Texas Prison Bid'ness

PBS's acclaimed series NOW will have a show on private prisons this evening. The show features commentary from Texas Prison Bid'ness founder Judy Greene, and focuses on a fight over a CCA prison proposal in Colorado. Here's a portion of the release from PBS:

Corporations are running many Americans prisons, but will they put profits before prisoners?

A grim new statistic: One in every hundred Americans is now locked behind bars. As the prison population grows faster than the government can build prisons, private companies see an opportunity for profit.

This week, NOW on PBS investigates the government's trend to outsource prisons and prisoners to the private sector. Critics accuse private prisons of standing in the way of sentencing reform and sacrificing public safety to maximize profits.

"The notion that a corporation making a profit off this practice is more important to us than public safety or the human rights of prisoners is outrageous," Judy Greene, a criminal policy analyst, tells NOW on PBS.

Companies like Corrections Corporation of America say they're doing their part to solve the problem of inmate overflow and a shortage of beds without sacrificing safety.

"You don't cut corners to where it's going to be a safety, security or health issue," Richard Smelser, warden of the Crowley Correctional Facility in Colorado tells NOW. The prison is run by Corrections Corporation, which had revenues of over $1.4 billion last year.

The Crowley prison made headlines back in 2004 after a major prison riot caused overwhelmed staff to run away from the facility. Outside law enforcement had to come in to put down the uprising.

"The problems that were identified in the wake of the riot are typical of the private prison industry and happen over and over again," Green tells NOW.

After the show has aired, you should be able to view it online.

McClennan County officials recently approved the hire of 12 new jailers in order to comply with staffing standards stipulated by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS). According to reports in the Waco Tribune, the decision was reached after two hour closed door meeting with their county attorneys.

TCJS issued a notice of noncompliance to local officials in December of 2007, when the facility failed state inspection due to staffing concerns. According to reports, as of April 2008, the county had not responded. The jail is run by CivicGenics, a private prison corporation that is a subsidiary of Community Education Centers, Inc.

McLennan County pays $27.50 a day for each of the first 50 inmates housed in the CiviGenics facility on Columbus Avenue. The rate goes to $28.50 a day for 51 to 70 inmates, and $31 for each inmate from 71 to 90. After 91 inmates, the rate jumps to $41.95 a day, officials have said.

County officials authorized an additional $203,000 to hire 12 new employees to staff the jail. The facility has been out of compliance with TCJS for years as it has struggled with jail crowding issues. Rather than identify community alternatives to reduce incarceration, like rethinking law enforcement practices, the county has received variances from the state agency to meet capacity demands.

While officials, have already authorized funding they are currently exploring other options.

They hired a jail magistrate this year to try to set bonds faster and ease overcrowding. They also have asked for an attorney general’s opinion to answer a number of legal concerns about the use of ankle monitors, proposed to help clear out the jail while monitoring alleged offenders.

Yet, the struggle to find jail capacity continues and the consequences are real -- resulting in additional expenses of taxpayer's money. Earlier this week, the privately managed facility held 965 detainees, when the current capacity is only 931.

San Antonio reporter Brian Collister, of the WOAI news station, has reported horrendous accounts of what appears to be widespread sexual abuse and cover-up at the GEO Group's South Texas Detention Center, located in Pearsall. According to the first of two stories run this week ("Claims of Sexual Assault at Immigration Facility," May 6),

A former detainee, who asked us not to identify her told us, "It was going on a lot. It was going on almost all the time, the sexual abuse."

She claims sexual abuse came from the guards. She said while she was there she rejected advances by one of the guards, but said other girls were too scared to put up a fight.

"Some of the guards actually tried to force themselves on the girls and that they've told them that if they ever said anything about it, that they have the power with ICE to deport them," explained this former detainee.

The guards work for a private company called GEO, hired by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to run the prison. Sexual contact with detainees is not allowed. In fact, it's a crime.

The former detainee said, "Some of the girls ended up pregnant by some of the officers there."

In fact, it appears that one detainee may have become pregnant due to the abuse.

She added one of those who got pregnant was a girl from Guatemala, named Marley. Marley's case is mentioned in an incident report obtained by the News 4 Trouble Shooters.

It details how last may a guard reported being told by another guard that he'd had sex with a Marley, who has already been deported back home.

That guard accused of having sex with Marley was Joseph Canales. The Trouble Shooters tracked him down, but he told us he didn't get anyone pregnant, then added:
"Whatever happened, happened a long time ago."

And, possibly as disturbing as the abuse, there appears to be a systematic cover-up of the assaults by GEO Group staff and ICE. According to the story,

After the incident report, Canales was fired, but ICE will not tell us if they referred the case for prosecution. The US Attorneys Office told us it has no case against Canales. Still, there are other sexual assaults we've uncovered.

We obtained an email sent by an ICE officer to his supervisors notifying them that a detainee had told him about a GEO sergeant who was having sex with one of the female detainees.

The ICE officer who wrote that e-mail sat down with us, but asked us not to identify him. He said some of the GEO guards prey on the female detainees by lying to them and promising they can help them stay in the United States.

"If they had the opportunity," he explained, "some of the guards were just touching, groping, but if they had the opportunity they had sex with them. The female detainees, a lot of them, were willing because they thought it was...somehow their chances of staying were going to increase. That's not the case whatsoever. If ICE can keep it under wraps, they will keep it under wraps."

To keep it under wraps, he said he was fired for reporting what was going on. And he is not alone. We've also talked to a former GEO guard who said she, too, was fired after reporting sexual abuse.

We obtained an email sent by an ICE officer to his supervisors notifying them that a detainee had told him about a GEO sergeant who was having sex with one of the female detainees.

Clearly, this story is immensely disturbing. It falls on the heels of a New York Times report detailing possible medical neglect and deaths at a series of Immigration and Customs Enforcement-contracted facilities around the country.

Furthermore, it is unfortunately not surprising that these kind of allegations are coming from a GEO Group facility in Texas. The Pearsall detention center was sued for mistreatment of a prisoner last year. Abuse and poor conditions at GEO Group's Coke County Juvenile Justice Center and Dickens County Correctional Center drove the Senate Criminal Justice Committee to look into to private prison oversight last fall and created the need for an interim charge on private prison oversight this spring.

Despite the abuse and mismanagement, GEO continues to win contracts with counties and the federal government, as Nicole reported last month. It's high time we stop contracting with private companies that cover-up physical and sexual abuse of prisoners and detainees. We'll keep you updated on developments from this growing scandal.

The local ABC affiliate in Houston reported this morning that the Harris County Commissioners Court will approve a measure to send more Harris County Jail detainees across state lines. The detainees will be housed in a private lockup in Louisiana.

The county already pays out millions of dollars a year to the center in Louisiana. Some 600 inmates were moved there because of overcrowding issues in the past.

We have reported recently why this is a bad public policy and negatively impacts communities in the Houston area.

It is clear that Harris County leadership focuses on expanding capacity, rather than alternatives to incarceration that would decrease the jail population. The Houston Chronicle is also reporting that the Commissioners Court will send as many as 1,130 jail detainees out of the state.

The choice of county officials to send jail detainees out of state is in response to chronic overcrowding. Voters did not approve bonding authority last Novemer that would expand the jail, in no doubt because of negative publicity that has surrounded the jail including escapes and horrible amount of deaths.

Yet, the county continues to rely on expanding capacity as a solution to jail crowding rather than alternatives. Harris County officials have received recommendations from multiple sources including our friend Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast and Mark Levin with the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation to no avail.

Grits states in his post today that the in order to change way the county does it's business there needs to a leadership change. Harris County residents will have an opportunity later this year to change leaders who contribute to those who enter the jail and for how long they stay.

But there is another issue in Harris County as well. Currently, there is no capacity in the area to counter jail officials and other leaders in their drive to increase jail capacity. Opposition to such policies has been found in the Chronicle editorials and the blog posts of criminal justice policy watchers - including this one.

But I know of no organized effort, currently underway, to engage public officials in a dialogue around jail capacity that would reduce their reliance on incarceration. Until one emerges, public officials -- old ones and new - will more likely to continue to rely on expanding capacity to solve crowding issues.