PRISONS SEEN AS ECONOMIC BOON

SLO COUNTY -- Would Atascadero City Manager Wade McKinney say yes to opening
a city-operated prison for minimum-security state prisoners? Not
automatically.

"I have mixed feelings," he said. "We'd want to look at it."

McKinney was city manager in Shafter when a community correctional facility
opened in 1991 as the cornerstone of the agricultural town's effort to
diversify its economy.

Paso Robles officials are now trying to decide if they want to follow in
Shafter's footstep.

Tonight at 7 at the City Hall/Library Conference Room one of the two
Bakersfield companies interested in building a 500-bed private prison in
town will explain what they have in mind.

Although there is no money in the state budget for any new community
correctional facilities, several companies are studying potential sites in
anticipation of the next round of spending.

Paso Robles has agreed to let officials from Maranatha Private Corrections
and Community Construction present their ideas. However, the city is not
actively pursuing the proposals and isn't sure Community Construction is
still interested. Only Maranatha officials will be on hand tonight.

"Community correctional facilities are still a new feature in the California
landscape," Paso Robles City Manager Jim App said. "The companies that have
approached us have little or no experience."

The state has 16 community correctional facilities, seven operated by cities
or counties and the balance by private companies.

There are differences between the publicly and privately operated
facilities. One of the largest is revenues. Profits from the publicly
operated prisons go directly to the cities or county.

Shafter's experience on the job side was positive, McKinney said.

It brought 70 to 80 jobs. The positions included educators, nurses, cooks
and other occupations in addition to correctional officers. It added a $2.5
million payroll to the community.

McKinney said about a quarter of the employees were from Shafter and most of
the remainder came from neighboring communities.

McKinney said employees at the Shafter facility were "top quality."

Maranatha's proposal for a 500-bed community correctional facility would add
between 100 and 115 jobs, said Lee Cribb, the company's director of
operations. Maranatha opened its first community correctional facility in
Adelanto early this year.

Cribb estimates the budget for a 500-bed facility at $8.5 million, with 75
percent to 80 percent spent locally on wages, salaries, operating expenses
and utilities.

Salaries are lower than at state prisons, he said. "We don't try to
compete."

He said the salaries would start at about $2,000 a month. Many employees are
starting careers in law enforcement or corrections or are retired from
military or public law enforcement.

"I think what's important about these jobs is that they don't derive their
money from the county," said Mark Schniepp, director of the UC Santa Barbara
Economic Forecast Project.

Prisons, including community correctional facilities, are considered "basic"
industries -- those industries that bring money into an area, he said.

Although Schniepp said the pay scale at a community correctional facility
doesn't appear to reach the head-of-household benchmark, it is better than
tourism jobs, which pay $5 or $7 hourly to start, and retail jobs, which
start at $6 to $7 an hour.

"It really doubles what we have most of in the county," he said.

Although 100 jobs is not a huge number, it could help bring new employment
to the North County, which hasn't seen as much job growth as the South
County, he said.

A project would also offer construction jobs during the building phase.

"Then for the long term, there's a lot of security with this kind of an
entity," Schniepp said. "With a 100-person (start-up) firm, you don't have a
lot of those safeguards of a contract with the state."

The experience McKinney and other public operators had with the state wasn't
all positive, however.

"Back in 1992, when the state had their financial problems, the Department
of Corrections just unilaterally cut the contracts," he said.

"Our position was we had a contract that said we were going to get paid a
certain amount of money."

Operators of public community correctional institutions went to court and
were finally vindicated earlier this year.

"The bad side is, corrections is a difficult group of people to work with,"
McKinney said.

"My experience has not been very good. They don't live up to their
contracts."

The private community correctional facilities have less negotiating power
with the state, he said.

McKinney noted that the move toward community correctional facilities did
not come from the Department of Corrections, but from the Legislature as a
cost-cutting measure. DOC hasn't really warmed to the idea and the union
representing correctional officers is opposed to privatization.

Private prisons have other opponents.

David Shichor and Dale Sechrest, both criminal justice professors at CSU San
Bernardino, have studied California prisons at length.

Shichor is the author of the 1995 book, "Punishment for Profit, Private
Prisons, Public Concerns." He questions whether the government should
"abdicate its own authority" for providing punishment.

He and Sechrest note that the state has certain obligations to protect not
only the residents in prison communities, but the inmates themselves. Those
protections are less certain when the responsibility is handed over to some
one else. Violence at private maximum-security prisons in other states has
given the industry a black eye.

They also note that the city-or county-operated community correctional
facilities offer more to the communities than privately operated facilities
because the benefits accrue to a public agency rather than a business.

"Remember at all times, they're good business people," Sechrest said.

Some operators embrace the role of being a good neighbor, though.

Sechrest said Wackenhut, the giant of private corrections, has donated
computers to schools in Taft. The Kern County community is the home to the
first private federal prison.

"They're not slouches -- even the private outfits know on which side their
bread is buttered," he said. "It's a business."

Shichor and Sechrest also question whether the state saves money with the
creation of the community correctional facilities.

It's hard to compare costs because community correctional facilities don't
have the same range of inmates or services as state prisons. They are
designed to hold nonviolent offenders and people who have violated parole.
Such a population requires a lower level of security. They don't provide
medical care beyond the basics -- that's handled by a "hub," a nearby state
prison, which also takes in any inmate who becomes a problem.

Sechrest is also uncertain about the long-term prospects based on the
industry in other parts of the country.

"There are a lot of private beds out there that aren't being filled."

(c) copyright 1998 San Luis Obispo County Telegram-Tribune

Checked-by: Don Beck