STATE WILL NEED PRIVATE PRISONS, OFFICIAL SAYS

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (AP) -- The state needs a private prison under construction
in northern Wisconsin even as it expands its own penitentiary system, a
corrections spokesman says.

"It just keeps increasing," Department of Corrections spokesman William
Clausius said of the inmate population. "In terms of the need for beds, we
would need to build a new prison every year just to keep up."

In July, Dominion Leasing of Edmond, Okla., began building a prison at
Stanley about 25 miles northeast of Eau Claire, intending to lease cell
space to the state.

Currently under state law, the Department of Corrections can do business
with private prisons, but only in other states. However, Kevin Keane, Gov.
Tommy Thompson's press secretary, has said the governor is open to
alternatives for easing prison crowding.

The state could use the Stanley prison even if Wisconsin accepts Thompson's
proposal for a new 500-bed, $30 million prison, Clausius said.

The department reports more than 14,000 inmates in a prison network with a
rated capacity of 10,237.

Additionally, the department has more than 1,800 inmates in rented space in
jails in Texas, Minnesota, Tennessee and Oklahoma.

Thompson asked the state Building Commission during a recent meeting at the
state fairgrounds in West Allis for a report on the latest
prison-construction proposal.

"We're going to have to build another prison and we still have the bonding
to do so," he said.

Existing work includes building a "supermax" maximum-security prison at
Boscobel in southwestern Wisconsin.

A maximum- and medium-security project is planned at Redgranite in eastern
Wisconsin.

The Thompson administration has said it will wait for a lease offer from
Dominion before making an official comment on the Stanley prison.

Besides its 1,200-bed, $40 million medium-security prison at Stanley,
Dominion had thoughts in March about a southern Wisconsin prison in
Lafayette County, Sheriff Scott Pedley said.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett