Dial "0" For Corporate Prison Industry

It is one thing to have work programs that either (A) save taxpayers money by making a prison more self-sustaining, i.e., dairies, farming and so on or (B) provide a service for the state that again, saves taxpayers money such as making office furniture, license plates or signs for state agencies. It is quite another thing though to allow corporations to use prison labor for profit making ventures that ultimately hurt taxpayers - programs like Excel call centers. Not only are prisoners forced to work for pennies a day, the jobs they are doing are taking jobs away from communities as well.

Mega corporations should not be allowed to use incarcerated US citizens as a way around paying SS or payroll taxes. They should not be allowed to operate and profit at our expense. Mega-corporations are the only ones who profit from this and it is we the taxpayers getting royally screwed while they do it.
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Excerpt from Ft. Worth Weekly

When you call directory assistance using, say, Excel Telecommunications, chances are good your inquiry might be answered by a federal prisoner. At Carswell, a fifth of the prison workforce — most from the camp but a few from the hospital as well — get to sit in cubicles in an air-conditioned building, start at almost double the pay of the regular prison jobs, and, if they behave and don't make mistakes, get regular raises until they reach the maximum pay of — hold onto your hat — $1.45 an hour. Of course, they have to work seven and a half years to reach that maximum. And since this center hasn't been open long enough for anyone to make the maximum, the highest pay at Carswell is $1.15 an hour. With toothpaste at $5.95 in the prison commissary, inmates who take those calls for Excel have to work between five and 25 hours to earn enough for one tube. But by comparison, they're lucky: Women who work at other prison jobs have to sweat out 49 hours for the luxury of brushing their teeth.
The math on the other end is even simpler, if grander in scale: Excel, a $2.5 billion global company, comes out the clear winner. If the 19-year-old Irving-based long-distance carrier had to pay no more than minimum wage to non-prison U.S. workers to field calls from its worldwide network, it would cost the company $900 a month per worker, plus benefits and payments to Social Security. The 370 prison workers in Excel's call center at Carswell make $180 a month at most, with no benefits. But the Carswell prisoners are far from the only ones participating in this exercise in government-assisted capitalism. How many people know that when they dial 411, the operator at the other end of the call is often a federal prisoner? Or that when they call to reserve a camping space at a national park, the person taking their personal information may be sitting in a cubicle in a maximum-security prison? Or that the body armor for the soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is being manufactured by federal inmates?
In what critics call slave labor and advocates call job training, more than 100 factories and service centers in federal prisons across the United States employ inmates in jobs such as those above and hundreds more, making everything from underwear to military gear to intricate electrical components, all under the umbrella of a near-billion-dollar corporation known as the Federal Prison Industries, Inc., trade name Unicor. This little-known and wholly owned arm of the BOP has come under fire in recent years from environmentalists, prison reform groups, and congressional investigative committees for, among other things, exposing inmate workers to dangerous levels of lead and other toxins in its computer recycling centers. The company has also been investigated for profiting from sales of tens of thousands of excess Defense Department computers that were supposed to be given free to low-income schools around the country and, what may be worse, failing to remove sensitive data from the computers it resold. Unions and even the U. S. Chamber of Commerce are up in arms over its use of dirt-cheap prison labor to take jobs from the private sector.

Read Full Story Here at Ft. Weekly

Maine Privatization Mistake

 Sad to see another town fall for the salespitch of prison industry. All that prisons will bring to their community are low paying jobs, brutal overtime shifts and a few cheap hotels for visiting family members. No new shops want to open next to a prison. No actual lucrative business would want to set up shop anywhere near a prison so instead of projected growth in the area, the town will begin to exist solely around incarceration for profit. How demoralizing for a community to know that they earn their meager living by caging other human beings...

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The town of Milo has for two years tried to convince the nation’s largest private prison company to build a correctional facility at its industrial park. Corrections Corporation of America was sufficiently interested in 2008 that it sent an engineering firm to inspect the site, but momentum waned following a lack of enthusiasm for the project at the state level. But Governor-elect Paul LePage earlier this month visited Milo to follow up on his campaign pledge to meet with town and CCA officials to try to make the deal happen. 

The opening of a privately run prison in the Piscataquis County town would mark Maine’s first foray into the incarceration of its inmates for profit, a practice currently prohibited by state law. Making that leap with Tennessee-based CCA would bind Maine to a company with not only vast experience with such public-private partnerships and record revenues last year, but also a history of lawsuits and allegations of poor treatment of its inmates. Meanwhile, the company’s interest in Milo is tentative at best. Even if policy at the state level changes to allow for-profit prisons in Maine, CCA hasn’t committed to building here. 

The hoped-for prison in Milo, a town of fewer than 3,000 in the county currently saddled with Maine’s highest unemployment rate of more than 12%, could create up to 300 jobs. But even if CCA commits to the project, research into the economic impacts of private corrections facilities in rural areas “suggests that prisons may not generate the nature and scale of benefits municipalities anticipate or may even slow growth in some localities,” according to an April report by the Congressional Research Service. 

“We’ve got nothing else in the hopper here,” says Milo Town Manager Jim Gahagan. “It really could make a difference in our area.” 

Continue on MaineBiz

GEOGroup Buys Electronic Monitoring Service

Prison operator Geo Group Inc (GEO.N) said it agreed to buy privately-held electronic monitoring service provider B.I. Inc for $415 million in cash.
Geo sees the acquisition, expected to add about $115 million to its revenue in 2011, to have a neutral impact on its 2011 pro forma earnings and to add to its pro forma earnings from 2012.
Lenders including BofA Merrill Lynch and J.P. Morgan Chase have provided $425 million of committed financing to finance the deal, the company said in a statement.
Geo Group forecast pro forma earnings of $1.55-$1.65 a share and revenues of $1.62-$1.64 billion for 2011.
It also backed its earnings outlook for the fourth quarter of 2010. [ID:nASA01ADG]
In April, the company, which has been growing through acquisitions, bought rival Cornell Cos CRN.N for about $374 million in cash. [ID:nSGE63I0HN]
Shares of Boca Raton, Florida-based Geo Group closed at $25.09 on Monday on the New York Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Renju Jose in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)
Reuters

California OIG finds multiple Violations at out of state CCA Prisons

California Office of the Inspector General recently inspected 5 out-of-state prisons that house California Prisoners.  These prisons are being run by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) which is a for-profit corporation based out of Tennessee.

Denial Of Inmates Rights or Privileges
    These include retaining inmates on administrative segregation, overriding inmate classification scores, delaying inmate property and the list goes on....

Safety and Security Weaknesses
    Allowing inmates to wear clothing similar to custody personnel, poor screening for new CCA employees, unsupervised inmates in restricted areas, significant incidents not investigated and improper evidence handling and opening under an inner fence-line security gate just to name a few.

Unenforced Rules, Policies, Practices or Contract Provisions
    CDCR did not exercise adequate oversight of the inmate welfare fund, competitively bid state-to-state transportation services, approve CCA's use-of-force policy and timely review use-of-force incidents.

Other note-able issues
    Prescriptions being wasted and operating weaknesses on central control.

Sounds to me that CDCR is just handing out California prisoners and trying to forget about them.  According to California Code of Regulations out-of-state prisons may only house level 1 through level 3.  All the prisons that were inspected housed some level 4 inmates.  CDCR sent out a memorandum on March 17th, 2010 stating that "a level 4 inmates with low points (52-59) to be classified as a level 3 override and retain out of state".  The majority of these CCA prisons are one designed for level 1 through level 3 prisoners.

With CDCR's blatant disregard for the safety of prisoners, staff and citizens I do hope these issues brought out by the OIG are corrected quickly.

Link to letter from California Office of Inspector General to Matthew Cate Secretary of California Department of Corrections and Rehablitiation

CCA & GEO Group Propose More ICE Detention Facilities

Once again I have to ask why we are wasting our money housing immigrants instead of spending the money sensibly to stem the tide at the border? Why can we not deport the ones already here in an expedient manner instead of forcing citizens to bear the cost of housing them while deportation cases drag on for months and years? This is what we are putting our great-grandchildren in debt to pay for?? Outrageous!

By Beth Brelje

Pocono Record Writer

December 07, 2010

A well-developed plan for a massive Pike County federal detention center is one of three finalists being considered by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, according to county Commissioner Harry Forbes.

Two other proposed locations — in York County, Pa., and Essex County, N.J. — are being considered for the 2,256-bed center to house illegal immigrants, Forbes said. The winning location may be announced in the next two weeks.

A similar proposal by a different prison provider, GEO Group, to place such a center in Northampton County was recently scrapped.

In Pike County, officials are partnering with Corrections Corporation of America, a large national private prison provider. CCA and Pike officials presented plans to federal authorities on Oct. 22, Forbes said.

Between 450 and 600 jobs would be created locally if the detention center is placed in Pike. Immigration officials would transfer an additional 200 workers to the Pike facility, according to Forbes.

CCA-drawn indoor and outdoor renderings show the proposed facility would dwarf the existing Pike County Correctional Facility on a bordering lot. The detention center would be at the corner of Route 739 and Pike County Boulevard in Blooming Grove Township.

Nationally, CCA houses approximately 75,000 offenders and detainees in more than 60 facilities, with a total bed capacity of more than 80,000, according to its website. The company, which is more than 25 years old, partners with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. Marshals Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as states and local municipalities.

Read More...

The CA (Private)(Political) Prisoner Shuffle

Does anyone really find it surprising that the Governator is making good on debts owed on his way out the door? Private prisons played a huge part in putting him in office, of course he is agreeing to shipping prisoners willy-nilly around the country for no practical or fiscally responsible reason.

In 2009, Corrections Corp. of America contributed $100,000 to Budget Reform Now, the committee organized to campaign for six state budget-related measures supported by Schwarzenegger on a special election ballot in May. Six months later their contract extension worth $54 million a year to house prisoners out of state was approved by CDCR. I'd call that a rather nice return on their investment, wouldn't you?

Corrections Corp. donated $234,500 in 2007-08, and $38,900 that same year, to several members of the California Legislature and the state Democratic and Republican parties, according to its filings with the Secretary of State.The firm also reported spending about $45,000 for each of the three prior quarters on lobbyists in California.

How safe do you imagine it is to transport busloads of prisoners across several states? Am I the only one who thinks that shipping dangerous felons around might just increase the risk for escape or mayhem? Oh, but wait, GEOGroup/Wackenthut also operates a prison transport system - so for the price of a bloated, no bid contract paid for courtesy of hard working tax payers, they'll be more than happy to ensure safe shipping of prisoners nationwide!

We just aren't supposed to take notice of the fact that in a 2006 it was reported that of California’s seven private facilities, (labeled community correctional facilities), the GEO Group operates four of those, housing over 1,800 inmates. GEO Group has donated thousands of dollars in political contributions. GEO/Wackenhut Corrections gave $34,900 to California committees during the 2002-2004 election cycle. 

How astonishing then when, "In 2005, GEO Group, Inc. was tentatively awarded a $20 million contract to operate a San Joaquin Valley correctional facility," stated the Institute's report. 

"Wackenhut gave two Schwarzenegger committees a total of $58,000 in the latter part of 2003, including $36,800 to his committee supporting the recall of then-Governor Gray Davis. According to the (San Jose) Mercury News, GEO gave another $10,000 to a third Schwarzenegger committee."

Excerpts from today's SFGate -
"When California first signed contracts to ship prisoners over state lines four years ago, it began with 2,260 inmates at a cost of $51 million annually. Now, it is set to pay the companies $330 million a year to house 15,424 prisoners, and spend a total of $365 million once administrative costs are factored in. 

The latest deal will ship 5,800 inmates to private prisons across state lines, bringing the total to more than 15,000. The transfers will begin in May under a contract that runs through June 2013 - nearly halfway through the term of Gov.-elect Jerry Brown.
Critics of moving prisoners to out-of-state facilities say it does little to relieve the underlying problems that have caused crowded conditions and questioned the timing of the new, no-bid contracts with two private companies. One of the companies houses nearly 10,000 California prisoners.

"This is the governor doing what he wants to in the last minutes of his administration," said state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco. "It is a way he can, on his watch, knock another 5,000 from the official numbers."