Real Savings Needed For Private Prisons

The Florida Legislature has been frugal about most things in recent years, with one exception - prisons.

Florida has been on a prison-building binge.
And despite the state's avowed fiscal conservatism, the binge has been financed with what amounts to a $1 billion credit card.

Things are so out of hand that prisons continue to be filled while crime declines. So where are the new prisoners coming from? Too often, from first-time offenders and nonviolent drug offenders.

Other states, most notably Texas, have responded by finding alternatives to prison that save money and still protect the public.

Florida, unfortunately, has responded by simply transferring more prisons to private companies. That doesn't necessarily save money. In fact, after more than a decade of prison privatization, the savings are still vague.

Major examples

- There is no hard evidence that private prisons save money or have better outcomes than public ones, reported the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy last year.
- A 2008 report from the Legislature's accountability office concluded that there was no good assurance that private prisons had comparable levels of health and mental health care as public ones.

Read Full Story on Jacksonville.com 

Bribery Pays Off For Aramark in MI

It looks as though the half a million dollars that Aramark spent on lobbying legislators in Michigan has finally begun to pay off after a plan to privatize the prison food service industry has been passed by MI lawmakers…all in the name of ‘saving money’, of course.


Michigan’s governor has a theory that laying off 300 state workers and handing the food contract over to Aramark (in spite of their long, long list of lawsuits, contract issues and wrongdoings) is going to save their state money. Or so he claims. Odds are that he cares far more about keeping his friendly relations with corporate (re: donating) interests intact than he does about saving the citizens of Michigan any money. After all, why care if a little more $ is spent s’long as its other people’s money being spent, right?

I hope that Michigan lawmakers had the foresight to set some money aside for potential lawsuits from prisoners, not to mention, to cover any cost connected to possible future audits of Aramark’s bookkeeping and (over)billing system as other states have had to do. Findings by the FL legislators audit in 2007 to the end of contractual relations with Aramark and fines totaling more than $864,000 between 2001-08.  Kentucky is looking at spending over $18 million to repair/rebuild after damages from a riot over Aramark food.

Other states have had faced problems with Aramark ranging from breaking state wage laws to public health hazards like rat droppings and maggots found in Aramark kitchens and food. Mind you, Aramark serves more than just the prison population; they service several school districts throughout MI.

Isn’t it disgusting to know that lawmakers are so happy and willing to (A) charge the citizens of their states extra money in order to *Reward* campaign donating corporations contracts and that (B) they don’t even care if they put the health and safety of not only prisoners, but that of the general public, at such unnecessary risk to do so?

Sooner or later hopefully people will start to do their homework and vote for candidates without ties to corporate owners and interests who are nothing more than parasites feeding from the trough of our corrupt political system. Until then…

Condolences to the citizens of MI for Aramark’s advancing take-over of your state institutions and services. Oh, and you might want to find out who feeds your kid at school – and consider sack lunches should the answer be Aramark!

Original Post Here

Ohio's Prison 'Ethics'

Wow, this is rich! I feel sorry for the citizens of Ohio because it is obvious that the public officials think their constituents are nothing but a bunch of morons...

From the Columbus Dispatch-

"The Ohio Ethics Commission says prisons director Gary C. Mohr does not have a conflict of interest with plans to privatize state facilities - even though he previously worked for a private prison company.

Paul M. Nick, interim executive director of the Ethics Commission, said in a letter on March 30 to state Rep. Matt Lundy, D-Elyria, that even though Mohr formerly worked for Corrections 

Corporation of America, there is no conflict if a state employee "has fully severed his relationship with a former employer or business associate, with no understanding that the relationship will be resumed in the future."

Nick noted that Mohr took the "possibility of perceived conflict seriously" because he turned over decision-making authority to Linda Janes, his chief of staff."

ajohnson@dispatch.com

Private Prison Bribes Beginning to Pay Off in FL

GEOGroup's bribes to FL legislators is obviously beginning to pay off for them...

"The Florida Legislature’s push to privatize many more prisons, its most far-reaching cost-cutting plan in years, could open a lucrative door to politically connected vendors who stand to profit.

Senate and House budgets require the state to privatize prisons in South Florida, home to one-fifth of the statewide inmate population of 101,000. The region is the home of the GEO Group, the nation’s second-largest private prison operator, which currently runs two private prisons, including the largest private lockup, the Blackwater River Correctional Facility in Milton.

GEO also operates five state psychiatric hospitals, including South Florida State Hospital in Pembroke Pines, which got its long-sought accreditation after GEO’s takeover.

The Boca Raton company, a reliable contributor to the Republican party, employs more than 2,000 people and a stable of 16 Capitol lobbyists. It donated $25,000 to Gov. Rick Scott’s inaugural celebration in January. A top transition budget adviser to Scott, Donna Arduin, is a former trustee of a GEO real estate company, Correctional Properties Trust. The company’s healthcare subsidiary, GEO Care, is led by Jorge Dominicis, a familiar figure in the Capitol from years of lobbying for the sugar industry."

Read more: Miami Herald

Push For Prison Privatization In MN Oppossed

By KEVIN GILES, Star Tribune 

A House bill that would require the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) to solicit offers from private companies to house state inmates has run into strong opposition.
In an apparent reversal from practice under Gov. Tim Pawlenty's administration, the state's new corrections commissioner prefers that prison inmates remain under public management. Some legislators also question the purpose of opening private prisons, and the union that represents 1,900 correctional officers condemns the legislation as a union-busting effort.


But the bill's sponsor, Rep. Torrey Westrom, R-Elbow Lake, said this week that Minnesota needs competitive bidding between public and private prisons to reduce costs to taxpayers. Westrom described his bill, HF 939, as "a budget-saving measure," but also said that he hoped it would allow a mothballed private prison near his district in western Minnesota to reopen.


"It had a good record and was a well-run prison," he said of the Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton, which was closed in early 2010 for lack of business. "Toe to toe I think it could match up with what our state facilities are running."


Commissioner Tom Roy, who took over the Corrections Department just seven weeks ago as Gov. Mark Dayton's appointee, said he believes in principle that state prisons, like other public safety agencies, should remain accountable to the public. He's also sympathetic to union concerns that three of Minnesota's nine adult prisons are understaffed.


Roy said the public holds the DOC to a high standard and "I have total confidence that the public entity of corrections should properly fall in the public realm."


Private prisons find no favor with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 5 (AFSCME). "We are concerned that private prisons for profit have become a nasty business," said Eliot Seide, the union's executive director. "They're trying to make a profit out of human incarceration. That's a throwback to the Middle Ages."

Full Story

Private Prison Fails In Scotland

If anyone thinks that private prisons are ineffective only in the US, they need to think again. No matter where in the world these facilities operate, be it Idaho or Istanbul; turning rehabilitation and incarceration over to nasty corporations like CCA, GEOGroup & overseas, G4S Securior, (Wackenhut) always fails. 

Excerpt From Daily Record UK

SCOTLAND"S showpiece private prison is more violent than any other jail of its size in the country, a shock report by inspectors has revealed.

Addiewell jail has been dubbed the Addison - after the Radisson hotel chain - because cons enjoy flat-screen TVs, Sky Sports and en-suite bathrooms in their cells.

But there were more attacks on staff and inmates at Addiewell in 12 months than at Saughton in Edinburgh, Perth or Kilmarnock prisons, which are about the same size.

And the West Lothian jail has been hit by two major riots since it opened little more than two years ago at a cost of £130million.

As he unveiled his first ever report on Addiewell, Scotland's chief inspector of prisons, Brigadier Hugh Monro, said: "I worry about the violence here, as I do in all Scottish prisons - particularly the staff assaults."

 And politicians described the level of attacks on Addiewell officers as "unacceptable" and "deeply disappointing".
Addiewell staff suffered 49 "minor" attacks - almost one a week - in the 12 months to October 2010. There were also two serious assaults on officers.

That compares to just 14 "minor" attacks and two serious staff assaults in the same period at Saughton, seven "minor" assaults at Kilmarnock and only five "minor" attacks at Perth.
Addiewell was also worst for attacks by cons on other prisoners. There were 16 serious assaults - more than at Saughton (15), Perth (11) and Kilmarnock (11).

The reports also records 278 "minor" prisoner-on-prisoner attacks at Addiewell. The figures for Saughton, Perth and Kilmarnock were 274, 195 and 154 respectively.

Rioting erupted at Addiewell in October 2009. About 20 cons ran amok and an officer needed treatment in hospital.
Just three months later, an officer was hit with a pool cue as violence erupted again.

Reacting to the inspector's report, Tory justice spokesman John Lamont MSP said: "Addiewell has, in a short space of time, developed a poor history of protecting staff. It is deeply disappointing that they have not addressed this problem.

"The level of violence in this prison is unacceptable. More must be done to ensure that better safety is provided so staff do not bear the brunt of it."

Full Story

Corrections Corporation of America - The 'Gladiator' Of Rotten Industry in Idaho

How nice to see CCA back in the headlines…yet again. Not surprisingly, they seem to be making headlines for doing what they do best – abusing prisoners, participating in dirty cover-ups and of course, costing us taxpayers a damnable fortune for their sorry ass screw ups and inability to safely house so much as a dog, let alone any human beings.

While the political contributions may be a surprise to some residents of Idaho, they certainly are not anything new to anyone remotely familiar with the companies like CCA that operate these prison-for-profit scams to fleece the states and taxpayers out of their money. They buy the lawmakers of every state they do business in; Idaho is not unique at all. In fact, all they’ve done in Idaho has been to implement the same formula for ‘success’ that they have already used in TN, NM, AZ and every other state they do business in.

This page has numerous resources and links to help the general public educate themselves as to how private prison industry operates in this country and to simplify, they are all linked at the bottom of this article. Before you vote for your next state legislator or leader, isn’t it worth your time to make sure they are not on the payroll of one of these appalling companies who don’t care a damn thing about the safety of the public so long as the CEO’s and shareholders can keep lining their pockets…with our tax dollars!

Excerpts from an outstanding two-part investigative series by KBOI 2News which can be found Here and Here.

"Back in July, 2000, the Idaho Correctional Center opened as the state's first privately run prison. Recently, I.C.C, run by Corrections Corporation of America, has come under fire after a lawsuit filed by the America Civil Liberties Union, alleging misconduct, mismanagement and more.

Last year, officials with the Idaho Department of Correction discovered 10 of 13 drug and alcohol counselors at the prison weren't qualified to provide treatment. A separate medical audit revealed I.C.C. had extensive problems administering medical care, including delays in providing medication. In total C.C.A. was fined more than $141,000 by the state.

But the problems for C.C.A. are not limited to Idaho. We found complaints against C.C.A. in all 19 states they operate, all within the past decade, involving much more than just medical care.

Last year the governor of Kentucky ordered 400 female inmates to be removed from a C.C.A. run prison after allegations of sexual misconduct by male guards. In 2009, C.C.A. settled with 21 former female workers in Colorado who claimed male managers forced them to have sex to keep their jobs. In Florida, a corrections officer pleaded guilty to smuggling drugs into a C.C.A. run jail. And in December, C.C.A. settled another lawsuit with the A.C.L.U. in California requiring, in part, the San Diego Correctional Facility hire more nurses.

“It’s not just unique to this facility,” says B.S.U. Criminal Science Professor Dr. Michael Blankenship. Blankenship says part of the problem is that private prison companies like C.C.A. exist to make a profit. “If you’re not delivering profits,” say Blankenship, “who’s going to buy your stock?”

We checked into the financial health of C.C.A. A decade ago on February 1st, 2001, their stock was trading at $2.50 a share. Four weeks ago, on February 1st, 2011, it was ten times that amount at $25.09 a share.

But not only does C.C.A. make money. They give money. KBOI 2News obtained a list of candidates receiving money from C.C.A. between 2003 and 2010. At the head of the pack receiving $19,000 is Idaho Governor Butch Otter.

We called C.C.A. to find out why but the company declined our request for an on camera interview. Instead, Spokesman Steve Owen sent a statement that reads in part: “Because C.C.A.’s political contributions reflect the specific laws and limits of individual states, it is difficult to compare our corporate giving to elected officials from different regions of the country.”

The disparity in campaign contribution is even more noteworthy when you consider of the 75,000 inmates C.C.A. supervises nationwide only 2,000 of them are here in Idaho. That’s less than 3%.

But here's why every Idaho taxpayer should care about what happens to Idaho inmates.

If the state of Idaho is dragged into court it takes taxpayer money for a defense, not to mention a judgment.

Originally the A.C.L.U. named Idaho on the lawsuit, right along with C.C.A. in the case. But last June the A.C.L.U. agreed to drop Idaho as a defendant, saving taxpayers the possible expense in this case.

Currently the A.C.L.U. is suing C.C.A. for $155 million dollars, which is equal to the amount of profit the company earned in 2009."

Check out the full story on  KBOI 2News

For More Information on CCA's wrongdoings and legal woes - Click Here

For More Information on Private Prison Industry - Click Here

For Information on CCA stockholders, CEOs and other connections - Click Here

To Find Out Which Lawmakers Are On CCA's payroll - Click Here

For a complete overview of how private prison industry impacts our laws, our freedoms and our way of life - Click Here.

CCA Prison Detainee Count Distorts MS Census

For anyone who might think that there are no connections between our open-border policy and refusal to deport criminal immigrants and corporate and legislative profit motives, examples like this one ought to help explain why our legislators continue this insane push to incarcerate vs. deport the criminals streaming across our borders.

It is no secret that CCA helps write immigration policy and anyone who thinks they don't force an agenda that is in the best interest of their stockholders rather than the best interest of American citizens and communities might want to spend some time doing a bit more research into who is behind the shaping of our national and state legislative actions and policy making.

Corporations like CCA are able to work with our lawmakers for a $50,000 fee paid to The American Legislative Exchange Council - is it any wonder they promote policy that will increase their profit margins and value on Wall Street?

So while they make a fortune, we the taxpayers get to foot the bill for facilities like the $128 million dollar Adams County Correctional Center. The census should reflect the true population, and not be distorted by counting the imported and illegal immigrant status criminals housed in the districts simply to boost corporate and dirty legislative profits.

Excerpts From Natchez Democrat, "Reality of Population Drop Worse" Posted by By Emily Lane

NATCHEZ — The 2010 U.S. Census included a sizable chunk of people as Adams County residents who do not live in these parts by choice.

Approximately 2,000 inmates at the Corrections Corporation of America prison were counted as Adams County residents in the recent census, Adams County Correctional Center Warden Vance Laughlin confirmed.

That means that the county lost approximately 4,000 — approximately 13 percent — of its population in the last decade when excluding prison inmates at the Adams County Correctional Facility from the equation. Adams County’s population decreased to 32,297 in 2010 from 34,340 in 2000, counting the inmates.

The extra boost in census population explains the growth reported in District 5.
Inmates included, District 5 has 23-percent more residents than the average of all of the districts’ populations.

The census also counted 1,878 Hispanics in District 5, compared to an average of 68 Hispanics in Districts 1-4.

Most of the 2,567 beds at CCA are filled with inmates from Central and South America. An exact breakdown of the prison’s census count was not available by press time.

CCA has a contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to house 2,567 criminal alien offenders in Adams County Correctional Center. 

The offenders are low-security illegal immigrants who committed offenses in the United States and will be returned to their country of origin after completing their sentences.

Stacy Vidal, a public information officer for the U.S. Census Bureau, said each state is responsible for its own rules and processes for how they use census data to draw district lines.

Read The Full Story on The Natchez Democrat

Milo, Maine Falls Prey To CCA Private Prison Industry

How sad to see another town falling to the sales-pitch of corporate prison piggies. 100 good paying jobs? Yeah, why not investigate some other towns who believed the same thing. New industry! More schools! More revenue! Because business just flock to build near prisons, dontcha know?

And I bet with just a few minutes of digging people would discover that CCA was a major contributor to Senator Thomas' campaign. That is standard operating procedure of Corrections Corporation of America and their ilk; buy out lawmakers first, then push for more privatization contracts. Disgusting.

From CorrectionsOne AUGUSTA, Maine—Prospects of building a privately run prison in the economically depressed town of Milo appear to be gaining momentum with a new administration in the State House and legislation being prepared to pave the way for such a project.

Republican Sen. Douglas Thomas' bill has yet to be fleshed out, but it's clearly aimed at authorizing a prison in the Piscataquis County town of about 2,400, which has a double-digit unemployment rate and has been buffeted by a loss of businesses not to mention devastating fire in 2008 that wiped out a third of its downtown.

"If there's a chance of getting 100 good-paying jobs, I'm interested," said Thomas, of Ripley.
Read more at Boston.com.

More Abuse Reported at Private Prison Operated By CCA

"Gov. Neil Abercrombie has promised to bring back all Hawaii inmates serving prison sentences on the mainland because of previous allegations of mistreatment by guards at Saguaro,"according to the Jan. 14 newspaper report.

Eighteen Hawaiian inmates sued CCA in December 2010, claiming that guards stripped, beat, kicked and threatened to kill them, banged their heads on tables while they were handcuffed, and that "the warden himself" threatened their families. Those inmates claim that CCA "deliberately destroyed and failed to preserve evidence of their wrongdoing, including videotapes," and "deliberately falsified reports."

Hawaii's governor also cited a December 2010 "riot" at another CCA prison in Arizona, Red Rock Correctional Center, which holds about 50 Hawaiian prisoners. The Saguaro prison holds about 1,800 Hawaiians...

Link to Article Here

Link to Suit filed Here

California Governor Brown's Budget Cuts Private Prison Spending

This year's California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation budget assumes $410 million paid to for profit private prisons for housing California inmates. Next year the expenditure would drop to $224 million.

Out-of-state private prison costs, the most expensive line item in the CDCR contracted facilities budget, would go from $272 million in the current year to $148 million in 2011-12.

Click here to see details of the CDCR budget.

Read the complete article Here

Aramark Violates Contract with KY DOC

*GASP* A prison corporation over billing the state and screwing taxpayers out of their hard earned money? How shocking! Makes me wonder how much they over bill the states for their university contracts and how old the food is that they serve to college kids...

A state lawmaker wants Attorney General Jack Conway to investigate possible violations of Aramark Correctional Services' $12 million food service contract with the Kentucky Corrections Department.
Rep. Brent Yonts, D-Greenville, said Aramark broke the terms of the deal last year by refusing to provide cost-related records to state auditors who were conducting their own investigation of food served to inmates at Kentucky's 13 prisons.
In a Jan. 4 letter to Conway, Yonts also listed other "examples of contract breach" identified in state Auditor Crit Luallen's final report, including Aramark overbilling the state and serving old food to inmates that was not stored properly.

Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/01/10/1593198/lawmaker-asks-attorney-general.html#ixzz1ArY1vd3b

Another Lawsuit Against CCA For Sexual Abuse

No worries, even if CCA is forced to pay out money for damages I'm sure they can find ways to recoup their losses by overcharging states for the so-called 'service' they provide.

A German woman has filed a lawsuit against a private company that ran a Kentucky prison and some of its employees, saying she was forced to trade sex to call her ill mother.
The suit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Louisville is the latest in a series of cases alleging sexual assault at the Otter Creek Correctional Complex in Wheelwright. Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear ordered all the female prisoners removed from the facility a year ago when a scandal involving corrections officers and inmates reached its height.
The lawsuit says the inmate, a 38-year-old German citizen, is serving 12 years for theft and other charges. Although the lawsuit names the inmate, the Associated Press does not generally identify those who say they have been sexually assaulted.
The lawsuit accuses Dwight Crowell, an internal affairs officer at the prison, of sexual assault. It also names several of his superiors — former Otter Creek Warden Jeff Little, currently the security chief at another CCA prison, Lee Adjustment Center, John Ferguson, chairman of CCA's board of directors and Tony Grande, an executive vice president of CCA — and says they didn't stop the wrongdoing.
Louise Graham, a spokeswoman for CCA in Nashville, Tenn., declined to address the specifics of the inmate's allegations.

Read more here

Feds Investigate Conditions at MS Youth Facility

Yet another example of why allowing corporations to make a profit from incarcerating our citizens. Is this really the best this country can do to 'rehabilitate' troubled teens? 

The U.S. Department of Justice informed Gov. Haley Barbour late last year that it had begun an investigation into the treatment of juveniles at the prison.

A former inmate testified today at a House Juvenile Justice Committee hearing that he was beaten at the state's youth prison.

"The Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility was hell," recalled Ross Walton, a 25-year-old former inmate.

Jackson lawyer Robert McDuff filed at lawsuit against Florida-based the GEO Group on behalf of 13 youthful offenders at the Leake County prison. It alleges young offenders at the 1,200-inmate prison are being forced to live in "barbaric, unconstitutional conditions."
Other defendants in the lawsuit are state Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps and the Walnut Grove Correctional Authority, which was created by the city to oversee the facility, and others.
Walton told state lawmakers today of being beaten by guards and seeing other inmates being beaten. "I've witnessed guards beat inmates over drug money," he said.
He said he's seen the staff bring drugs to the facility, including marijuana, cocaine and pills.
Prices at the prison canteen are hugely inflated, he said. The price of a bar of Irish Spring? $2. The price of a tube of Colgate? $5.
Shannon Busby and her husband told the committee that the same Ramen soup that cost 15 cents at Walmart is $4.60 in the canteen.
She told the committee about the experiences of her son, Kenneth Page, at the prison.
"He wants to be be somebody," she said. "He wants to change his past."
They are unable to send him a Bible, she said. The only Bible he can get they must order from the prison's website.
The same website allowed them to buy him a Christmas dinner for $100, she said. "We didn't do it because we couldn't afford it."

Full Story...

CCA Takes Hawaii Taxpayers For An Expensive Ride

Just more proof that CCA is a corrupt, inept, incompetent and unqualified corporation that doesn't give a damn about public safety. You can bet that money was funneled to someone in Hawaii's legislature or DOC in order for the contracts to be awarded in an underhanded and unethical manner. Looks like the citizens of Hawaii have been taken for a fun and expensive ride through their dealings with CCA - as have so many other states.

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The state's auditor on Wednesday blasted the Hawaii Department of Public Safety's management of a contract to house prisoners in privately owned Arizona prisons.
In a 77-page report, Marion Higa also criticized the financial data about the arrangement the department has provided legislators and the public for using a flawed methodology and containing inaccurate or insufficient figures.

"Without clarified guidance by policymakers, the department has no incentive to perform better and will continue to evade accountability by providing unreliable and inaccurate reporting of incarceration costs," Higa wrote in the audit's conclusion.

"In addition, the department has misused its procurement authority to circumvent the process designed with safeguards to protect the state's interests," she added.

Interim Public Safety Director Jodie Maesaka-Hirata said her agency acknowledges the auditor's recommendations "and will address the concerns raised in the report. In addition, we will review all administrative rules, practices, and existing policies as it relates to the mainland and federal detention center branch."

Much of the audit's findings were critical of actions taken before current Gov. Neil Abercrombie took office earlier this month, succeeding Gov. Linda Lingle. Abercrombie has said he wants to stop exporting inmates to other states but hasn't specified how that would be accomplished.

Spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said possible solutions include "revisiting ideas of increasing prison capacity in Hawaii and ensuring successful transitions into the community."

About 2,000 male Hawaii prisoners are housed in the Florence, Red Rock and Saguaro correctional centers owned by the Corrections Corp. of America, according to the audit.
The state in 2006 signed an "intergovernmental agreement" with Eloy, Ariz., where the facilities are located, but deals almost exclusively with CCA, the report contended.

The arrangement allowed agency officials to circumvent and manipulate the state's competitive procurement process to steer business to CCA, the audit found. The department also treated CCA as a government agent instead of a private vendor operating for a profit, it contended.

Full Story on Bloomberg

New Ohio Prison Director's Conflict of Interest

Once again we see an unholy cross-over between private and public sector employment. Is anyone really supposed to believe that a former CCA employee will not be advocating for more privatization of Ohio's prisons or think for one second that contracts will be awarded fairly?

What a complete and utter joke this is. Hope Ohioans are ready to spend even more on their prison budget. Not once has it ever been proven private facilities that operate for profit save the state any money whatsoever. In fact, it kind of defies logic to think that hiring a 3rd part middleman saves money in any industry, doesn't it?

Columbus Dispatch

Gov.-elect John Kasich, who has said he wants to explore privatizing state prison operations, has chosen a former longtime state prisons official who later worked at a company that operates private prisons to run the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.


Kasich introduced Gary C. Mohr during a press conference this afternoon at the Ross County Courthouse in Chillicothe, Mohr's hometown. He is the 11th cabinet nomination so far before Kasich takes office on Monday.

Kasich and Mohr pledged that all state decisions involving privatization would publicly bid and transparent and that Mohr would abstain from any decision involving his former employer, Corrections Corporation of America, a private operator.

From 2007-09, Mohr was a managing director for Nashville-based CCA which owns and operates a private prison in Youngstown that houses federal inmates. The company runs 60 prison facilities housing 75,000 inmates in 18 states and the District of Columbia.

Mohr currently is chief executive of the consulting company, Mohr Correctional Insight, which has mostly worked with CCA, including instituting a new management system for prison staffing. He has been in that position since 2009 after earlier serving from 2005-07.
Kasich has targeted the state prison system as a way to save money with Ohio facing a potential shortfall of $8 billion or more in the next two-year budget that Kasich must introduce by March 15.

Full Story

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