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Private prisons do not bode well for America

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Here's a frightening scenario: Ghetto dwellers, who cannot find meaningful and high paid employment, commit crimes with increasing ferocity and frequency. Then, upon being arrested, tried and convicted, they are sent to prison where they suddenly are employed doing the very same tasks they could not pursue in the real world.

Prisons are a growth industry in America, some even becoming major manufacturers and suppliers of day labor. It's happening right now, right here in the U.S., all in the name of profit margins. Wackenhut, Inc. and U.S. Corrections Corporation, two very large private security firms, are coming soon to a town near you.

With the advent of New York's so-called "Rockefeller" sentencing laws, overcrowded and violence prone prisons have become quite a problem for the New York State's Corrections Department and others. Many states have followed suit, along with the Federal government, in requiring mandatory sentencing and issuing guidelines for judges in certain cases. This increased burden on the system has created an opportunity for private business to get in on the action. Some act as brokers between institutions for services, others purchase outright or build their own institutions. Many states are having a hard time building prisons fast enough to keep up with the overflow.

The demand for new facilities is greatest in California. The inmate population of California, in 1977, was 19,600. Today, that total is approximately 159,000 and growing. California currently has the dubious distinction of having the largest prison system in America. Despite having spent $5.2 billion on prison construction in the last decade, California still has one of the most overcrowded prison systems in the country. The California Department of Corrections estimates the need to spend another $6.1 billion in the coming decade, just to keep up with current levels, creating a virtual feeding frenzy among those who are providers of prison related services and construction.

Meanwhile, the California legislature has not authorized a new prison construction bond since 1992. As a result of the "Three strikes" law, prisons continue to fill at record rates. Recognizing the potential business opportunities, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) has announced its intentions to build three new prisons in California, purely on speculation. One CCA executive was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying: "If you build it in the right place, the prisoners will come." CCA is currently building a $100 million facility in the Mojave Desert, gambling that California will soon need the space and be willing to pay handsomely for it.

The $35 billion spent each year on corrections in this country has created a vast prison-industrial complex, with it's own set of bureaucratic, economic and political interests encouraging increased spending to keep it all afloat. Using fear and statistics, the major players have done quite well in acquiring lucrative market shares. Wackenhut, whose board of directors has been a veritable Who's Who of national security over the years, is currently setting up shop in California and now houses some 2000 minimum security inmates under contract with the state, with plans to accommodate many more.

These corporations are run much like large hotels, where maximum occupancy means maximized profits. There exists no impetus for these operators to rehabilitate and repatriate their charges in a timely fashion. Rather, the economic motivation would seem to be to keep as many of their guests for as long as possible. Prisoners have become an interstate commodity, with inmates being shipped across country to available facilities. Oregon, Hawaii and Tennessee currently send many inmates to Texas, the leading importer of prison inmates. Corporate lockups can now hold an estimated 77,500 prisoners nationwide, most of them state inmates.

Over the next five years, analysts expect the private share of the prison "market" to more than double. Many of these inmates have been used as forced labor, to the benefit of their captors. This situation is comparable to the Debtors Prisons of old and in some cases, even comparable to indentured servitude and slavery. The following excerpt was gleaned from the California Department of Corrections website and is supportive of some of the concerns that I have expressed herein. The portion that speaks to the recruitment of businesses, using prison labor and the enticements offered is, to me, amazing. In a nutshell, prisoners are being used to perform the functions of the private and public sector workforce at greatly reduced wages and benefits, under less than desirable working conditions. While this employment condition may benefit the manufacturers and employers, it ultimately results in the displacement of workers from their usual and customary jobs. This is not the answer to America's prison problems. More appropriately, reform of mandatory sentencing legislation and repeal of many drug-related laws would serve the public much better, all the way around. However, the bureaucracy of the prison-industrial complex stands in the way of that greater common good, in the name of higher profit margins.

From the California Department of Corrections website:

Budget: $3.9 billion (1998-1999 Budget Act)
Avg. yearly cost: per inmate, $20,758; per parolee, $2,145.
Staff: 45,464 currently employed including 39,743 in Institutions, 2,742in
Parole, and 2,979 in Administration (about 28,039 sworn peace officers).
Felons under CDC jurisdiction: 297,772. One-year change: 9,743 + 3.4%.

While it is the largest in terms of staffing, Corrections' operating budget is just 7.2 percent of the state General Fund in the 1998-1999 Budget Act.

The Joint Venture Program (JVP) of the California Department of Corrections is responsible for implementing the Prison Inmate Work Initiative, Proposition 139, passed by the voters in 1990. Under its provisions, the Director of Corrections is mandated to recruit private businesses that can set up operations inside California State Prisons and hire inmates. Inmates are paid a prevailing wage, which is then subject to deductions for room and board, crime victim compensation, prisoner family support, and forced inmate savings for release. In addition, inmate-employees pay Federal and State taxes.

If you are thinking of expanding...if you have been forced to consider relocating because of a deficient labor pool...if you are starting a new enterprise...if you are repatriating an offshore operation LOOK INTO THE BENEFITS OF USING INMATE LABOR IN OVER 30 CALIFORNIA LOCATIONS

The California Department of Corrections' Joint Venture Program provides a unique opportunity for today's progressive business leaders. The Joint Venture Program offers an untapped labor market for you, the employer, and serves as a link between qualified businesses and highly motivated inmate employees. Businesses can set up operations inside California State Prisons and hire inmates at competitive wages.

EMPLOYER BENEFITS
* State tax incentives
* No benefit expenses (retirement, vacation, sick leave, medical benefits)
* Cost-effective long term lease agreements on state land
* Discount rates on Workers' Compensation Insurance
* Consistent reliable work force
* On-call labor pool

ECONOMIC BENEFITS
* Victims of crime receive restitution from working inmates' wages
* Inmates become taxpayers
* Inmate workers pay support to families, decreasing social welfare burden
* Inmate salaries defray costs of their incarceration
* Mandatory savings accounts provide release funds to assist in successful parole adjustment

1. The Prison Industrial Complex - by Eric Schlosser, Atlantic Monthly, Dec.1998
2. Prisons for Profit - by Eric Bates - The Nation Magazine
3. Growth Industry of the 90's - by David P. West, Ph.D.
4. California Department of Corrections http://www.cdc.state.ca.us/program/jvppg.htm
5. Stop the War, The November Coalition http://www.november.org/PrisIndustry.html

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Questions? Brian McKinney (bmckinne@home.com)