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Two prisoners have hanged themselves, one has died of a suspected heroin overdose and two others have died from illness at Port Phillip, the State of Victoria’s most recently-opened private prison.

The five deaths at the prison, which is run by Group 4 and opened on 18 September 1997, have led the State Opposition and trade unions to call for a public inquiry into the prison’s management, security and design. Legal and church groups are also considering court action against the Government and Group 4 over the failure to remove hanging points from cells. The Law Institute has called for the appointment of an independent Prisons Ombudsman.

In addition to a police and coroner’s inquiry, under the terms of the contract between the Government and Group 4 each death must be independently investigated. The company has hired John Barclay of Cobra Executive Protection and formerly a chief superintendent with the Victoria Police.

The families of the two suicide victims, George Drinken and Adam Irwin, have spoken on national television alleging difficulties with obtaining information about their sons’ deaths. Mrs Irwin said that her son’s remand file had explicit instructions that he should be kept under close supervision as he was a major suicide/self harm risk. Mrs Drinken said that she was given no information about how her son had died.

In December, the Sunday Herald-Sun reported that prisoners got within two doors of freedom after staff issued them with swipe cards to enter restricted prison areas. The cards turned out to be incorrectly coded.

On 3 January 1998, there was a major incident when prisoners protested against the use of lock-downs and what they considered to be a general deterioration in their conditions. Group 4 asked the Government to move fourteen prisoners and they were later transferred to the public sector-run Barwon maximum security prison.

On 6 January 1998, The Age reported Port Phillip Prison sources alleging that drug use at the prison was out of control.

nThe following is an extract from an exchange during a debate in the State of Victoria Parliamentary Assembly on 13 November 1997: Mr Haermeyer (Yan Yean) - I ask the Minister for Corrections to investigate a number of serious incidents affecting security at the Port Phillip Prison at Laverton North. On 16 October, two prison officers were found bonking in a prison cell. They had a captive audience, and you could imagine what they were doing. The situation is disturbing. The prison management has decided there is nothing it can do to discipline these officers because bonking in a prison cell does not appear to be against the rules of the prison. A lot of the other female prison officers are perturbed --

Mrs Peulich - On a point of order, Mr Acting Speaker, I find the word ‘bonking’ difficult to understand. I wonder if the member can explain what it means.

[Mr Haermeyer, Opposition spokesperson on corrections, went on to describe another incident in which a prisoner was allegedly found having sex with a visitor; a number of serious fights between groups of prisoners; and the resignation of 30 prison officers since the facility opened. It was agreed that the Minister for Corrections would respond directly to Mr Haermeyer on the matters raised.]

Citing commercial confidentiality, the Government of Victoria still refuses to publish the performance criteria of Metropolitan Women’s Prison, Fulham Correctional Centre and Port Phillip. Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Coburg/Brunswick Community Legal Service applied for access to undisclosed parts of the contracts, operating manuals, monitoring reports and other documents. Full access was denied and the lawyers appealed, but a hearing will not take place until the summer of 1998. All three companies, Corrections Corporation of Australia, Group 4 and Australasian Correctional Management (Wackenhut) have joined with the Department of Justice to oppose disclosure.

n Victoria’s Public Accounts and Estimates Committee has recommended to the Government that the Department of Justice’s Annual Report should specify the costs per prisoner/prisoner place in private prisons. The report should also include a statement by the Correctional Services Commissioner about service delivery standards and the nature and extent of the monitoring undertaken. This follows the Committee’s examination of the impact of prison privatisation in Victoria and, in particular, problems at CCA’s Metropolitan Women’s Prison.

Victoria’s Ombudsman - who deals with all Government matters - dealt with 78 complaints from prisoners at CCA’s Metropolitan Women’s Prison during the year ended 30 June 1997. The complaints covered visits, canteen spends, medical treatment and protection. The Ombudsman reported that he has initiated enquiries into facilities for protection prisoners.

Twenty complaints were also received from prisoners at ACM-run Fulham Correctional Centre, Victoria’s second private prison. The most common complaints concerned medical treatment. The Ombudsman noted that “the management of Fulham experienced some difficulties in organising a reliable and timely medical service and delays and other problems were experienced ... I have been assured that the problems are being resolved.” Victoria, Twenty-fourth Report of the Ombudsman, 30 June 1997.

According to the 1996/97 Annual Report of the Queensland Corrective Services Commission (QCSC), ten correctional centres, two community corrections centres, the South Queensland Transport and Escort Service, the WORC Programme and four community corrections regions will be market tested. Only the Government’s three juvenile detention centres will be spared from the exercise. This follows the restructuring - known as corporatisation - of the QCSC.

However, there are no plans to have the public sector bid against Australasian Correctional Management and Corrections Corporation of Australia when their contracts for the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre and Borallon Correctional Centre respectively, next come up for renewal.

The State of Queensland is also considering a new privately financed and built maximum security prison. This follows the recent escape of five prisoners from the Sir David Longland prison near Brisbane which has led to an independent investigation into security systems and procedures.

Corrections Corporation of Australia (CCA) has submitted an Expression of Interest in response to the Government of Western Australia which intends to contract out court and police custody management, prisoner transportation and court security. The Government is expected to evaluate bids in February 1998 and award a contract in April. CCA also expects the Government to announce plans for a 600 bed prison within the next year.

Twelve teachers employed at Junee Correctional Centre, New South Wales’ only private prison, were sacked at the beginning of January 1998 to make way for a private contractor to take over the education programme. Junee is run by Australasian Correctional Management (ACM) and opened in 1993.

In the recently published performance review of Junee for the year from 1 July 1996 to 30 June 1997, the Government’s Liaison Officer reported that there had been improvement in education provision.

Overall, the review concluded that “there has again been further improvement in performance of 10 key result areas, with the remaining 42 ... satisfactorily meeting the operational standards ... except in the areas of industries and personnel management.”

ACM had reduced custodial staffing levels “to a level that may be a cause for concern if further reductions occur.” There was also “an unacceptably high level of inmate unemployment ...” and “... a lack of commitment and support by ACM in relation to correctional industry business development proposals ...”

There had also been continuing complaints regarding an unfair trading advantage enjoyed by International Cable Manufacturers Pty. Ltd (ICM) which runs an electric cable assembly plant at the prison. This led to a Government review - the findings of which are yet to be published - and to ACM renegotiating its contract with ICM. Junee Correctional Centre - Fourth Performance Review, Appendix 46 of the New South Wales Corrective Services’ Annual Report 1996-97.

Of all New South Wales jails, Junee prisoners made most written complaints to the New South Wales Government Ombudsman during 1996/97. According to the Ombudsman, Junee “retained its position as the institution about which most complaints were made ... the number rose from 36 to 52. Lost property was the most common complaint, followed by problems with officers ranging from alleged assault to threats and abuse, and record keeping and administration.”

The Ombudsman noted that “staff at Junee have yet to take to heart the role of our office - and the fact that we can often offer assistance in providing solutions to difficult situations.” NSW Ombudsman, Annual Report 1996-1997.

The chief inspector of prisons has published what he calls “a thoroughly good report” on Group 4-run HM Prison Buckley Hall, the fourth English prison to be privately managed. The inspection took place in February 1997 and the report was published last October.

Following a series of security breaches and other problems soon after its opening, a local Member of Parliament called for a public inquiry into the prison’s management. This did not happen. But the chief inspector’s report reveals that, in April 1996, the Prison Service did identify Buckley Hall as an “establishment with special difficulties”, following “a protracted period in which contractual targets were not being delivered and a number of incidents ...”

The chief inspector recommended that the designation be removed immediately as he found the delivery of services “was at least as effective, efficient and economical as that of any Category C prison we have inspected during the last year”. In fact, the Prison Service had restored the the prison’s status in March 1997.

The chief inspector referred to an unspecified number of default notices which had been issued. He also noted that the imposition of contractual penalties “sometimes resulted from issues which were beyond the power of the contractor to affect”. He did not state whether financial penalties had, in fact, been incurred. [An answer to a Parliamentary Question in December 1997 revealed that £526 had been deducted from payments to Group 4. Also, three improvement notices had been served on the company between January and August 1996.]

There had been conflict between the Home Office controller and the prison’s director and informal communication between them was “almost non-existent”.

But the biggest problems concerned the provision of education and work. At the time of the chief inspector’s visit, “there was a considerable number of prisoners who were under-employed or unemployed”. Education is sub-contracted to City College at Manchester and the chief inspector made 11 recommendations for improving the service to prisoners. Other concerns included:

nAlthough a race relations officer had been appointed, she had not been trained.

n Prisoners’ requests and complaints were not being taken sufficiently seriously and wing staff were “not properly investigating the nature of complaints ... the quality of reply varied from the inadequate to the insulting ...”

n Prisoners and staff acknowledged that the prison had a serious drug abuse problem.

Altogether, the chief inspector made over 80 recommendations for improvements. He also set out 47 example of good practice. He highlighted good practices adapted from the public sector and also recommended that the Prison Service should implement some of Group 4's systems and practices in public sector prisons. HM Prison Buckley Hall, Report of a Full Inspection 10-14 February 1997, Home Office, London.

n Two improvement notices (for contract failures) have been served on Group 4 since the chief inspector’s visit to Buckley Hall: on 10 April 1997, the company failed to comply with procedures laid down in the security manual; and on 6 November 1997, the prison shop was operated by a subcontractor without the Prison Service’s authorisation.

In June 1997, in order to develop a case for returning privately-run prisons to the public sector, the Home Secretary asked the Prison Service to review comparative costs to see if they matched. That review has started and, although the figures have not been independently scrutinised, costs for 1996/97 are thought to be ten per cent cheaper in the private sector. This is due to fewer staff and worse wages and conditions. But all other costs were more expensive and the number of assaults on staff and prisoners were also higher.

In order to operate its prison and escort services contracts, in recent years Group 4 has hired 40 former Prison Service staff, including 14 governor grades and two psychologists. One of the latest recruits is the member of the chief inspector of prisons’ team who drafted the report on Group 4-run HM Prison Buckley Hall. Other companies have also recruited a significant number of Prison Service staff. The National Association of Probation Officers has called for an independent inquiry into what it considers “a clear conflict of interest”.

The UK’s second privately financed, designed, built and run prison opened on 1 December 1997. HM Prison Altcourse, at Fazakerley in north west England, is run by Group 4. The prison will initially hold high security prisoners and, from May 1998, maximum security prisoners also. Originally, the company decided to break new ground by not contracting with the Probation Service - which provides services to all other prisons in England and Wales - and to employ its own uniformed social work staff. But following negotiations, Group 4 has agreed to keep its own staff and contract with Merseyside Probation Service to carry out its usual duties.

After five years of unsuccessful contract bids, UK Detention Services Ltd, which is now jointly owned by Corrections Corporation of America and Sodexho (which, in turn, owns 20 per cent of CCA), has won its second UK contract. It will run a new prison at Salford in north west England. UK construction firm Tilbury Douglas has the £45m contract to build the new prison.

n As recently as 25 March 1997, the Prison Service served an improvement notice on UKDS for failing to provide meals for prisoners transferring from HM Prison Blakenhurst to another prison.

Wackenhut’s joint venture company in the UK has won a 25 year contract to finance, design, build and run what it calls a 400 bed ‘correctional institute’ near Bristol, south west England. The facility is expected to open in October 1999. Wackenhut now has four prison contracts in the UK, as well as running two regional prisoner escort services, an immigration detention centre and the prison industries at one public sector prison.

Securicor Custodial Services Ltd opened its first private prison, HM Parc at Bridgend, Wales in November 1997. But ten days after it opened, David Jenkins, a remand prisoner on suicide watch, hanged himself by his shoelaces. There was a full staff complement but only 99 prisoners in the 800 cell prison. Prisoners are being admitted at a rate of 50 per week.

On 15 December 1997, another prisoner attempted suicide but was found on the off-chance by a custody officer. A so-called innovative design has reduced the size of the prison by 40 per cent compared with other 800 cell prisons. The design restricts prisoner movements and allows for fewer staff. The magazine Building has described the prison buildings as looking like “quality industrial sheds”.

Group 4 will soon open the first private Secure Training Centre for 40 offenders aged between 12 and 15 years old. Another four centres are planned but contracts have not yet been awarded. On 4 December 1997, an MP asked the Home Secretary what the estimated average annual payment to the contractors for each child would be. The reply was that it would be inappropriate to publish the figures. However, on 30 December 1997 the Daily Mail reported that the annual cost per child will be £250,000, or £4,800 per week - more expensive than staying at the Ritz Hotel in London.

Free advice

Since 1995, the Prison Service unit responsible for privatisation and contracting out - the Contracts and Competition Group (CCG) - has been offering free advice, information and consultancy to foreign Governments. Australia, Colombia, Canada, Fiji, Israel, Japan, Trinidad and Tobago, New Zealand and the United States have benefited, as have provincial and state Governments including South Australia, Western Australia, Victoria, Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Oklahoma.

Mr Tim Wilson, the head of the CCG also recently acted as an independent member of the evaluation panel that assessed contractors’ applications to prequalify for prison contracts offered by the South African Government.

At the Second Annual Privatising Correctional Facilities Conference for investors held last September in New York, Mr Wilson outlined what he regarded as key international developments from the UK perspective:

n There is no indication that the interest shown in developments in the UK will result in the contracting out of the core custodial service elsewhere in the European Union.

n Countries in the British Commonwealth are likely to be the main growth areas for contractualisation.

n There are probably another half dozen British or US contractors who are also capable of operating globally.

n Just as the leading contractors are thinking internationally, contracting authorities need to be conscious of the opportunities presented by international developments. In the smaller markets outside the USA, initiatives to share expertise about efficient and economical procurement practices; the promotion of convergence, where appropriate, in contract terms and financial mechanisms; and the encouragement that such strategies would give to new operators to seek to work in more than one jurisdiction, should result in improved services and better value for money.

Whatever the situation in ten years’ time in any individual country, there is likely to be a strong and, in some respects, unified DCMF market within the British Commonwealth offering important opportunities for companies and investors who do not wish to concentrate exclusively on custodial contracting within the US. This, in turn, will give contracting authorities and investors greater confidence that global companies will be increasingly better placed to weather fluctuation in demand within individual jurisdictions. From: The International Scene - UK Trends and Perspectives, Tim Wilson, HM Prison Service.

Is privatisation necessary?

In a recent paper, academics from the University of Hull, who were involved in the evaluation of the UK’s first privately run prison, HM Prison Wolds, state that privately managed prisons have no monopoly on innovation or good practice. They review Richard Harding’s argument [in his book Private Prisons and Public Accountability] that privatisation is intended to have a cross fertilisation effect on the whole prison system.

When comparing public and private sector prison performance, it is said that competition can often match the achievements of the private sector.

They also raise some pertinent questions, such as: “is it not possible to envisage a new, improved and integrated prison system, in which cost effectiveness is closely monitored, regime quality maintained and accountability ensured but which no longer needs the spur of the private sector ...” [this] “indeed appears to have been achieved in many European jurisdictions without resort to privatisation.”Evaluating Private Prisons: Comparisons, Competition and Cross-fertilization, by A Keith Bottomley and Adrian James in Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, Vol 30, No 3, December 1997.

In December 1997 the provincial Government published its Custody Configuration Report - the framework document for the future of correctional services - and announced that, initially, two new facilities will be privately financed and built and leased back to the province. The report, which cost $C300,000 and was prepared by Atlantic Corrections Group Services Inc (ACG - a joint venture between Management & Training Corporation of Utah, and Canadian firms Bracknell and SNC Lavalin) also gave the Government a series of other options which the justice minister says will not be acted upon. The cost of the Government’s staff involvement in the process has not been quantified.

The Government hopes that the needs of mentally ill offenders will be best met by replacing the existing Halifax Correctional Centre and Nova Scotia Forensic Psychiatric Service and building new facilities together on one site. Professional expertise and infrastructure such as kitchen, laundry and heating systems will be shared. The new prison and psychiatric unit will be staffed by public employees. The Government expects the facilities to be open by late 2000. Once the impact of the new facilities on services is known, decisions will be made about the future of other facilities. For further details of the Custody Configuration Report, contact Michele McKinnon, Nova Scotia Department of Justice, Tel:++902 424 6811, Email: mckinngm@gov.ns.ca

The Wackenhut-built, but province-run, New Brunswick Youth Centre opened on 6 January 1998. It is the first correctional facility in Canada to base its entire rehabilitation programme on the principles of a therapeutic community and is in stark contrast to the militaristic approach taken by the province of Ontario’s new private boot camp. The facility will reach its capacity of 100 male and female young offenders aged between 12 and 18 by the spring. The Government had originally intended that the facility should also be privately-run but a strong trade union and community campaign forced the change.

Correctional workers staged a province-wide protest on 1 December 1997 as part of an ongoing campaign against the provincial Government’s plan to replace fourteen existing facilities with two 1,200 bed ‘superjails’, at least one of which is to be privatised. The Government wants to reduce its daily prisoner cost from $C124 to between $65 and $75 and has been meeting with corrections companies. The Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union (OPSEU) believes that the concepts of both privatisation and ‘superjails’ are flawed. It has produced an alternative plan to restructure the service with regional jails and make cost savings without threat to jobs or public safety. The Police Association of Ontario is also concerned about the effects of privatisation.

n The Ontario Government hired Ottawa consultant Jim Robinson, formerly of Partnership & Procurement Inc. and now with the Halifax Group, to provide an evaluation plan, a selection process, and an actual request for proposals for the finance, design, construction and management of a facility. To help him draw up the documents, Mr Robinson in turn hired Prof. Charles Thomas of the University of Florida, who, he told NOW magazine in December, is “utilised as an adviser on almost every privatisation project”. Mr Robinson also said that he is currently involved with a US company that is interested in bidding for the Ontario contract.

The Government of Jamaica is considering privately financing and building a new facility to replace its existing, overcrowded remand centre in Kingston. Business Week in December 1997 referred to Wackenhut as being well placed for “planned contests” in Jamaica. But a Government spokesperson told PPRI that the plan for a new prison was at a very early stage and that, in any event, there were many local firms capable of financing and carrying out such a project.

The Youth League of the African National Congress (ANC) is part of a consortium bidding for the construction and operation of two prisons. The League’s company forms part of the consortium led by Siyakha Youth Services Afrika and also includes Youth Services International and Parsons Corporation of the US, Buna Puri Group of Malaysia and CIBC Wood Gundy. One of the new facilities the group is bidding for is the youth facility in Mpumalanga Province. The Youth League’s involvement has drawn criticism on the grounds that political parties should not be involved in business deals with the Government.

The Department of Public Works has refused to make public the identities of the contract bidders. The Youth League’s involvement only came to light during a Government Portfolio Committee debate on amendments to the Correctional Services Act, which enables privatisation, when an ANC MP disclosed an interest as a director of the Youth League’s Trade and Investment Company.

n Pretoria Prison’s newly converted C-Max unit opened last September and holds 17 of South Africa’s most dangerous prisoners. According to Security Australia, wardens wear body armour and carry stun guns that can deliver a 50,000 volt shock that will temporarily paralyse but not kill. They “appear equipped to put down an urban riot ... much of the equipment was developed in the US, whose own burgeoning prison population has put it at the forefront of such technologies.” Commissioner Khulekani Sitole recently visited the US, UK, the Far East and other African countries and decided to “translate the [American] concepts to South African conditions.”

Residents of Fallsburg, a town 90 miles north of New York City, discovered last February that Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) had bought a local hotel and 180 acres of land. Although no planning application has yet been made to the Town Planning Board the company is thought to be interested in developing the site as a halfway house for drug dependent offenders. The scheme is being promoted as a way of bringing a much needed boost to a local economy which has seen better days.

At first, residents’ objections were based on the ‘not in my backyard’ principle, as the site is just 800 feet from an elementary school. But as the campaign develops, residents have made contacts with prison officers’ trade unions - there are already two state prisons in the area - and wider issues are also being considered, not least the merits of the town’s economic dependency on prisons.

George Zoley, Wackenhut’s chief executive officer, told Business Week recently that international contracts now account for 20 per cent of the company’s revenues and 30 per cent of its profits. “If we maintain market share and growth rate, we will be a $1 billion company ... by 2004,” he said. The magazine also reported that as Wackenhut expands to less industrialised nations business may be riskier “but that’s a risk Zoley is willing to take to make Wackenhut ... a company worth following”.

In December, the company expanded its credit facility to $250m to finance new prison building. As at 19 December 1997 the company had 45 awards and/or contracts for 45 facilities in the US, UK and Australia. Ten facilities are due to open in 1998.

Securicor New Century, a subsidiary of UK firm Securicor plc, has won its first contract in the US. It will operate a 104 bed high security facility for juveniles in Florida.

Tennessee’s legislators are finalising plans to privatise some two-thirds of the state’s correctional facilities, despite an offer by the Department of Corrections to cut its budget by $70m a year.

Corrections Corporation of America originally proposed to take over the whole state system and this led to a series of legislative hearings, chaired by Senator James Kyle. Five companies are now interested in bidding for contracts.

nAccording to The Nation, “the chief lobbyist [for CCA] in the Tennessee legislature is married to the Speaker of the state House. Top CCA executives, board members and their spouses have contributed at least $110,000 to state candidates since 1993, including $1,350 to Senator Kyle. And five state officials - including the Governor, the House Speaker and the sponsor of the privatisation bill - are partners with CCA co-founder Thomas Beasley in several Red Hot & Blue barbecue restaurants in Tennessee.”

The New Mexico Corrections Department has accused CCA of allegedly overcharging the state $2m over the past eight years for operating the women’s prison in Grants. The company’s fee of $95 per prisoner per day apparently includes $22 for debt service on the facility.

n No date has been set for the trial hearing into former CCA lobbyist Bill Cornelison’s $12.7m compensation claim against CCA and its chairman over an alleged dishonoured share agreement.

n The design of CCA’s new facility being built at Lawrenceville, Virginia, will allow the company to employ just five guards during the day and two at night to supervise 750 prisoners. The control room will enable a guard to simultaneously watch three pods of 250 prisoners each as windows in the elevated room provide an unobstructed view of each cell block below. There will also be vision blocks in the floor over each entrance so that guards can identify anyone being admitted.

n As at 5 January 1998, CCA claimed to have 52,890 beds in 67 facilities under contract or in negotiation in the US, Puerto Rico, Australia and the UK. [A CCA press release on 4 December 1997 gave the figure as 53,531 beds.]

California’s prison population is 150,000 and this is expected to triple in the next 25 years due to the state’s three strikes law. Overcrowding is rife. Jails such as San Diego’s Metropolitan Correctional Center have a capacity of 900 but the US Marshal’s detainee population for the area has grown to between 1,600 to 1,700 prisoners per day. These figures do not include pre-arraignment detainees under control of the arresting agency.

Corrections Corporation of America has formed a west coast regional division to “accelerate the company’s business opportunities” in the state. Since October 1997, CCA has announced the development of three facilities in the state with a total capacity of 4,528 beds. In December 1997, Wackenhut “instituted its management services” at three community correctional facilities in California with a total of 1,500 beds, along with the 2,048 bed Taft Federal Correctional Institution.

Avalon Community Services Inc of Oklahoma’s corporate mantra is ‘minimum security prisons - maximum profit margins’. A letter to prospective investors from Tiffany Wright, Public Information Manager, explains that Avalon is the only publicly traded corrections company that focuses on community based corrections. Although there are over 5,000 independent providers in the US, most of which are non-profit or charitable organisations, the company is “working towards becoming the dominant provider” in this highly fragmented industry. How? Through acquisition and new contract awards, the company predicts that its revenues will grow from $3.3m in 1996 to over $30m by the end of 1998.

Avalon calculates that 99 per cent of prisoners currently in the prison system will be released. Many will spend the last three to six months of their sentence in minimum security programmes and they will received substance abuse counselling, vocational assistance and be part of a work release programme. As it costs an average $35,000 a bed to build a maximum security prison bed and just around $10,000 for a minimum security bed, community based correctional facilities “offer investors an interesting approach to the private corrections industry”.

Georgia’s Department of Corrections has been unable to privatise its low-security halfway houses and diversion centres and prison programmes for substance abusers and sex offenders. The private sector made no bids for the halfway houses and diversion centres and subsequent repackaged proposals were more expensive than existing costs, as were bids for the sex offender programmes. The state has already privatised three prisons and health care services, although the original health care provider, Prison Health Services Inc, lost its contract within the first year after being fined for inadequate staffing. The Medical College of Georgia now provides health services to prisoners.

According to the Corrections and Criminal Justice Coalition (CCJC), it now represents 200,000 correctional officers and “with the success of our anti-privatisation press conference, our recently released brochure, our participation at the Oklahoma privatisation conference and our appearance in Fallsburg, New York, to stop CCA from building a speculative private prison, we are quickly becoming a force that the privateers must deal with.”

The next CCJC conference is on 6 and 7 February 1998 in Vienna, Virginia. Delegates from Canada will also be attending. The CCJC has prison privatisation at the top of its campaign agenda. To register, contact: Theresa Souzi or Steve Chand, Tel:1-800-766-8578. The CCJC website is at:www.ccjc.com.

Ten years after it adopted opposition to privatisation as official policy, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation (ACLUF) has restated its position. The ACLU’s National Prison Project recently joined with the Law Enforcement Alliance of America to oppose privatisation, saying that not only are all its original arguments still valid but “the problems of privatisation have become clear and more worrying”.

The ACLUF’s view is that “the move to privatisation is a dangerous distraction from the difficult decisions that need to be made to restructure our criminal justice policies. We must move away from a focus on incarceration as a response to every social problem and begin to look at alternatives.” National Prison Project, 1875 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 410, Washington, DC 20009.Tel:++202 234 4830. Fax:++202 234 4890.

Ohio’s first privately run county jail has opened, run by Civigenics of Massachusetts. The company, formed just over two years ago, operates several county jails in Colorado and has acquired a number of companies that provide drug and alcohol counselling services.

Two private security guards were jailed in Dalton, Georgia on 27 December 1997 after fighting with each other while escorting nine prisoners from Tennessee. The two employees of Federal Extradition Transportation of Memphis, had been drinking alcohol in the security van. Both were jailed for drunk driving and making a false report. They were also charged with reckless conduct and providing alcohol to the prisoners.

n A convicted rapist escaped from a Federal Extradition Transportation vehicle in Colorado last July and brought the company and the practice under the state’s scrutiny. Under Colorado law, there is no requirement for authorities to be notified when private firms are transporting prisoners through the state. Now the county sheriff and the head of corrections - who only use public services for moving prisoners - are calling for such legislation. Federal Extradition has been involved in other incidents recently. A van crashed in Kansas killing a guard and injuring four prisoners. In West Palm Beach, a prisoner escaped when he was allowed out of a vehicle to urinate at a petrol station. There have also been allegations that the company may have improperly used the US Marshal Service’s emblem on its vehicles or attempted to give the impression that it is a Federal Government agency. The company’s listed address in Memphis turned out to be a mail-drop business known as the Mail Center.

nIn the 1980s, a Federal law was passed allowing private firms to transport prisoners. They have to be licensed by the US Department of Transportation. There were some 40 firms in the business but the number has reduced to around 12. The largest is Transcor, a subsidiary of Corrections Corporation of America, which is run by John Zierdt, a former US Army Brigadier General. Transcor recently formed a new subsidiary to provide extradition services in Puerto Rico.

Robert Dearing, deputy director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards - the body which oversees private and public prisons in the state - was a paid consultant for the Bobby Ross Group Inc (BRG) at the same time as he was investigating complaints about conditions at a BRG prison in Texas last year.

Montana corrections officials had described conditions at the Dickens County Correctional Center as substandard and found 29 areas of non-compliance with the contract. They subsequently moved their prisoners out and cancelled the state’s contract with BRG. Mr Dearing, however, gave the facility a clean bill of health.

The Commission’s executive director said Mr Dearing had no conflict of interest since his consultancy was only connected with BRG’s juvenile facilities in Georgia. Mr Dearing, however, has since resigned his $42,000 a year BRG consultancy. He is paid $48,360 a year for his regulatory job.

Prison Privatisation Report International