BOARD OKS JUMP IN PRIVATE PRISON BEDS

STRINGTOWN -- The Board of Corrections on Wednesday approved three
contracts for 2,240 new private prison beds, a move that would dramatically
increase the number of private beds in the state.

The action is the largest number of contract beds approved at one Board of
Corrections meeting.

The three vendors approved Wednesday at the meeting at Mack Alford
Correctional Center in Stringtown are:

Central Oklahoma Correctional Facility in McLoud, run by Dominion
Management, for 500 beds for women at $43.95 a day.

A yet to be named facility in Lawton, run by Wackenhut Correction Corp.,
for 1,500 male beds for $40 a day.

North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayre, run by Corrections Corporation
of America, for 240 male beds at $43.49 a day.

Sites not selected include Hinton, Hobart, Grandfield and Eldorado.
Hinton's Great Plains Correctional Facility already houses Oklahoma inmates
but had proposed expanding its prison.

The McLoud offer was clearly the best, said Tony Caldwell, a board member,
adding that the department received few bids for female beds.

All the contracts are for medium-secure beds and give the state the option
to buy the facility, said Vince Knight, the department's general counsel.

Oklahoma already has 2,755 private prison beds in Oklahoma. Another 1,017
Oklahoma inmates are housed in Texas private facilities.

The contracts approved Wednesday will allow Oklahoma to remove all of its
inmates from Texas private prisons, said David C. Miller, the department's
chief of population management and fiscal operations.

Another 600 state-owned beds will be open sometime between June and
October, Miller said. The department is building three, 200-bed units at
the Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite, the Lexington Assessment and
Reception Center and the Joseph Harp Correctional Center in Lexington.

The contracts approved Wednesday are subject to legislative funding, Miller
said.

"If we don't (get the money), we've got a big problem," Miller said. "For
one thing, we will run into some population problems. If we don't get the
appropriation, they (private vendors) don't get the business."

The chairman of the House Appropriations and Budget Committee dashed cold
water on the private prison proposal, saying he does not believe the
legislative leadership is willing to appropriate the additional money for
up to 2,000 new private prison beds.

``It is late in the (legislative) session for the correctional authority to
try to seek $20 million or $30 million new dollars for these new beds,''
said Rep. James Hamilton, D-Poteau.

On the other hand, ``I think it does make good fiscal sense and would make
good public policy for us to go ahead and purchase beds from private
prisons sufficient to move all our inmate population out of private prisons
in Texas,'' Hamilton said.

Hamilton said the Legislature has already funded the construction of 600
additional public prison beds.

Brian Ford of the World Capitol Bureau contributed to this story.