NOT A PRIVATE MATTER

Ridge Administration Deserves Praise For Saying "No" To Privately Owned Prisons.

Belatedly, Pennsylvania officials have taken notice of a new industry in the
state: privately owned prisons.

Cornell Cos., a Texas firm with a contract to house 1,050 inmates from
Washington, D.C., has broken ground for a prison in Clearfield County, where
a second private prison, to house 700 geriatric inmates, is on the drawing
board.

This is not a good idea.

Some background: Prisons are a growth industry in America. This country has
about 1.8 million inmates, the highest rate of incarceration in the Western
world. The cost to taxpayers is steep, and a private prison industry has
sprung up offering to save dollars.

Until recently, the trend had skipped Pennsylvania.

That changed in 1998, when Delaware County opened a new jail. It was built
and operated by Wackenhut Corrections Corp., but it was paid for and is
owned by the county, and its operation is controlled by the county prison
board. Wackenhut is simply the contractor; legally, it is a county jail. So
far, reviews have been positive.

The jails in central Pennsylvania's Clearfield County are different animals.

They would be owned and operated by private firms primarily responsible to
stockholders, not government.

Why should we care? Tim Reeves, the spokesman for Gov. Ridge, explained it
well in an interview:

"When you operate a prison, you are depriving people of their freedom, and
in some instances, you are authorized to use deadly force. Those are powers
that only should be used by government, with the consent of the people."

Unfortunately, the state reached that position late, four months after
Cornell started construction.

The genesis of the prison dates to 1997 when, as part of its District of
Columbia fiscal bailout, Congress ordered the district to close its prison
in Lorton, Va., and told the federal Bureau of Prisons to move inmates into
"private" facilities. Cornell won a $342.7 million contract to do so. Its
position was that, while Pennsylvania law did not explicitly authorize
private prisons, neither did it prohibit them.

Though Cornell informed the state Department of Corrections and local
officials of its plans, state government didn't come to grips immediately
with the project's legal implications.

An Inquirer editorial in July pointed out several of them. Most crucial was
that, despite its federal contract, Cornell wasn't building a federal
prison. "They do not derive authority to operate from federal law . . .
legal authority is between the contractor and the state," said the Bureau of
Prisons.

This posed questions: By what authority could Cornell incarcerate an inmate?
Would it even be illegal for inmates to escape? Who would be accountable to
the community if one did? Who would guarantee that prisoners were treated
humanely and had access to education and rehabilitation programs?

The issue came to a head on Sept. 1 when Attorney General Mike Fisher
notified Cornell that "operation of a private prison in Pennsylvania is
unlawful." He ordered construction halted.

Now, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Ridge administration are
attempting to craft legislation that would define just what Pennsylvania is
and is not willing to allow.

Here's a proposal:

The state should permit, under careful rules, operations such as in Delaware
County, where the prison remains under the clear control of government. What
should not be allowed are privately owned prisons that turn jail cells into
a simple commodity and government into a mere customer.

Thankfully, that seems to be the position of the Ridge administration. "We
are not seeking legislation to allow private parties to build prisons and
operate prisons," said Mr. Reeves.

If that leaves Cornell in the lurch, so be it. If the federal government
wants to open a prison for Washington, D.C., inmates in Clearfield County,
that may be OK - but only if it is legally a federal prison, owned and under
the clear supervision of the Bureau of Prisons.

Next to execution, the act of incarceration is government's most awesome
power. It should not be controlled by hands that are responsible first to
private investors or shareholders, rather than to the public by whose
consent and upon whose behalf criminals are imprisoned.