SACRAMENTO Privately Run Prison Planned for Mojave
Firm says it can house inmates cheaper

Robert B. Gunnison, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau

One of the country's largest firms that privately builds and
runs prisons announced plans yesterday for a new, 2,000bed
facility in the Mojave Desert, with no guarantee that the
state will send convicts to the lockup.

But David Myers, president of the Corrections Corporation of
America, expressed confidence that the facility will not
lack occupants, because California prisons already are
bulging with 152,000 convicts nearly double their
designed capacity.

"They'll avail themselves of it," drawled Myers, a former
warden in Texas.

Myers, officials from California City (population 8,000) and
state Senator Richard Polanco, DLos Angeles, held a Capitol
news conference to announce the plan to open the $80 million
to $100 million prison within two years.

``If we build it, they will come,'' predicted Polanco,
chairman of the Joint Committee on Prison Construction and
Operations, and a supporter of the private effort.

``Recidivism is high, and rehabilitation is nearly
nonexistent. Our escalating corrections budget is taking
funds away from higher education and other programs. Let's
save some money.''

Myers said his firm, based in Nashville, Tenn., plans to
build a mediumsecurity facility at a per inmate cost less
than that of the state.

However, at some privately run prisons in California, the
cost is higher than at public facilities. According to
Department of Corrections officials, the state pays as much
as $59 a day to keep an inmate in a minimum or
mediumsecurity private prison, compared with about $40 a
day at a public prison.

The state Department of Corrections now houses about 5,000
prisoners in facilities run by private firms or
municipalities that have gone into the prison business.

Corrections spokesman Tipton Kindel said the department has
not spoken with the firm about the prison but is eager to
find space for its least dangerous convicts. ``We don't have
enough beds to put them in,'' he said.

According to Polanco, the state prison system is expected to
run out of beds by the year 2000. Voters have rejected
general obligation bonds for prison construction, and the
Legislature has defeated the use of lease revenue bonds. The
prison in California City would employ about 375 people and
produce "several million dollars a year in payroll,
purchases and taxes to benefit the local community," Myers
said. No land has been purchased, he said. The plan drew
criticism from the politically connected California
Correctional Peace Officers Association, the union that
represents prison guards. "This guy's full of bull,"
declared Don Novey, president of the union. "Public safety
should not be for profit. It's just kind of stupid." Novey
insisted that his opposition is not based on the prospect of
losing union membership to a private firm. "When you start
privatizing public safety, it's a big mistake," he said.
Nationwide, private companies have built about 100 prisons
holding about 50,000 inmates. California has seven private
prisons for adults, housing about 1,500 inmates in Baker,
Bakersfield, Live Oak, Seal Beach, Desert Center, McFarland
and San Diego. Nationwide, private prisons have grown at
four times the rate of public prisons. The two largest
companies, Corrections Corporation of America and Wackenhut
Corrections Corp. of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., control about
threequarters of the world market. Corrections Corporation
of America operates 59 jails and prisons in 17 states, the
District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Australia and the United
Kingdom.

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