Update: Pimps for Private Prisons and Profit

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Well, what did you expect? This is what happens when state government is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate lobbyists.

Despite a bipartisan outcry last summer after three inmates escaped from a private prison near Kingman, bills to increase state oversight of for-profit corrections companies can't get a legislative hearing. Arizona private prison oversight bills die:

Democrats have introduced 10 bills, including measures that would bring six private-prison complexes in Eloy and Florence under state standards. Those facilities, run by the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, house federal prisoners and detainees, as well as inmates from Hawaii, Washington and California, and are unregulated by the state.

Democrats also are concerned that, while the Kingman prison still isn't accepting new inmates because reforms aren't complete, another 5,000 private beds have gone out for bid.

"There's no legitimate reason why our private prisons shouldn't be held to the same standards as public prisons," said House Minority Leader Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix, who is sponsoring five bills.

Ah, but there is an "illegitimate" reason: the Governor's office is run by lobbyists for HighGround Public Affairs Consultants who also happen to represent Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and many members of the Arizona Legislature. They are pimps for private prisons and profit. It's the lobbyist scandal the Arizona political media refuses to investigate. They all seem to have forgotten the AzScam lobbyist scandal.

In the weeks after the Kingman inmates scaled a fence, led a cross-country chase and were tied to the death of a couple in New Mexico, the Department of Corrections issued a searing report that found "a culture of laxness among the staff," including false alarms so frequent they were routinely ignored.

Department Director Charles Ryan replaced top administrators and added state employees, while the contractor, Utah-based Management and Training Corp., installed a new alarm system and beefed up staff training.

Republicans who called for hearings into the breakout now say they're generally satisfied with Ryan's response.

Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, said the five Senate bills won't get a hearing in his Judiciary Committee because he doesn't believe they're necessary.

The next time a prisoner escapes from a private prison and kills someone – and they will – this idiot should be the one who has to notify the family of the victim of his or her death, and he can explain to the family why corporate profits are more important than their loved one's life.