BILL WOULD KEEP FEDERAL CASH, INMATES OUT OF PRIVATE PRISONS Three Legislators From State Back Move To Slow Industry Growth Legislation to slow the growth of the private prison industry nationwide has been introduced in Congress, and three House members from Wisconsin say they support it out of concern for community safety and public oversight. "Having a private prison corporation run by a board of directors or CEO provides a very different level of accountability than that provided by public servants where access is guaranteed," said U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Madison and one of the three supporting the effort. Called the Public Safety Act, the legislation would prohibit the federal Bureau of Prisons from using private prisons, and it would bar states from using federal dollars to house inmates in such facilities. Introduced by Rep. Ted Strickland (D-Ohio), the legislation has 108 House members listed as co-sponsors. In Wisconsin, the federal legislation is also backed by Democratic Reps. Gerald Kleczka and Ron Kind. About 8,500 private prison beds are used by the federal Bureau of Prisons for inmates - or about 2% of the total number of federal inmates, authorities said. The federal legislation would have little immediate impact on Wisconsin, which uses only state tax dollars for private prison payments. However, one privately developed prison is almost completed in Stanley, at least one other private developer is eyeing Wisconsin, and the possibility exists that they could seek to house federal inmates. "I am troubled by questions regarding the quality of security and staffing at private facilities," Kind said. "Private corrections facilities, by nature, have profit - rather than public safety - as their underlying motive. This encourages administrators to cut corners, under-staff or even prolong prisoner stays. Finally, there remains some question whether private prisons actually add rather than reduce costs to taxpayers." Kleczka said his "strong support" for the measure stemmed from his belief that prisons are a fundamental responsibility of government. Those charges have been vigorously rebutted by both Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private prison company, and Wackenhut Corrections Corp., the second largest. Private prisons own beds for an estimated 112,000 prisoners - enough to house about 6% of the U.S. jail and prison population. CCA owns about 58% of those beds. A CCA spokeswoman said private prisons like those owned by CCA "compare very favorably" with public prisons. "We're not perfect," Susan Hart said. "No corrections provider is. But if all the criticism were founded, we would not have the growth and contract renewal rate we have." Patrick Cannan, director of corporate relations for Wackenhut, said his company got into the business to fill a need. "There were federal court orders in about 30 states because those prison systems were in trouble," he said. "Legislators were passing laws so sentences were being extended. States needed to build prisons very quickly, and we were able to do that." However, state Attorney General James Doyle said Wisconsin, at least, is known for good prisons and a sound corrections policy. "The thought of private prisons in this state is so antithetical to what you need for a good corrections policy," Doyle said. "Among the very few functions that we should insist is done by the state, it should be imprisoning other human beings. . . . It is the ultimate exercise of authority by the state to say you have violated our laws and we are now going to punish you by imprisoning you, and it should be the state that in fact, then, imprisons people." Two major federal government-sponsored studies on the industry in recent years reached no definitive conclusions on the effectiveness of private prisons. Current data does not provide "strong evidence" of any general pattern regarding costs and savings to states that use private prison beds, according to a July 1998 study done for the federal Bureau of Prisons. Likewise, the study said, no conclusions could be drawn about whether services are better in the private or public sector. A 1996 General Accounting Office study came to similar conclusions. Many of the problems private prisons are having stem from experienced inmates being rapidly thrown into a facility with inexperienced correctional officers, said Richard Crane, an attorney who specializes in helping states write contracts with private prison companies. Crane, who was general counsel for CCA until 1987, said he is in favor of prison privatization as long as there is strong regulatory control written into competitive contracts. Private prison companies also are under pressure from something that could not be imagined with traditional prisons: the stock market. "I read a financial article where some analyst said CCA's problem was they're not ramping up fast enough." Crane said. "I felt like saying, 'Who the hell are you? All you know is money.' We're talking about safety and security. The market wants to see these tremendous gains every three months, and I think that has been a real detriment to these private companies to be under that gun. They have this huge conflict. One is to the stockholders who want to see this growth, and the other is to the clients - the state." The market value of publicly traded stock in both Wackenhut and Prison Reality Trust - the publicly traded affiliate of CCA - is at an all-time low, according to James R. McDonald, an investment research analyst who specializes in private prison companies. A reorganization of CCA about a year ago and bad publicity about problems in private prisons have affected the stock market, he said. However, he stressed, neither company is in danger of going under. "My fundamental belief is that this is a growth industry," said McDonald, who works for First Analysis in Chicago.
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