ABUSE VIDEOTAPE RAISES QUALMS OVER PRIVATE JAILS

Used by states as prisons overflow

Houston (Reuters)

The vIdeotaped abuse of convicts in southeast Texse has increased unease
about allowing privately run facilities to ease overcrowding in US.
prisons, criminologists said yesterday.

The dramatic tapewhich shows one howling inmate being bitten by a potice
dog add another being prodded with an electronic stun gunalso raised the
queestion wbether states exporting in mates to private prisons are turning
a blind eye to the potential for abuse, they said.

"I think we are going to see more of this as more and more states look for
ways to offload their pirlson ptoblems," said Timothy Flanagan, dean of the
College of Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State Univerdty in Huntsville,
Texas.

The uproar began with the release this week of a ~training video" showing
guards in riot gear abusing several inmates during a drug search last
September at the Brazoria County Detention Center in Angleton, near
Houston.

The guards said they made the film to show what not to do to quell a prison
uprising,but criminologists said lt provides insiight into the largely
unregulated private prisons sprouting up nationwide.

"Abuses ot prisoners, unfortunately, are not uncommon," University of
Florida criminologist Charles Thomas said. This is not tbe first time
that there has been a problem involving Missouri pris oners down in Texas.

Capital Correctional Resources Inc., a Texas company operating the Brazoria
prison, has three facilities in the state housing inmates under con tracts
with Missouri and Oklahoma, officials said.

More than 400 Missouri prisoners are .being transferred out of Brazoria
this weelc, and Oklahoma is moving about 500 inmates back to the state from
a CCRIrun facility in Limestone County after uncovering other alleged
abuses.

Lon Glenn, an assistant warden at the Brazoria facility, said CCRI, based
in Groesbeck, Texas, expects to be cleared in a pending civil lawsuit filed
bg a former Inmate and a separate FBI civil rights investigation of the
fracas.

In a booming business, small Texas towns have been financing construction
of private prisons to house outofstate inmates.

At an average of $40 per day per inmate, the sector is generating millions
of dollars a year for private companies and an economic development boon as
they hire local guards to staff the prsons.

There are about 1.7 million prison beds in the United States, and private
companies operate about 86,000 beds. But the private companies are building
market share, accounting for 20 percent of the 100,000 beds added last
year.