News (Media Awareness Project) - US VA: Overbuilt Prisons Must Import Criminals |
| Title: | US VA: Overbuilt Prisons Must Import Criminals |
| Published On: | 2000-03-05 |
| Source: | Virginian-Pilot (VA) |
| Fetched On: | 2008-09-05 01:19:14 |
OVERBUILT PRISONS MUST IMPORT CRIMINALS
Michael Rainey, a Michigan state prisoner, got a rude surprise last January.
Rainey, 23, doing 10 to 50 years for assault with intent to murder, learned
that he was moving -- 1,000 miles away to Virginia.
``I was just swooped up, sort of kidnapped,'' he said in a recent
interview. ``There was no advance notice. They just said, `Pack up.' ''
A few hours later he was on a bus with 39 other prisoners, chained to each
other and to the floor of the bus, rumbling through the Midwest on a
21-hour ride to Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va.
Some had volunteered for the transfer, but many more were sent against
their will, said David Maples, another Michigan inmate who made the trip.
``They were cuffed and hog-tied and literally pushed on the bus,'' said
Maples, 31, who is doing 10 to 20 years for cocaine delivery.
Rainey, Maples and thousands like them are the human cargo comprising
Virginia's newest import: out-of-state convicts.
At last count, there were nearly 3,500 of them from six states and the
District of Columbia doing time in Virginia prisons from Sussex County to
the Kentucky border in a cells-for-hire program that is unique in the nation.
The out-of-staters are filling cells that would otherwise be sitting empty.
A prison-building boom launched under Gov. George Allen in 1995 overshot
the mark and resulted in a surplus that grew to nearly 4,500 beds last
year. At an average of $50,000 per bed, that's $225 million worth of empty
cells.
Had the General Assembly not ultimately pared down Allen's prison-building
program, Virginia now would have nearly 10,000 surplus beds.
Del. Jay W. DeBoer, D-Petersburg, who opposed the prison buildup, wryly
calls it Virginia's ``Motel 6 policy: `We'll leave a light on for you but
you won't be able to see it because you don't have any windows.' ''
``It's almost a lodging industry at this point rather than a corrections
industry,'' DeBoer said.
The state has established itself as an entrepreneur in the booming $40
billion-a-year corrections business, which some critics have labeled the
``prison-industrial complex.''
Charles Thomas, a criminologist at the University of Florida who has
studied the fast-growing private prison industry, says Virginia has become
an aggressive competitor of private corrections companies, actively
marketing itself to states with overcrowded prison systems.
``There has been nothing at the state level even remotely comparable to
what Virginia is doing,'' Thomas said.
Virginia charges $60 to $64 a day per inmate, which was expected to
generate $153 million over four years. The state says its intent is to
cover its costs but not make a profit.
There are clouds on the horizon, however.
The out-of-state contracts have begun to run out, and some are not being
renewed as the other states solve their shortages. Iowa pulled its 100
female inmates from the new Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in
December. Michigan terminated its contract for housing 1,550 inmates at
Greensville last month.
At that rate, state budget analysts are projecting a $75 million shortfall
that will have to be made up by finding new out-of-state customers, closing
or mothballing some prisons, or beefing up the corrections budget.
Prison Population Estimates Were Way Off
It wasn't supposed to turn out this way.
In 1994, when the General Assembly enacted Allen's program to abolish
parole and lengthen criminal sentences, the Department of Public Safety
predicted that Virginia's prison population would double to 40,000 by this
year. The projection proved to be wildly off the mark; there now are about
31,000 Virginia inmates.
When Allen proposed a $400 million prison construction bond package, the
legislature balked and slashed it to $100 million on a largely party-line vote.
In the run-up to the 1995 legislative election, Allen, a Republican, went
on the offensive against the majority Democrats for refusing to build all
the prisons he wanted.
GOP legislative candidates put out fliers warning voters that the
Democrats' failure to fully fund the prison program ``could result in 8,700
violent criminals being put back on the street.''
As it turned out, the full Allen program would have produced a surplus of
cells more than twice as big as the one that occurred -- nearly 10,000
beds, based on legislative staff analyses.
But as late as 1997, when a bed surplus of precisely the size that exists
today was predicted by a legislative committee report, Allen dismissed it.
``I don't see us having any empty prison beds,'' he said at the time.
A year later, under Allen's successor Gov. Jim Gilmore, the state began its
cells-for-hire program.
In a recent interview, Allen said his administration ``used the projections
that were available to us.''
``It's a nice problem that the crime rate has dropped to such a low rate in
Virginia that we're not having to build more prisons,'' Allen said.
``What we have now is a short period of time where there may be a minimal
amount of over-capacity. . . . These facilities will be filled up in the
next few years, and we're prepared for it.''
``It wasn't our policy to build prisons to house other states' inmates,''
Allen said. ``That was not the goal.''
Sen. J. Randy Forbes, R-Chesapeake, defended the cell rentals as a prudent
response to declining crime rates.
``It's not like the cells are sitting there and not getting any income. We
are actually making money off those cells,'' Forbes said. ``That's not why
we built them, of course.''. As the glut of cells became apparent, the
legislature shelved plans for four additional prisons and clamped a
moratorium on new local jail projects.
Even without those projects, Virginia and its localities have spent more
than $1 billion building prisons, jails and juvenile lockups since 1992.
A 1997 survey of the state's biggest construction projects by a
Richmond-based business magazine found that six of the top 20 were prisons.
Some Say Prisoners Upgraded To Fill Supermaxes
Now, critics say the state appears to be filling what would otherwise be
half-empty but very expensive new ``supermax'' prisons with prisoners who
don't need to be in such a high-security environment.
Nearly 40 percent of Virginia's prison population is now classified for
maximum-security custody -- the second-highest percentage in the nation.
The two new ultra-high-security institutions, Red Onion and Wallens Ridge
state prisons, both in Wise County nearly 500 miles west of Hampton Roads,
together can hold almost 2,500 prisoners and cost a total of $150 million
to build -- about $60,000 per bed.
The huge mountaintop fortresses were intended to house what Corrections
Director Ron Angelone has called the ``worst of the worst'' -- violent,
predatory inmates who are locked down up to 23 hours a day and tended by
guards armed with shotguns, attack dogs and electric-shock devices. On the
state's inmate classification scale with security levels from 1 to 6, those
inmates rate a 6.
Angelone, asked in 1997 if Virginia had enough such inmates to fill the two
new prisons, replied: ``Absolutely.''
Former Sen. Joseph Gartlan, D-Fairfax, who opposed the Allen prison
buildup, isn't so sure.
``I've got a very, very strong suspicion that they're manipulating the
classification system to get more people reclassified into Level 6 security
to avoid the embarrassment of hundreds and hundreds of empty beds,''
Gartlan said.
David T. Smith of Norfolk cites himself as an example. Smith, 31, has five
years left to serve on a nine-year sentence for robbery. He is now housed
at Red Onion, which opened in 1998.
``I don't have any assaults on my record at all,'' Smith wrote in a letter
to The Virginian-Pilot. ``I've never hurt anyone in my life. . . . Do I
deserve to serve my little five years here at ROSP in the midst of
murderers, lifers and double-lifers and the `worst of the worst'? . . .
Below is the index for this series of articles:
US VA: Virginia Is Paying The Price For Prison Boom
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n326/a09.html
US VA: Overbuilt Prisons Must Import Criminals
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a01.html
US VA: Virginia's Incarceration Rate Far Exceeds Crime Rate
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a02.html
US VA: Department Of Corrections Denies Information Requests
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a03.html
US VA: Drugs, Not Violence, Are The Fuel For Prison Growth
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a04.html
US VA: Expert And Inmates Find Faults In Prison Drug-Treatment
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n331/a13.html
US VA: Poll Shows Little Support For Gilmore's Get-Tough Drug
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a05.html
US VA: Blacks Imprisoned At Rate Out Of Proportion To Drug Use
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a06.html
US VA: Cost Of Housing Older Inmates Goes Up As Risk Goes Down
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n328/a01.html
US VA: New Prisons Bring Much-Needed Jobs To Rural Areas
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n328/a02.html
US VA: Party And Racial Lines Divide Lawmakers On Prison Reform
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n332/a01.html
Michael Rainey, a Michigan state prisoner, got a rude surprise last January.
Rainey, 23, doing 10 to 50 years for assault with intent to murder, learned
that he was moving -- 1,000 miles away to Virginia.
``I was just swooped up, sort of kidnapped,'' he said in a recent
interview. ``There was no advance notice. They just said, `Pack up.' ''
A few hours later he was on a bus with 39 other prisoners, chained to each
other and to the floor of the bus, rumbling through the Midwest on a
21-hour ride to Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va.
Some had volunteered for the transfer, but many more were sent against
their will, said David Maples, another Michigan inmate who made the trip.
``They were cuffed and hog-tied and literally pushed on the bus,'' said
Maples, 31, who is doing 10 to 20 years for cocaine delivery.
Rainey, Maples and thousands like them are the human cargo comprising
Virginia's newest import: out-of-state convicts.
At last count, there were nearly 3,500 of them from six states and the
District of Columbia doing time in Virginia prisons from Sussex County to
the Kentucky border in a cells-for-hire program that is unique in the nation.
The out-of-staters are filling cells that would otherwise be sitting empty.
A prison-building boom launched under Gov. George Allen in 1995 overshot
the mark and resulted in a surplus that grew to nearly 4,500 beds last
year. At an average of $50,000 per bed, that's $225 million worth of empty
cells.
Had the General Assembly not ultimately pared down Allen's prison-building
program, Virginia now would have nearly 10,000 surplus beds.
Del. Jay W. DeBoer, D-Petersburg, who opposed the prison buildup, wryly
calls it Virginia's ``Motel 6 policy: `We'll leave a light on for you but
you won't be able to see it because you don't have any windows.' ''
``It's almost a lodging industry at this point rather than a corrections
industry,'' DeBoer said.
The state has established itself as an entrepreneur in the booming $40
billion-a-year corrections business, which some critics have labeled the
``prison-industrial complex.''
Charles Thomas, a criminologist at the University of Florida who has
studied the fast-growing private prison industry, says Virginia has become
an aggressive competitor of private corrections companies, actively
marketing itself to states with overcrowded prison systems.
``There has been nothing at the state level even remotely comparable to
what Virginia is doing,'' Thomas said.
Virginia charges $60 to $64 a day per inmate, which was expected to
generate $153 million over four years. The state says its intent is to
cover its costs but not make a profit.
There are clouds on the horizon, however.
The out-of-state contracts have begun to run out, and some are not being
renewed as the other states solve their shortages. Iowa pulled its 100
female inmates from the new Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in
December. Michigan terminated its contract for housing 1,550 inmates at
Greensville last month.
At that rate, state budget analysts are projecting a $75 million shortfall
that will have to be made up by finding new out-of-state customers, closing
or mothballing some prisons, or beefing up the corrections budget.
Prison Population Estimates Were Way Off
It wasn't supposed to turn out this way.
In 1994, when the General Assembly enacted Allen's program to abolish
parole and lengthen criminal sentences, the Department of Public Safety
predicted that Virginia's prison population would double to 40,000 by this
year. The projection proved to be wildly off the mark; there now are about
31,000 Virginia inmates.
When Allen proposed a $400 million prison construction bond package, the
legislature balked and slashed it to $100 million on a largely party-line vote.
In the run-up to the 1995 legislative election, Allen, a Republican, went
on the offensive against the majority Democrats for refusing to build all
the prisons he wanted.
GOP legislative candidates put out fliers warning voters that the
Democrats' failure to fully fund the prison program ``could result in 8,700
violent criminals being put back on the street.''
As it turned out, the full Allen program would have produced a surplus of
cells more than twice as big as the one that occurred -- nearly 10,000
beds, based on legislative staff analyses.
But as late as 1997, when a bed surplus of precisely the size that exists
today was predicted by a legislative committee report, Allen dismissed it.
``I don't see us having any empty prison beds,'' he said at the time.
A year later, under Allen's successor Gov. Jim Gilmore, the state began its
cells-for-hire program.
In a recent interview, Allen said his administration ``used the projections
that were available to us.''
``It's a nice problem that the crime rate has dropped to such a low rate in
Virginia that we're not having to build more prisons,'' Allen said.
``What we have now is a short period of time where there may be a minimal
amount of over-capacity. . . . These facilities will be filled up in the
next few years, and we're prepared for it.''
``It wasn't our policy to build prisons to house other states' inmates,''
Allen said. ``That was not the goal.''
Sen. J. Randy Forbes, R-Chesapeake, defended the cell rentals as a prudent
response to declining crime rates.
``It's not like the cells are sitting there and not getting any income. We
are actually making money off those cells,'' Forbes said. ``That's not why
we built them, of course.''. As the glut of cells became apparent, the
legislature shelved plans for four additional prisons and clamped a
moratorium on new local jail projects.
Even without those projects, Virginia and its localities have spent more
than $1 billion building prisons, jails and juvenile lockups since 1992.
A 1997 survey of the state's biggest construction projects by a
Richmond-based business magazine found that six of the top 20 were prisons.
Some Say Prisoners Upgraded To Fill Supermaxes
Now, critics say the state appears to be filling what would otherwise be
half-empty but very expensive new ``supermax'' prisons with prisoners who
don't need to be in such a high-security environment.
Nearly 40 percent of Virginia's prison population is now classified for
maximum-security custody -- the second-highest percentage in the nation.
The two new ultra-high-security institutions, Red Onion and Wallens Ridge
state prisons, both in Wise County nearly 500 miles west of Hampton Roads,
together can hold almost 2,500 prisoners and cost a total of $150 million
to build -- about $60,000 per bed.
The huge mountaintop fortresses were intended to house what Corrections
Director Ron Angelone has called the ``worst of the worst'' -- violent,
predatory inmates who are locked down up to 23 hours a day and tended by
guards armed with shotguns, attack dogs and electric-shock devices. On the
state's inmate classification scale with security levels from 1 to 6, those
inmates rate a 6.
Angelone, asked in 1997 if Virginia had enough such inmates to fill the two
new prisons, replied: ``Absolutely.''
Former Sen. Joseph Gartlan, D-Fairfax, who opposed the Allen prison
buildup, isn't so sure.
``I've got a very, very strong suspicion that they're manipulating the
classification system to get more people reclassified into Level 6 security
to avoid the embarrassment of hundreds and hundreds of empty beds,''
Gartlan said.
David T. Smith of Norfolk cites himself as an example. Smith, 31, has five
years left to serve on a nine-year sentence for robbery. He is now housed
at Red Onion, which opened in 1998.
``I don't have any assaults on my record at all,'' Smith wrote in a letter
to The Virginian-Pilot. ``I've never hurt anyone in my life. . . . Do I
deserve to serve my little five years here at ROSP in the midst of
murderers, lifers and double-lifers and the `worst of the worst'? . . .
Below is the index for this series of articles:
US VA: Virginia Is Paying The Price For Prison Boom
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n326/a09.html
US VA: Overbuilt Prisons Must Import Criminals
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a01.html
US VA: Virginia's Incarceration Rate Far Exceeds Crime Rate
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a02.html
US VA: Department Of Corrections Denies Information Requests
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a03.html
US VA: Drugs, Not Violence, Are The Fuel For Prison Growth
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a04.html
US VA: Expert And Inmates Find Faults In Prison Drug-Treatment
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n331/a13.html
US VA: Poll Shows Little Support For Gilmore's Get-Tough Drug
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a05.html
US VA: Blacks Imprisoned At Rate Out Of Proportion To Drug Use
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a06.html
US VA: Cost Of Housing Older Inmates Goes Up As Risk Goes Down
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n328/a01.html
US VA: New Prisons Bring Much-Needed Jobs To Rural Areas
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n328/a02.html
US VA: Party And Racial Lines Divide Lawmakers On Prison Reform
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n332/a01.html
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