The boot camp is run by Encourage-Youth Corporation Inc. But since the breakout, eight state-employed corrections officers have been drafted in to guard the facility. Opposition politicians have renamed the facility ‘Camp Getaway’. Ontario’s Child Advocate has  complained about the inappropriate transfer of young offenders away from their schooling and programming at their regular facilities and being brought to the boot camp in order to try and fill the 32 beds.

 

Nova Scotia on hold

      There is now a consensus amongst the political parties in Nova Scotia that prisons should not be privatised.  In 1996, the government contracted with consultants and the Atlantic Corrections Group Inc (ACG) to draw up plans for reconfiguring its corrections system. ACG reported in June 1997 and trade unions hope to be consulted in October. But in the light of a provincial election next spring, the unions, who have been campaigning against privatisation, do not regard the issue as resolved. Finance could be the key. ACG includes Management & Training Corporation Inc.

 

AUSTRALIA

Gorrie contract renewed

       Queensland Corrective Services Commission has renewed a  contract with Wackenhut to manage the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre for a further five years instead of the two years stipulated under the original agreement. Wackenhut has run the 578 bed facility since  1992. The new contract expires in June 2002 and is worth US$67.5m. Wackenhut’s subsidiary, Australian Correctional Management, also runs two other prisons in Australia.

 

Lost wages

      According to the Community and Public Sector Union, prison officers have lost up to Au$7,000 a year in wages due to privatisation. The union claims that private prison officers at Fulham Correctional Centre start on a training wage of Au$17,000 which eventually increases to Au$31,000. An equivalent public sector employee would earn around Au$38,000. Giving evidence to Victoria’s Public Accounts and Estimates Committee on 28 July 1997,  the union’s Peter Bertolus alleged that employees who transferred from (the now closed but formerly publicly run)  Fairlea women’s prison to CCA’s Deer Park facility suffered an immediate reduction in pay. So much so that the union was “almost on the point where we are going to prosecute the company”. He also claimed that training was eight weeks in the public sector but just two weeks at Deer Park with inadequate ongoing training thereafter.

In the union’s view, a crucial factor in the companies’ pay scales is local economic conditions. For example, Mr Bertolus said that due to high unemployment in the Latrobe Valley area, Wackenhut was able to offer low wages as “they basically knew they had the capacity to monopolise the marketplace in terms of buying labour.”

n September 1997 sees the first anniversary of the opening of the Metropolitan Women’s Correctional Centre at Deer Park. In August, the Victorian government was assessing how much of the performance-linked fee would be payable to Corrections Corporation of Australia. The company has been paid fees for accommodation  and correctional services.

 

IT contract problems

      In South Australia, EDS, the American information technology company, was awarded a nine year contract in 1995 to run the whole government’s computer systems. But there have been so many problems, including cost increases rather than supposed savings, that a Select Committee of the South Australian Parliament had to hold an inquiry. The corrections department told the Committee that since the contract started “there has been a significant increase in the bureaucracy involved in getting things done.”  The Opposition has called for the contract to be published but the government has refused on the grounds of commercial confidentiality.

n A major independent five year study of information technology ‘out sourcing’ has recently been published. The authors are sceptical about out sourcing, especially the claim that it is inherently more efficient. Beyond the Information Systems Out Sourcing Bandwagon, by Lacity and Hirscheim, published by John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, New York and Brisbane,1997.

 

NSW no need to privatise

     The New South Wales Council on the Cost of Government is to recommend a  set of guidelines on contracting out which could effectively end public and private sector competition in the state. The theory is that public sector reform should improve the way services are provided without having to privatise.

 

Victoria’s third private prison

       The official opening took place on 18 August 1997 of  the Port Phillip Prison, a private 600 bed maximum security facility for men at Laverton North in Victoria. Built by Fletcher Construction and run by Group 4, this is Victoria’s third privately financed, designed, built and run prison. The intake of prisoners begins in September. Eventually, there will be 200 staff.  The minister for corrections said that the prison will “set new standards in correctional facilities”. At the end of July, the Department of Justice was still advertising for three people to become official prison visitors. Their role is to provide independent advice to the minister regarding the prison’s operation and to facilitate links between the prison and the community.

n A plan to employ Port Phillip prisoners as telemarketers from a prison call centre has run into controversy. Group 4 argues that similar schemes in the US are successful while opponents are concerned about hard-core criminals gaining access to consumers’ personal details and prison labour undercutting and replacing workers elsewhere.  Approval for the scheme rests with the government.

n On 2 July 1997, a computer believed to contain security codes and files for the prison was stolen from the house of  a Fletcher Construction employee.  Despite this, Group 4 had no plans to alter prison  security.

 

Victoria’s health

 Victoria is privatising  primary health care services to over 1,300 prisoners in nine prisons. Contracts  are expected to start on 1 January 1998.

 

CORE agenda

     As well as opening three private prisons, reforms to Victoria’s correctional services include: separating policy and service delivery roles; separating purchase and service provider roles; the transition of CORE (the Public Correctional Enterprise)  into a service agency within the Department of Justice; creating a Commissioner’s office to oversee and monitor new arrangements; out sourcing selected services including prisoner transport, psychological services and perimeter security at Coburg prison. CORE’s agenda for 1997/98 is to be more competitive, cost effective, customer focused and people oriented. The diagram below shows how CORE identifies its  stakeholders. From:Securing the Future, Setting Targets and Measuring Performance, a paper by John Griffin, CORE’s chief executive, to a conference on Service Agencies, Melbourne 11-12 August 1997.

 

IRELAND

 

Still considering

      Ireland’s Minister of Justice is considering the feasibility of a 400 place prison at Portlaoise being privately, financed, designed and built. Proposals from companies include high technology designs to reduce staffing levels currently used in the public sector.

 

UNITED KINGDOM

 

More in England

      In addition to two new private prisons already announced since the general election on 1 May 1997, the Prison Service is planning a prison for 600-800 category B and C prisoners in Marchington, East Staffordshire.

n Securicor-run HMP Parc, at Bridgend, Glamorgan will open in November 1997.

 

Scotland’s preferred bidder

     Premier Prison Services Ltd, (Wackenhut and Serco) has been selected by the Scottish Prison Service to finance, design, build and run Scotland’s first private prison, a 500‑cell category  B prison at Kilmarnock. Upon completion, it will be managed under a 25‑year contract. The prison is due to open in  1999.

The Scottish Prison Officers Association had asked the government for a full review of Scotland’s criminal justice system before committing itself to the private prison project. This request was turned down.

 

Industrious Wackenhut

        In the first contract of its kind in the UK, industry jobs at Coldingley prison are to be privatised. A five year contract with an option for a further four years is due to be signed with Wackenhut (UK) Ltd.

Despite recognising “the very  valuable contribution to recent improvements” that the prison staff  had made, the Prison Service decided to privatise on the basis that a commercial partnership arrangement would maximise prisoner employment opportunities. But if the arrangement does not achieve its aims, under the terms of the contract the service can be brought back into the public sector.

According to the Prison Service, Wackenhut will have to show evidence of being a good employer and demonstrate its commitment to those staff  who choose to transfer. The company  will also have to show that it is committed to long term commercial success through expanding the Coldingley operation. The prison’s governor will have some control over  services.

On the grounds of commercial confidentiality, neither the profit sharing arrangement nor the full contract are  being published.

The Prison Service claims that it has no further plans for privatising other prison industries  at this stage.

n Wackenhut’s contracts in Scotland and at Coldingley extend the company’s success over  its main American competitor in the UK.  Corrections Corporation of America still only has one prison contract, Blakenhurst in the West Midlands. Premier Prison Services Ltd  (owned jointly with Serco) has two escort contracts,  runs Doncaster prison and is developing Lowdham Grange prison which should open in February 1998. Wackenhut (UK) Ltd also runs an immigration detention centre at Gatwick Airport and other security contracts in the UK.

 

Costs review

     The Home Office Research and Statistics Department is, once again, comparing the costs of  the privately run prisons with the public sector. Using figures for financial year 1996-97, the report should be published in October 1977. It is expected to show that the gap between public and private sector costs continues to narrow.

 

UNITED STATES

 

Brutality video gets FBI called in

        The FBI is investigating possible civil rights violations of  prisoners by private guards at the Brazoria County Detention Centre in Texas.  The state of Missouri, which housed over 400 prisoners at the facility has cancelled its $6m contract with Capital Correctional Resources Inc. (CCRI) and returned the prisoners to Missouri facilities. A training video made by prison officials in September 1996 was recently made public as part of a prisoner’s lawsuit against the local county sheriff and was shown on NBC television on 18 August 1997 and subsequently on TV stations around the world.

The tape showed  guards conducting a raid and beating and kicking prisoners. Dressed in riot gear, the guards forced prisoners to crawl while being prodded with stun guns, had them chased and bitten by attack dogs and sprayed with tear gas. Charles Wagner, chief deputy at the jail told the Brazosport Facts newspaper that although “the film depicts a lot of  unprofessional actions, there’s not any real brutality.” The company expects to be cleared of any wrongdoing. Some twelve states have contracts with CCRI, based in Jackson, Missouri.

n Two of  the guards employed by CCRI at Brazoria Detention Centre had convictions for mistreating prisoners in 1983 and had subsequently lost their jobs as Texas state employees. One of the guards, Wilton Wallace, featured in the controversial video. In 1987, he and colleague Daryl French served  six and three  month prison sentences respectively.

n Oklahoma is removing its prisoners from another Capital Correctional Resources-run prison, Limestone County Detention Facility in Groesbeck, Texas.  State corrections officials were concerned about the frequent use of pepper spray and force by guards on prisoners. It is transferring the prisoners to a CCA-run facility at Hinton, Oklahoma. The move is unrelated to events at the Brazoria County facility and is to be completed in October 1997.

 

No immunity for private guards

       The Supreme Court  ruled on 23 June 1997 that employees of private corrections companies managing facilities for government agencies are not entitled to the same immunity from lawsuits as their public sector counterparts.

The case was originally brought in 1994 by prisoner Ronnie McNight at CCA’s South Central Correctional Centre in Tennessee who alleged that two CCA prison officers unconstitutionally subjected him to extremely tight physical restraints. He sued them for $400,000 in damages. In lower courts, the officers tried unsuccessfully  to have the prisoner’s claim dismissed. Finally, in a 5-4 majority decision, the Supreme Court found that private employees should not be immune as they work in an entirely different economic arena than public employees. They cited “ordinary marketplace pressures” which are in place to ensure that private correctional officers perform their duties appropriately. “Competitive pressures mean  not only that a firm whose guards are too aggressive will face damages that raise costs, thereby threatening its replacement, but also that a firm whose guards are too timid will face threats of replacement by other firms with records that demonstrate their ability to do both a safer and more effective job,” said Justice Breyer in his judgement.

Even though companies are required to have insurance to protect themselves against civil rights actions by prisoners, the dissenting judges expressed concern that the judgement would, in the long term, adversely affect privatised corrections. “The only sure effect ... [of the decision] is that it will artificially raise the costs of privatising prisons,” wrote Justice Scalia.

CCA says it will not pass on the cost of defending its employees in court cases to governments.  Wackenhut says that it does not use immunity as a defence when sued by prisoners and prices its contract bids on the basis that its employees have no immunity.

 

Bobby Ross Group investigated

     The US Justice Department’s civil rights division  is to investigate unspecified allegations at the Bobby Ross Group-run Dickens County Correctional Centre at Spur, Texas. This follows a series of incidents going back to August 1996.

Meanwhile, an  investigation by Montana corrections department, which sends prisoners to the facility, has found that the company is not fully complying with 15 out of 22 provisions of the $3.6m a year contract. Food services, medical care, security, prisoner transfers and disciplinary actions are all inadequate. Investigators were unable to verify whether guards were properly trained.

 

New controls in Texas

    Stringent regulations on private prison  operators came into force on 1 September 1997 in Texas.  Legislators have acted following a series of escapes, riots and other disturbances, including rape and murder in private prisons located in the state.

Changes include: to prevent speculation, companies will have to have a contract with a city or county before building a prison; it will be a crime to escape from a privately run prison; guards employed by private companies will have to be licensed by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education; the Texas Commission on Jail Standards will have wider authority to regulate facilities; out of state prisoners must be returned to their home states before being set free; other states will be charged additional costs incurred in quelling riots or rounding up escapees; local authorities will have to end their contracts to house other states’ prisoners if Texas needs the space to house its own.

Discussion on how to improve on these regulations will continue. But the chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee has conceded that “unfortunately, nothing is going to prevent abuse.”

 

Riot in Puerto Rico

        A riot by about 50 prisoners at CCA’s Ponce prison in southern Puerto Rico left one guard injured and caused at least $1m worth of damage in August. Prisoners set fire to mattresses, broke down walls and held 13 hostages.  The riot started after a group of prisoners refused to transfer from one area to another. Puerto Rican police complained that they were unable to respond satisfactorily to the disturbance as they did not have maps of the prison layout or a list of on-duty employees to help them.

Ironically, the July 1997 issue of The Private Line, CCA’s bimonthly publication for employees, reported that Ponce Adult Facility had sponsored a meeting of the Community Police, attended by 50 high ranking members of the local police force. Following the meeting, Ponce hosted a lunch and conducted guided tours.

n A Federal Court Monitor has recommended that Puerto Rico’s publicly run prisons be handed over to a federal receivership which, in turn, would privatise them. A new report by federal investigators says control of the prisons has been conceded to violent gangs. Four of the Commonwealth’s 36 prisons are already privatised.

 

Unhealthy start for CCA

   In March 1997, the District of Columbia sold the DC Correctional Treatment Facility (CTF) for addicted and mentally ill prisoners to CCA  for $52m. It is the only infirmary within the correctional system. The facility is being leased back for nearly $3m  a year for 20 years and CCA is also being paid $20m a year to run it. CCA proposed not to spend more than nine dollars per prisoner per day on medical care compared with $24 spent by the government at DC Jail.

But within months of the transfer, lawyers, doctors and prisoners’ families have alleged that the Centre’s medical services are inadequately staffed, the pharmacy is short of medication and mental health services are lacking. There is no full time medical director. Advocates also complain of difficulties obtaining medical records on behalf of their clients.

In July, Dr Armond Start, a consultant from the University of Wisconsin commissioned by the DC Department of Corrections, reported that CCA only employs the equivalent of 3.6 doctors (full and part-time) for every 250 prisoners. Although several specialists  also  spend a few hours a week at the facility, on one occasion when Dr Start visited, only one registered nurse was on duty for the whole weekend, insufficient to distribute dozens of doses of medication to HIV-infected prisoners.         Bed shortages at the CTF infirmary have also led to patients being transferred to the publicly run DC General Hospital.   Dr Smart also reported on the case of a prisoner who spent  nearly 50 days at the hospital receiving  treatment that he could not get at the CTF infirmary. The facility no longer has a psychiatrist on call 24 hours a day for emergencies - it did before privatisation - and  CTF’s only psychiatrist has been instructed not to prescribe certain medications because of their cost.

The National Corrections and Rehabilitation Corp. (NCRC) which previously had not run a prison health service, acts as CCA’s medical services consultant. NCRC has denied all of the allegations and claims that the facility is  overstaffed.

n NCRC’s president is Arthur Graves, a former DC corrections official who was criticised for allowing hundreds of prisoners to escape from halfway houses without being pursued.  General counsel Chalfrantz Perry is a former special assistant to DC Mayor Marion Barry. Dr Vincent Roux, CTF’s medical director was Mayor Barry’s personal doctor during the Mayor’s well- publicised period of drug addiction. In 1986,  Joseph Johnson Jnr. now NCRC’s chief executive, was forced to resign as head of New Mexico’s state health and environment department after being charged with seven counts of bribery, fraud, conspiracy, taking illegal kickbacks and racketeering. (Even though the head of a mental health centre pleaded guilty to bribing him, charges against Johnson were later dismissed by a judge  for lack of probable cause. Johnson returned to work as assistant to the governor of New Mexico.)

Johnson’s company, Healthcare Affiliates, was recently investigated by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development for allegedly mismanaging a charity hospital in Newport News, Virginia. It was found that the company had inappropriately used hospital funds to pay for travel expenses and apartments for staff.  James Arieno, now CTF’s administrator, worked for Johnson as hospital administrator at Newport News hospital until the firm’s contract was cancelled.

n Two native American prisoners at CCA’s T. Don Hutto Corrections Facility in Texas have filed  federal lawsuits against CCA and the county authorities claiming that their religious freedoms had been denied. CCA responded by building a sweat lodge (a structure for prayer and meditation) for the 20 native American prisoners, but the lawsuits remain unsettled.

n CCA is facing a class action lawsuit in the US District Court brought by prisoners held in the CCA-run Northeast Ohio Correctional Centre in Youngstown, Ohio. The prisoners allege the use of excessive force and unwarranted attacks by staff.  Central to the complaint is an incident on 30 May 1997 during which they allege that staff dropped between 15 to 30 canisters of chemical agents on prisoners in four cell blocks then beat them. At the time, the facility had only just opened.

n As at 2 September 1997, CCA had contracts for 46,423 beds in 62 facilities (either operating  or in development) in the US, Puerto Rico, Australia and the UK.

n According to a recent issue of Corrections Digest, CCA is “a Wall Street darling whose stock prices have doubled in five months ...”

 

Fighting over the spoils

       The Tennessee Corrections Oversight Committee’s first hearing  into proposals to privatise all of the state’s 21 prisons has been told by Wackenhut that the move would create savings of $45m  - one tenth of the state’s annual corrections budget - rather than CCA’s estimate of $100m. CCA has proposed to take over the entire system.The GRW Corporation is recommending that the state privatises 15 prisons while keeping six in its control for comparison so that in the event of a catastrophe in a private prison,  the state could send its own trained staff to help. Eight companies are interested in taking over all or some of the state’s facilities. The Committee is expected to make a decision by November 1997.

Meanwhile, in Florida, an attempt to capture a $15m a year contract to build and run a 500 bed women’s prison in Broward County, has led to lobbyists representing competing firms discrediting each other by sending information to the media about their respective client’s failings. This information should, in any event, be discovered if proper probity searches are carried by the state. The Sheriff’s Office was hopeful that the mud being thrown would stick and that the prison would end up publicly run - by them.

Unique partnership

But now the Sheriff’s Office is making a joint bid with Wackenhut. If they win, Wackenhut will be given land to build the prison on in return for the Sheriff’s Office having  greater control over the facility than is usual.

        In California, CCA is speculating that building a 2,000 bed facility in California City, north of Los Angeles, without a prior contract to house prisoners will be successful because of the shortage of beds in the state. CCA’s plan has refuelled the debate about privatisation in California where public prisons are overcrowded by 97 per cent and projections show the need for a further 25,000 places by the year 2000.  Wackenhut and its lobbyists are also pushing for legislation to authorise the state to contract out 3,000  drug treatment places.

The Little Hoover Commission, an independent inquiry into California government efficiency, has been told by the undersecretary of the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency that: “We’re not contracting out the state’s responsibility. There are things the government should do, whether it costs more or not.”

 

Ready or not, here we come

      The summer 1997 issue of Wackenhut’s’s in-house publication All Points Bulletin proudly reports that, in April, the training division at the company’s 1000 bed Delaware County prison in Pennsylvania trained 24 guards to certify them as members of the prison’s first Correctional Emergency Response Team (CERT).

The prison already had 25 dogs and 10 handlers but commanders saw the advantage of using this “K-9 unit” in conjunction with the CERT for crowd control or other disturbances.  The article reported that “even before training was complete, circumstances required that the CERT respond to the main facility six times during training for forced cell moves, an assaultative (sic) inmate, block shake-downs and the housing changes for escape  risk inmates in the maximum security ‘D’ block. All of these assignments were completed without incident, primarily due to the discipline and control of the members of the CERT squads.” The CERT is to have eight hours per month of ongoing training.

 

Wackenhut’s big win

     The Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) has chosen Wackenhut to run the 2,048 bed minimum security Taft Correctional Institution in California. The contract is worth over $300m.  Prisoners are expected to be phased-in  during December 1997. The company will provide security, health care, food, and facility management. The FBOP will conduct on-site monitoring of the contract, which runs for three years with an option for a further seven.

 

Louisiana riot

        Twenty  prisoners from Idaho were involved in a riot on 22 July 1997 over complaints about conditions at the dormitory-style Basile Detention Centre, Louisiana. The disturbance caused over $30,000 damage. The prisoners were transferred to the local county jail.

n Idaho currently has contracts to keep around 700 prisoners in out-of-state prisons and it wants its own facility. Some  54 companies have expressed an interest in building a prison for between 1,250 and 3,000 prisoners and Idaho hopes to award a contract in October 1997.

 

Michigan’s first

      Wackenhut is to build and run a 480 place Youth Correctional Facility for prisoners aged between 14 and 19 at Lake County, Michigan. It will be the state’s first private prison and will open in early 1999. The prison will cost $37m to construct and Wackenhut will receive $11.7m a year to run it. The Michigan Corrections Organisation, which represents state corrections officers, is concerned that Wackenhut does not have any experience of running a high security youth  facility.  On 1 January 1997, Michigan lowered the age at which juveniles can be tried as adults for serious crimes from 15 to 14 years old. The state’s juvenile court judges also have the option of sending young offenders, regardless of their age, to an adult prison for any of 12 serious crimes.

 

Too many in Oklahoma

      Despite Oklahoma having the third highest incarceration rate in the US, too many communities are scrambling to have prisons built to boost their economies. Now  state politicians are alarmed that some might end up like communities in Texas, with completed prisons but no prisoners. The Corrections Department  has no intention of closing existing publicly-run prisons to transfer its prisoners to private facilities.

 

Up in the air

        Most filmgoers who have seen Con Air might not know that the film is based upon a real airline run by the US Marshals Service  called the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System. The service was started in 1979 and now its fleet of 13 planes transport around 114,000 passengers - all prisoners and usually shackled - a year. Most are being transferred between 125 federal prisons but some 50,000 of this year’s passengers  will be illegal immigrants being moved around the US or deported on behalf of the Immigration and Naturalisation Service. The guards on each flight wear US Marshals Service insignia but in fact only one is a real deputy. The rest are contract guards paid $13 an hour with no benefits. They travel individually unarmed although there are two electric stun guns kept in the cabin. The film was described in the Washington Post as “unrealistic and pathetic” by Thomas Little, the service’s  Air Operations Division Chief.

 

Coalition conference

      The Corrections and Criminal Justice Coalition (motto “patrolling the nation’s toughest beat”) is holding its fourth conference in nine months between 26 and 28 September 1997 in Chicago.  In May, correctional officers from 17 states and representing 150,000 colleagues discussed a wide range of issues but they identified privatisation as the number one threat to their profession. The conference adopted a ten point resolution to campaign against privatisation, pledging the coalition to focus its “concerted clout to stop this movement and expose it for what it is”. Contact: Brian Dawe, Massachusetts Corrections Officers Federated Union; Tel: 1-617 436 7818 or see the Internet web site: www.mcofu.com.

 

Going home to be compulsory?

       The state of Arizona’s proposal earlier this year to build a private prison in Mexico - in order to relocate its  Mexican illegal immigrant prisoners also convicted of other crimes  - has now found favour with the states of New Mexico and California.  The California Board of Prison Terms wants to create a consortium of  the four South West border states, the federal government and Mexican authorities, which would pay a company to build and manage  a prison to be run as an industrial enterprise.  The purported motives are cost savings and mutual benefits.

Mexican prisoners held in the US  have to volunteer to be transferred to a Mexican prison. Very few exercise this option. Congress has  passed a law  seeking to remove this consent but implementation is a long way off. So the Board intends to lobby for compulsion. Meanwhile, Arizona’s original plan has attracted interest from at least two firms, although negotiations are at a very early stage.

Mexico’s consul in San Francisco has said that the proposal is “not a good idea”.

 

Just a thought ...    

“... the available evidence suggests that we have grossly failed to insulate our legislators and other political officials from the lobbying efforts of large corporations.” See: Thinking About Private Prisons by Richard L. Lippke, in Criminal Justice Ethics, Volume 16 No.1, 1997.