, that he hired former CCA employee and consultant Gary Mohr to be his director of corrections.

Governor Kasich recently released his budget, which includes plans to sell 5 of the state's prisons to private companies. However, I can't quite follow the logic. Mr. Mohr says this was preferable to the alternative, which would be shipping more than 10,000 prisoners out of state (I guess releasing non-violent drug offenders is too logical a solution...). He says, "I honestly can't imagine the process of putting inmates on a bus to transfer out of state away from their families because it isn't something that 12,000 inmates would want to do." Well, Mr. Mohr, I'm pretty sure they're not going to like your solution, either.

I'm not going to rehash all my typical arguments about private prisons here, but suffice it to say that their quality of life, security, medical care, and programming is sure to decrease. Further, this decision will have economic impacts on the communities where the prisons are located. The guards at these facilities will either be out of a job, or forced to take a job with a less professional company, with less training and much higher turnover, for nearly $5,000 less in salary, and even more reductions in benefits, per year.

But the real issue here is the lack of programming prisoners are going to recieve. Private prisons are far less likely to offer vocational and technical education services to their prisoners. Additionally, part of Kasich's plan calls for eliminating 3 work camps, which help prepare prisoners to transition back into society upon release. By eliminating state-supported re-entry services and turning to private companies known to neglect them, Governor Kasich is selling Ohio's prisoners and taxpayers short.

Logical Fallacies

I guess Ric Scott, the new Governor of Florida, isn't a frequent reader of WhyIHateCCA. Because if he was, he wouldn't make such baseless assertions about his push to privatize more of the state's prison system.

Governor Scott claims he is not motivated to push for privatization by the hundreds of thousands of dollars the GEO Group has donated to him personally and the Republican party. I tend to think that's a pretty blatant lie, but that's beside the point (at least the point of this post).

No, Scott says he is pushing to privatize the system for a few reasons, the most prominent of which is to save money. Well sorry Mr. Scott, but private prisons rarely if ever offer the cost-savings they promise, and have at times been found to be more expensive than government-run prisons.

He also claims his privatization push is motivated by a desire to "do a good job of taking care of our prison system, [watch] how we spend the money, [and make] sure that when people leave prison that they don't come back." But again, Mr. Scott, there is no evidence or logic to back up those lofty goals. Private prisons, to put it simply, suck in comparison to state-run facilites. In every single operational aspect. They are less safe, less secure, and pose more of a threat to both staff and prisoners. Private prisons are far less accountable and transparent to the public, including in terms of how money is spent. And finally, private prisons offer less programming than state-run facilities, and prisoners released from them have higher rates of recidivism.

So all the cost-savings you think your state might realize from further privatization, Mr. Scott, aren't really what they're cracked up to be. Every private prison in this country offers at best a substandard quality of service. By further privatizing the system, you would be making a terrible investment with your state's tax dollars, and you will wind up costing Floridians more in the long run, in terms of the financial responsibilty of dealing with people who don't get adequate rehabilitation services while in prison, and the social costs of having prisoners re-enter society when they're not prepared to be productive citizens. This is a short-sighted potential solution to a major problem, that will have ramifications for years, if not decades, to come.

Why You Shouldn't Send Inmates to Private Prisons

Vermont sends a bunch of its prisoners, including those held for misdemeanor offenses, out of state to private prisons in Tennessee and Kentucky, where they have experience all sorts of problems. Now, the Vermont DOC has to install inspectors at the facilites these inmates are at because of the abysmally poor care, programming, and security the inmates receive. Complaints from the inmates primarily revolve around the absence of counseling, programming, vocational, and educational opportunities. As Defender General in the Vermont Prisoners' Rights Office Matthew Valerio properly points out, "these offenders are going to come back to Vermont and they're going to bring these problems back with them," which will wind up costing Vermont more than it saved by privatizing prisons, in the long run. Privatizing is just never, ever a good idea

Study Shows Privatization Doesn't Actually Save Money

A recent study looking into the prison industry in Florida has essentially concluded that private prisons do not offer any significant cost savings over government-run institutions.  Though the two types are hard to compare, since private prisons typically house only low-level offenders (which cost way less to house than violent offenders), but this is especially damming information considering there is a law on the books in Florida mandating that private prisons provide the state with at least 7% savings over government-run facilities.  It also mentions how programming, such as education and anger management, are almost completely ineffective in private prisons.  I'm shocked.