August 2008

The Texas House Corrections Committee will be holding an interim meeting tomorrow (Thursday, August 20th) to discuss several items. None are specifically about private prisons, but the conversation about Texas State Jails, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's prisons for felonies carrying a sentence of two years or less, should of interest to Texas Prison Bid'ness readers. Here's the information from the Committee's website:

COMMITTEE: Corrections
TIME & DATE: 9:00 AM, Thursday, August 21, 2008
PLACE: E2.016
CHAIR: Rep. Jerry Madden

The House Committee on Corrections will hear invited and public testimony
on the following interim charges:

1. Explore the use of technology practices that improve efficiency, safety, and coordination of criminal justice activities on the state, local, and county levels.

2. Consider new strategies for meeting prisoner reentry challenges in Texas, including the evaluation of programs with documented success. This review should include the availability of housing and occupational barriers.

3. Provide a comprehensive analysis and study of the Texas state jail system, including original intent for use, sentencing guidelines, and effectiveness. Develop suggestions for changes and improvements in the state jail system.

Scott Hensen over at Grits for Breakfast covers the hearings including a statement from Texas Criminal Justice Coalition about findings regarding prisoner re-entry programs that they will release at tomorrow's hearings.

We reported last week that Corrections Corporation of America was still betting on the trend of increasing immigration detention after the change in presidential administration next year. It appears that CCA isn't waiting to see if the trend continues. According to the Associated Press ("Corrections Corp. spent $240K lobbying in 2Q," August 15), CCA spent $240,000 on federal lobbying in the second quarter of 2008.

That doesn't quite keep up with the breakneck lobbying pace CCA exhibited in 2007, when the company spent $2.5 million on lobbying Congress and federal agencies such Immigration Customs and Enforcement, the Justice Department, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

OpenSecrets.org which operates a terrific lobbying database, puts CCA's total 2008 lobbying number a bit higher at $480,000, while GEO Group has spent $120,000 thus far in 2008 and Houston-based Cornell has spent $60,000 in federal lobbying.

I just read the Corrections Corporation of America Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call transcript (one can listen to the call online here). While Texas prisons didn't specifically come up in the call, I found several statements by CCA chiefs enlightening.

When asked by an investment analyst representing Avondale Partners what a change in immigration policy in a new McCain or Obama administration might mean for company's interests, CEO John Ferguson answered with this statement:

When it comes to the two candidates I am not sure that to be a great deal of difference then go back to because if you member back in April a year ago when there was an attempt to try to have some kind of comprehensive plan. The plan that was structured and was being considered was in fact support by Bush. So I think Congress is probably going to have more to do with driving the public policy. Then whoever is the new President and as I remember, I think McCain was supported of the compromising some way. So, I don't know about Obama but I am sure he is supporting those some of the comprehensive approach.

They are saying, that we tried to evaluate, when then was what affect would it have and one of the interesting thing was that, compromise was going to benefit those who had not, entered the United States illegally after January 1, 2007. So, if you had entered the country illegally from January 1, 2007 going forward then you would not benefit from the compromise.

So, one of the first thing we do, was to check and see how many of the 6,000 did it take of inmates that we have that have done that and I think we identified 750 would have benefited from the legislation. So what happens is that there are some who will continue to have the attempt to secure the borders, which means that, there will still be folks trying to enter the country illegally after, whatever compromises pass and those will need to be detained.

And then if you remember, we talk about that lots of different sources of illegals that would be dealt with, there was to be the requirement of maybe returning to Mexico or other country. If that happened, then we would make… could make criminals or folks that are here in a different ways than just being here legally. Based on that there was… they are also numerous folks that are here with criminal records. A lot of the inmates that we receive in our Arizona facilities for example, I guess all of our facilities or people who are being released from either the state, federal or local corrections systems.

And so, they are being released because they have committed a crime in some cases beyond just being here illegally, and their sense to let's say the inmates that we house that any of our CAR facilities, once they serve their time, then they are not releasing out in state, they are turned over to ICE, ICE then detains them and then ICE, then they go to their deportation here and they get deported. So, fair amount of the ICE detainees that we have responsibility for any day or people who have been released from serving from being [inaudible] or even being detained in a jail, before they leave.

So, there are still just lots of folks and like I said, if it's 12 million, 20 million whatever the number, there are still going to be folks that are going to be defined as being, needed to be detained, whatever the compromise is. And then you will also continue to have folks, who will still try to enter the United States and they will not be getting any benefits from the new legislation. So, it is hard to forecast other than I would say that 32,000 or 33,000 or 33,400 whatever the funding ends up being, is still not funding for a lot of beds, when you look at the needs of the ICE and border patrol.

While there's no smoking-bullet quote in Ferguson's statement, it's clear that the company is relying on no real immigration reform to continue to boost profits.

McLennan County is shaping up to be the biggest private prison fight in the state right now, and the rhetoric keeps getting hotter. We've reported that a CEC/CiviGenics proposal to take over the existing county jail was defeated last week. Now, a proposal for a new 1,000 bed private CEC/CiviGenics jail is under fire as well.

The Combined Law Enforcement Agencies of Texas or CLEAT, the union representing jailers in McLennan County, is calling for an investigation into potentially improper dealings between county officials and the private prison corporation. According to another good article by Waco Tribune writer Tommy Witherspoon,

A spokesman for the state’s largest law enforcement association is calling for state and federal investigations into dealings between McLennan County officials and a private detention corporation as the county continues to negotiate jail contracts.

“First of all, we don’t believe anything that officials in McLennan County say anymore,” said Charley Wilkison, political and legislative director for the 16,500-member Combined Law Enforcement Agencies of Texas. “The credibility gap in this county is incredible.”

According to the article, the CLEAT's concerns center around Sheriff Lynch's acceptance of additional money from the private prison corporation on top of his county salary, and whether that relationship has tainted his ability to objectively decide on the issue of privatization.

Wilkison said he will ask Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to investigate whether Lynch violated the Texas Public Information Act by failing to respond to CLEAT’s open-records requests for all correspondence between Lynch and CEC officials.

He said he also is seeking state and federal investigations about whether Lynch lawfully and ethically can accept money from the private vendor or whether it is a conflict of interest when he helps decide the fate of the jail system.

“The sheriff has taken $91,000 of personal money that goes into his bank account, and then he says: ‘I am still able to decide. I am still OK deciding whether it is in our best interest to privatize.’ That old dog won’t hunt. Nobody here believes that.”

Even more damningly, the allegations from CLEAT also include that the Sheriff has manufactured an overcrowding crisis as an excuse for privatization and expansion of the county jail - an account which, if true, is certainly well beyond the pale.

"We think inmates are being kept in jail to create an artificial public safety crisis so the hue and cry for a new jail can come and the new jail can be privatized and built by CEC,” Wilkison said.

Lewis scoffed at that notion and said Wilkison’s claims are off-target. He said Lynch is paid the same in the contract with CEC whether there are 300 prisoners or none.

“It is still his responsibility to oversee that jail,” Lewis said. “By statute, it is the sheriff’s responsibility, whether it was Jack or Larry. That contract has not changed, and up until 20 months ago, we didn’t have a prisoner in that jail. So does that logic make any sense?”

Wilkison also charged that Lewis’ office is using “stalling tactics” by asking for an attorney general’s opinion about whether his office has to release 170 pages from CLEAT’s open-records request that Lewis claims are attorney-client privilege. Wilkison said Lewis’s office has released 1,300 pages to CLEAT pursuant to the

“We believe somewhere in that 170 pages will be some of the information that will tell the tale about how you get only one bid on a private prison,” Wilkison said. “If they have nothing to hide, then they have nothing to worry about. If they have done nothing wrong, then they should release it anyway."

The dispute has apparently spilled over into today's County Commission meeting. According to the Waco Trib blog,

McLennan County commissioners debated for two hours this morning without resolution on whether a private company should operate the downtown jail, and Precinct 3 Commissioner Joe Mashek said that County Judge Jim Lewis violated federal antitrust laws by allowing a Houston contractor to visit the county jail in August 2007, a year before the county requested proposals for construction of a new jail.

The county received one proposal from Community Education Centers, which has had a contract to operate the downtown county jail since 1999.

The contractor that visited, Hale Mills Construction Ltd., was named by CEC as a contractor/builder on the proposal it submitted for the new jail.

Mashek said the visit allowed Hale Mills representatives to have an unfair advantage in the county’s request-for-proposal process.

We'll keep you updated as this dramatic story from McLennan County continues...