Cell-Out Arizona:  Prison, Privatization and Politics

Dianne Post, Attorney

11 August 2011

The Arizona Department of Corrections is conducting five public hearings regarding contracts for four private, for-profit prisons.  The hearings are in Eloy, Goodyear, Winslow, Yuma, and Coolidge from 9 to 18 August. The Goodyear hearing was held at the Desert Edge High School on 10 August.  When I arrived, cars were streaming in and a steady flow of people tramped toward the auditorium in the evening heat. 

The director of DOC, Charles Ryan, introduced a line up of people on the stage – one side DOC personnel, the other GEO (formerly Wackenhut) personnel.  In 2009, our legislature passed a law HB 2010 telling DOC to contract for 5,000 more prison beds.  In January 2011, they announced a Request for Proposals (RFP) and received proposals from CCA (the ones being sued in Florence for abuse of Hawaiian inmates), MTC (the ones running the Kingman prison where the escape and murder occurred), GEO (the ones Phoenix EEOC sued for sexual harassment and Texas threw out for mismanagement - TEXAS) and LaSalle/Southwest Corrections (16 escapees in 7 years, jailers having sex with inmates, pregnant inmates, and in a prison of 500, they had zero records of medications being administered).  A line up of crooks and criminals.

Ryan outlined the locations, number of beds and the notice procedures.  Letters went to officials of each area on 14 July 2011.  “Officials” included legislators, (only one showed up at the hearing in Goodyear), city council (none of Goodyear’s showed up), school board (if they were there, they didn’t speak up though the school issue was mentioned over and over).  A public hearing is mandatory after a 10 day advance notice in the paper.  A final proposal will be chosen after 16 September 2011.

Ryan then introduced the head of GEO who bragged that their company was the world’s largest organization locking up people, that they had three facilities in Arizona, and that they were publicly traded on the NY stock exchange.  He failed to mention that in 2010 CCA and GEO, the first and second biggest prison profiteers, made $2.9 billion.  Yes folks, billion.  And that from 1997 to 2007, taxpayer cost for prisons has increased 72%.  The U.S. now imprisons more people per capita than China or Russia.  The land of the free.

GEO’s token Black man, who is regional manager, was put on display.  The architect showed slides about how the prison would be built.  Charts showed what they claimed would be the positive local economic impact. The CEO finished off by saying he would be accountable to us all.  However during questions he refused to say the recidivism rate claiming they didn’t keep that data, his salary claiming it was not relevant ($19 million in 18 months compared to DOC director Ryan’s $162,000 a year) and how much money their company had “donated” to Arizona legislators in the past two years.  He claimed he did not know what ALEC was when in fact GEO had been a member of the organization until two years ago.  So much for accountability.     

Thirty-five speakers followed the presentations.  First was the city manager of Litchfield Park reading a letter from the mayor opposing the project.  Several people commented on the broken promises of DOC when Perryvale was built.  They had promised it would be minimum security, only women, and not expanded.  Within nine years, they broke all promises.  Now they want to expand the complex more – across the street from an already existing elementary school – another point many people mentioned.  

A series of construction workers paraded up and said we need jobs.  True enough, but others pointed out these jobs are temporary, often prisons bring in workers from other areas anyhow, and prisons tamp down long term development that sustains jobs and growth.  Others pointed out that they had come to Pebble Creek and bought custom built homes, but that would stop if the city becomes a prison complex.  One pointed out that if it were Scottsdale or Fountain Hills, this discussion would not be occurring.

Some spoke about having had good experiences with GEO but more spoke about their history of bad management and their reputation of corruption and abuse.  One speaker had been in a previous lawsuit with them about California prisoners.  He had visited the prison complex in Eloy and said he could tell immediately whether he was in a state or private prison – the state one had countable guards while to maximize profits, the private one relied on technology.  But technology is only as good as the operator.  The microwave technology, which the architect had talked about, is often triggered by small animals so the prison shut it off. 

DOC came in for its share of criticism for not monitoring its contracts with the private prisons, for not acting quickly enough e.g. in Kingman, and for not being transparent and accountable.   Human rights problems are a constant plague in all prisons along with inadequate medical care, sexual abuse and neglect.  See Arizona Prison Watch (http://arizonaprisonwatch.blogspot.com/) for more information.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) of Tucson had the most fact filled presentation.  They also asked pointed questions of GEO.  While GEO touted new jobs, she pointed out that DOC has already fined them $6,000 for failing to fill vacant positions.  Their turnover is 32% compared to around 13% for the state workers.  They pay $16/hour or $33,280 per year (CCA pays $14). DOC pays $31,885 to start, $32,916 after completing cadet school, and $39,664 after eight years. 

The AFSC director, Carolyn Issacs, pointed out that research has shown that the alleged economic development does not materialize or is eclipsed by negative results that are significant and related to all prisons.  Prisons harm communities.  They have few linkages with the local community, often exclude local construction companies and bring in higher paid personnel from outside. 

Specifically problems have been found with GEO prisons in Arizona including inmates having access to emergency exits, failure to do basic searching and others.  A GEO prison hit national news when Indiana inmates rioted in 2007.  Another AFSC staff pointed out the impact on water use and the landfill. 

The lack of imagination of our legislators was frequently mentioned.  Arizona is in need of much construction – our infrastructure is crumbling.  Yet Arizona turned down money that could have been used for construction, turned down money that could have paid extended unemployment for construction workers, and instead opted for spending tax dollars on locking up its own citizens for private profit. 

Private prisons work with ALEC to craft legislation that will lock up more people (e.g. SB 1070) for longer time and thus garner profit. Governor Brewer is an active member of ALEC and her connections with the private prison industry are many. Further, private prisons have every incentive to hand out discipline to prisoners so they can then extend prison stay and rake in more money. 

Many mentioned racism.  Prisoners in private prisons refer to themselves as “products” according to Ray Dawson, a retired aero-space worker from Pebble Creek who grew up in the area picking cotton.  He pointed out that society would gain more by building schools than prisons. A society that puts humans in bondage for money is a society that has lost its way.

The ACLU pointed out that private prisons do not save money, and they put profit first not safety.  GEO in particular has a deeply troubling past with many escapes, the EEOC law suit against it, in Florida and Texas staff were found distributing drugs and cell phones, and Texas even cancelled a contract due to sex abuse and an emergency exit sealed by a padlock.  Though private prisons take taxpayer money, they are not accountable to us.

A retired firefighter pointed out that prisons drive down the wages as they use inmates to do work for corporations at pennies on the dollar.  The crowd of about 125 laughed when he pointed out that when firefighters are laid off, they don’t complain that there aren’t enough fires.  More Blacks are imprisoned today than were in slavery.  It’s the new plantation, the new slavery.  Crime has actually gone down, and we could decrease our corrections budget as other states have.  Both Kansas and Texas were able to reduce costs when they threw out private prisons.  Instead, our state legislators actually agreed to split any savings from private prison with the contractors rather than returning that money to the taxpayers. 

The last speaker was Frank Smith the field organizer for Private Corrections Institute from Kansas.  He described his battles with GEO in Alaska, California and Kansas.  In the process he helped send two Wackenhut employees and six state legislators to jail for corruption that is pervasive in the industry.  In Pueblo, Co, GEO promised local jobs and then brought the buildings in modules built in Mississippi with low wage workers and no unions.  In Littlefield, TX they built and then bailed out leaving the city with a prison to sell at a loss.  CCA in Tucson had a 90% turnover in employees – these are not professional jobs but fast food jobs for an expendable population.

For example MTC (Kingman fame) now wants the taxpayers to pay for empty beds due to escapees who escaped because of their own lax policies.  Who are the crazy people here?  The family of the persons murdered during the escape from Kingman has sued the state and MTC for $40 million.  When looking at costs, external costs such as lawsuits are often omitted yet taxpayers end up footing the bill.  Look up these companies for yourself on the Internet and you can see what kind of cow manure we are stepping into. 

The Maricopa County NAACP opposed the building of the prisons for three reasons:  cost, safety and mismanagement.  The proposal would cost Arizona taxpayers $640 million by 2017, yet the inmate population only increased by 65 in 2010.  The DOC budget is $1 billion, 11% of the total budget and the only one that was increased. Private prisons cost $56 per day per prisoner and state ones $48. Do you want to pay $8 a day to put money into the pockets of CEO’s? But private prisons do make money for lobbyists and legislators who line their pockets at our expense. 

Private prisons are not safe.  Not only is the Kingman escape a wake up call, but also inmate violence is 66% higher and violence toward staff 49% higher in private prisons.  Each of the corporations has a terrible record of mismanagement, abuse and corruption.            

As usual, Arizona is marching the wrong way.  Crime is down and most prisoners are non-violent drug offenders.  Disproportionate laws (such as crack v. cocaine) and discriminatory enforcement means that Black and Brown people continue to populate our prisons.  Rehabilitation works and is cheaper not only in dollars but in the lives of people, families and communities. 

More prisons means more people to fill them staying longer time.  Those who need drug treatment won’t get it.  Those who need mental health treatment won’t get it.  Battered women who defended themselves will be in prison. The project is not only economic insanity and administration stupidity, but it is profoundly immoral to imprison people and keep them there to make a buck.  If it’s wrong for a criminal to steal a TV or a car because they want the money, how much more wrong is it for GEO and CCA and MTC to steal a life, a community, and a future so they can collect billions?  Who is the real criminal?

There are three more hearings.  Winslow on 11 August, 6-8 pm in the Winslow High School Performing Arts Center, 600 E Cherry St.; Yuma on 16 August, 6-8, August at the San Luis City Council Chambers, 1090 East Union St., San Luis; and Coolidge on 18 August, 6-8 pm, at the Coolidge City Council Chambers, 911 S Arizona Blvd, Coolidge.  If you can’t make that, you can still write letters. 

What may have been the situation in 2009 (though I don’t believe that) is most assuredly not the situation in 2011 and these prisons should not be built.

Comments are due by the end of August to: Procurement, ADOC, 1645 W. Jefferson, Phoenix, 85007.  Specify in the document that you are writing about the 5,000 private prison bid RFP.  Send copies of your letters to both your state representatives and your state senator and the governor. 

Posted: August 13, 2011