It Gets Better

So this "American Private Police Force" I wrote about a little while ago, who is taking over a jail in Hardin, MT seems SUPER creepy. Please read this article on their organization, which no one seems to know where it came from, how it got its claimed expertise, or how it's being funded to operate this jail. While there are some tenuous conspiracy theories, the company does seem rather sketch. When they arrived in Hardin, they had decals on their truck claiming they were the "City of Hardin Police Department." (Hardin has no police department) But they claimed it was only a gesture of goodwill. RIGHT.

Illicit, Unauthorized Proposals

In another interesting twist, the Two Rivers Authority, the agency responsible for APPF's contract to run the Hardin, MT jail, apparently stepped outside its jurisdiction by offering to permit APPF to function as Hardin's own private police force. The administrator of TRA has been placed on administrative leave over the contract negotiations.

But the only board member who commented, Tim Murphy, said he doesn't care about the criminal history of APPF's leader or all the problems that have come to light over the past few days, only that the company makes its lease payments on time. As with all private prisons, it just comes down to the bottom line: the almighty dollar. Mr. Murphy is a jerk who doesn't care that his town is about to be overrun by a private police force. Way to look out for the people of Hardin.

More fallout from Hardin Jail / APPF

The director of the agency who granted the contract to APPF to run the Hardin jail has just resigned, after being placed on paid leave for two months. While there's no specific word on why he resigned, I'll go out on a limb and say the council wasn't too happy with his giving that contract to the shadesters at APPF. Call me crazy

Sad End to a Sad Story

Just wanted to give a quick update to a story that's fallen a bit by the wayside; the still vacant private prison in Hardin, Montana.  After being constructed on speculation by Corplan Corrections, the facility sat vacant for years after Corplan failed to help the town secure a contract to fill it.  Various proposals came up for the facility, including using it for a reality TV show, but it remained empty for years, eventually costing Hardin nearly $10,000 per month in utilities just to keep it from falling apart.  A career con man tried to purchase the facility through a company known as the American Private Police Force, but that deal fell through as well.  The director of the group that purchased the facility lost his job after it defaulted on its bond payments.

Now it turns out the facility will likely be returned to the bondholders who financed it.  Basically, this would allow for the city to get the facility and its maintenance off its hands (and budget, for that matter), and the bondholders would be able to pursue contracts to fill it.  But given the track record of failure, I think that's not likely to happen.

UPDATE: It's now official: the jail, valued at $26 million, has been returned to the bondholders.

The deal is dead

APPF has backed out of its agreement to run the Hardin jail, giving some BS reasoning. but the fact remains that we won't have a private army in Montana.

Also, they released the contract drawn up between APPF and the TRA, which would have made APPF Hardin's own private police force. that could have been catastrophic:
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_fe7d193c-b48f-11de-8209-001cc4c002e0.html

Failing to Deliver

There are two stories I wanted to highlight today, both of which deal with the failure of the private prison industry to deliver on its promises of economic stimulus.  Private prisons are often pitched to small towns and rural communities as vehicles of economic growth, with promises of tax revenues and jobs.  Unfortunately though, many of these prisons are built on the speculation that they'll be filled (meaning no contract to house prisoners is in place before many of these prisons are built), but the contracts don't always come through as planned.  For a great example of how this happens, see the example set by Hardin, Montana, which was conned by Corplan Corrections and still has a jail that sits empty, 5 years after it was built.

So the first article comes from the small town of Littlefield, TX.  A small town desperate for economic stimulus, Littlefield financed the construction of a private prison for nearly $11 million dollars.  After the prison was built in 2000, the GEO Group was hired to run it.  In the shocker of the century, the facility was plagued with violence, assaults, and escapes to the degree that Idaho, the state whose prisoners comprised the largest segment of the population, decided to pull all its prisoners from the facility.  Shortly thereafter, the GEO Group backed out of operating the facility.  The town however was still on the hook because it had financed the facility, and is now facing a bill of $65,000 per month.  Unfortunately, "Littlefield is not alone. Several other Texas towns that build prisons to be run by private companies have found the prisons to be financial drains."  Littlefield actually auctioned off the prison a few days ago, to an undisclosed buyer, but the damage has been done to the city's bond rating.

The other article comes from our friends up north, where British Columbia lawmakers are debating where they should place a new private prison.  Of course, the town is hoping for some stimulus from the prison in terms of revenue and jobs.  While this has not yet turned into a money pit like Hardin and Littlefield, the article goes on to describe how BC is looking to save money by privatizing, and discusses all the great economic benefits of bringing a prison.  But what really caught my eye is a quote they pulled from the Economist, hardly the left-wing rag, which discusses the nature of privatized corrections and how the savings achieved in terms of dollars and cents may not be worth the toll privatization takes on humans who experience it.  The Economist said, "It is 'hard to see the expansion of a forprofit industry with a permanent interest in putting ever more people in cages as consistent with either efficiency or justice.'"

Interesting Development in the Hardin Case

It turns out the drama with the APPF and Hardin Jail wasn’t the first time the town had been duped in the private prison market. The facility was built by a company called Corpland Corrections, which appears to be little more than a fraud perpetrated on small communities in dire need of economic stimulus. In one instance, four of the people involved in the awarding of a contract to the company were convicted in a corruption probe. The company comes in to build prisons but rarely if ever fulfills its promises of providing long-term revenue for a town or county (because they don’t operate the prisons or secure a contract for someone else to do so). I’ve seen a few stories on this in the past few days, and I don’t think this is the last we’ll hear about the company.

More here:
http://newmexicoindependent.com/39009/private-prison-developer-behind-montana-fiasco-involved-in-construction-of-nm-private-prisons

Even more fallout

Just read this. Michael Hilton is a fraud, APPF is a HUGE SCAM, and Hardin should run away from this as fast as its legs can carry it. Seriously Hardin, get out before you realize ole dick and his blackwater cronies have taken over your town. I'm begging you

Fodder for the Conspiracy Theorists

Just a quick link here to an interesting column discussing Corplan Corrections and its leader, James Parkey.  Corplan has constructed numerous immigration detention centers and prisons across the country, working most often with CCA.  They have built a lost of facilities on municipal bonds, and have often left small towns to foot the bill for the construction after they fail to help secure a contract to bring in prisoners - the most famous case is that of Hardin, Montana, which I've written about extensively.

But this article discusses how Corplan has been building many detention centers around the country, though not in response to a particular need for beds.  The author argues, somewhat convincingly, that these beds are being constructed to give the government the ability to detain political dissidents in the case of a "national emergency."  Basically, the government is building prisons to be able to silence political dissent when shit hits the fan.

That's some creepy stuff.

Straining Resources in a Small Town

After Ohio became the first state to sell a prison to a private company earlier this year, a few logistical details needed to be hammered out.  For instance, who would be responsible for dealing with major disturbances that could potentially happen at the prison?  Disturbances like riots, which seem to happen more frequently at privately-operated prisons?

When the state owned and operated the facility, the state's Highway Patrol would respond to such emergencies.  But now that the prison has been turned over to private hands, it appears as though the responsibility now falls on the local police department in Conneaut, Ohio.  The local government fears the strain this could put on the small town's resources if the police department ever needed to be called in to deal with an emergency at the prison.  So much so that they're heading to the state capitol to speak with Governor Kasich about it.

For all the great economic benefits that proponents of privatization discuss, they often fail to mention how the industry can act as a parasite on small communities.  They use tremendous amounts of resources, from water and electricity to sewer lines.  A prison can dissuade commerce and prospective homeowners.  There are numerous prisons sitting empty across the country right now, having been built on speculation but never filled; towns have defaulted on bond payments just to try to keep them open (See here for some coverage of the story in Hardin, Montana).  So to any government who contracts with a private company to operate a prison, I say: be careful, because you really do get what you pay for.

Whoo Hooo!

The Hardin Jail project has been put on hold! The scammers at APPF apparently won't be moving in after all. But another interesting fact was revealed; the man who was supposed to be the jail's director was NEVER EVEN OFFERED THE JOB. I don't think anything APPF has ever said about this jail project has been the truth. None of it. Nice try, cheney.

Last one, I promise

Just wanted to post a link to Newsweek's story on the Hardin case. It's actually really good

Thank You, NPR

NPR has recently come out with an excellent 2-part report on the private prison industry and its shady dealings, starting with the Walnut Grove Youth CF in Mississippi, which is the target of an ACLU lawsuit. The title link goes to the first part of this fantastic investigation, which as NPR describes it, "found that allegations swirling around the prison raise the fundamental question of whether profits have distorted the mission of rehabilitating young inmates." I think I know the answer to that fundamental question...

The second part of the investigation, linked here, delves into the issue of empty private prison beds. Private prisons are so popular largely because of their promises to bring economic prosperity in the form of taxes and new jobs, to various disparaged areas. Unfortunately, as many towns including Hardin, Montana have discovered, those promises don't always pan out. In fact, there are thousands of empty private prison beds around the country, and a good number of private prisons have never even been opened. This is a serious issue because these prisons are often financed by the towns, who then are incapable of repaying the debt they incur when the facility goes unfilled.

Thank you, NPR, for bringing some much-needed attention to these issues

Don't Drink the Kool-Aid

The mayor of Hardin, Montana is warning commissioners in Benson, AZ to be wary of a new immigration detention facility being pitched to them by Corplan Corrections, the shady company affiliated with CCA that builds private detention facilities. I've written briefly about Corplan before, but they're basically the ones who come into a small rural area with a sales pitch of creating a ton of new jobs and tax revenue by building a private prison. Of course, things rarely if ever pan out exactly as they would want people to believe, as a few of their facilites still remain empty (thus drawing no money and actually costing towns hundreds of thousands of dollars to operate), and most fail to live up to correctional standards. So I am calling on you as well, Benson, Arizona, to be very careful about who you do business with, and to reject this proposal from Corplan. it will not end well if you let them build.

Sound Advice

Globe, Arizona seems to have fallen under the spell of James Parkey, robber baron / frontman of Corplan Corrections, who, along with representatives from Cuny Corporation and Emerald Correctional Management, was able to convince council members to approve a bid to build a new private prison.  Corplan, Emerald, and Cuny have a long history of building private prisons in desperate small towns on speculation, with grandiose promises of swarms of inmates that will provide much-needed revenue for counties hurting economically.  However, in a lot of instances counties are not able to get contracts to house inmates in the facilities for a variety of reasons, and a bunch of small towns have lost considerable sums of money by defaulting on bond sales they used to finance the prison.  As the mayor of Hardin, Montana warns, any small town looking to do business with Corplan/Emerald should "do a lot of research."  Hopefully though that research won't include looking at the economic feasibility studies conducted in conjunction with the bids, as the consultant who does them (Howard Geisler) has been working with Emerald for years on projects all across the country, and has included some major inaccuracies and assumptions in his reports.

Privatization Proposals in NH, MT

Despite the industry's lackluster record, private prisons are still seemingly in high demand.  For instance, legislators in New Hampshire have released a request for proposals (RFP) to construct at least 1,500 beds from private companies, even though every town in the state that has been proposed as a site has come out strongly in opposition to a private prison.  Thankfully though, there is still an option to just add on to existing prison facilities, which may preclude the state from bringing in a private prison company.

Meanwhile, over in Montana, the state has failed to learn from the example set by the government in Hardin, which is one of the clearest examples of the perils of privatization.  The state also released an RFP, this one for 120 medium-security and "special needs" beds.  Though the scope here is smaller, the risks are the same as with any other proposal to privatize such an inherently governmental function.

A New Player in the Market

American Private Police Force Organization, Inc., just signed a contract to run its first detention center in Hardin, MT. And in case you were worried that they may not be able to run a secure facility, “The company … claims to be able to organize a special force battalion for deployment within 72 hours.” I don’t anticipate a company with such an MO to have any problems treating inmates properly.