Pimps for Private Prisons and Profit: Taxpayers are getting ripped off

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

  It looks like our shadow governor, Chuck Coughlin and his lobbyist firm HighGround, Inc. that pimps for private prisons in Arizona, has needlessly been costing Arizona taxpayers millions of dollars steered into profits for his private prison clients.

Taxpayers have the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and its prison privatization model legislation to thank for being ripped off, as well as complicit Arizona legislators.

Here is the Arizona Prison Report | American Friends Service Committee.

The Arizona Republic today continues the 'Republic's special report: The Price of Prisons with this report Arizona private prisons slammed by report:

Arizona's private prisons are not cost-effective for taxpayers and are more difficult to monitor than state prisons, according to a new report by a prison watchdog group that is calling for a moratorium on any new private prisons in the state.

The report examined the five prisons that have contracts to house Arizona prisoners and six private prisons that house federal detainees or inmates from other states, including California and Hawaii.

Based on public-information requests and other data, the report by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group that works on criminal-justice reform, concluded that:

Arizona paid $10 million more for private prison beds between 2008 and 2010 than it would have for equivalent state beds.

Arizona's pending plan to contract for another 2,000 private-prison beds would cost taxpayers at least $38.7 million a year, at least $6 million a year more than incarcerating those inmates in state prisons. Plans to add 500 more maximum-security beds in state prisons would add almost $10 million a year to the bill. The report questioned whether those beds are needed, since the state's prison population has declined over the past two years by more than 900 inmates, to 39,854 as of Wednesday.

 

The report criticized a recent biennial study by the Arizona Department of Corrections that found that the quality and cost of private prisons compared favorably with those of state prisons. The committee noted that the Corrections Department study didn't include data about scores of security flaws found at some prisons after three inmates escaped in 2010 from the private Kingman prison; that the study didn't look at recidivism rates, deaths in custody, suicides or homicides; and that it downplayed the fact that private prisons had consistently higher turnover and staff vacancy rates and higher levels of inmate disciplinary reports.

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The report pointed out that reports every year since 2005 by the Corrections Department, along with others by the state's auditor general, concluded that private-prison beds on average have been more expensive; but that the most recent Corrections Department study changed the way it calculated expenses to include a "range" that it termed comparable.

The report also noted that lawmakers exempted two private prisons — the Central Arizona Correctional Facility, run by GEO Group Inc., and the Cerbat unit at the Kingman prison, operated by Management and Training Corp. — from state laws requiring private prisons to provide an equivalent or higher level of quality than the state.

"The state has deliberately obscured information that would cast private prisons in a negative light," wrote Caroline Isaacs, the author of the report and the Friends Committee program director in Tucson.

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In response to questions during a press conference at the state Capitol on Wednesday, Isaacs said it had been difficult to obtain information about prison operations.

"The fact that this information is so difficult to obtain should give Arizona taxpayers pause about the lack of transparency and lack of accountability of private prisons," she said. Her group is calling for legislation to require stricter state oversight and reporting requirements for private prisons operating in Arizona.

House Minority Leader Rep. Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix, said he has introduced six bills calling for better oversight and reporting, though he doesn't expect any of his bills to get a hearing.

UPDATE: In exchange for keeping at least a 90 percent occupancy rate, the private prison company Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) has sent a letter to 48 states offering to manage their prisons under a 20 year contract for the low price of $250 million per year, according to a letter obtained by the Huffington Post. Private Prisons Buying State Prisons:

The move reflects a significant shift in strategy for the private prison industry, which until now has expanded by building prisons of its own or managing state-controlled prisons. It also represents an unprecedented bid for more control of state prison systems.

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Corrections Corporation's offer of $250 million toward purchasing existing state prisons is yet another avenue for potential growth. The company has billed the "corrections investment initiative" as a convenient option for states in need of fresh revenue streams: The state benefits from a one-time infusion of cash, while the prison corporation wins a new long-term contract. In addition, supporters of prison privatization have argued that states can achieve cost savings through outsourcing, as prison corporations give fewer benefits to employees.

"We believe this comes at a timely and helpful juncture and hope you will share our belief in the benefits of the purchase-and-manage model," reads the letter from Harley Lappin, CCA's chief corrections officer, who was a former director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

* * *

Others have raised serious doubts about the wisdom of selling off and privatizing state prisons, which could give private corporations substantially more bargaining power in long-term contracts with states. Prison management contracts can be canceled or re-bid frequently, with the state still retaining ownership of the prison as an asset. But if a private company owns the prison, the state would have fewer options if it wanted to cut ties. Any alternatives for housing prisoners would likely cost more, such as building a new prison from scratch or finding another company to take in its inmates.

A series of studies has also cast doubt on the private prison industry's main selling point: efficiency. Research across numerous states has shown that the promised savings from private prisons can be illusory at best. Cost comparisons often fail to account for extra administrative expenses borne by the state, or differences in health care costs for sickly inmates who normally remain in state supervision.

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[E]stimated savings often come down to how those calculations are made, and outside researchers have questioned the numbers. In Arizona, for example, a 2010 report from the state's auditor general showed that it cost the state more to house prisoners in private facilities than public prisons after factoring in administrative costs and adjusting for the types of medical care provided to less healthy inmates who tended to be housed in public facilities.

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