Texas Prison Bid'ness

Our friends at Private Corrections Institute (PCI) have released a newly-updated list of corrections lobbyists nationwide (in Excel). Of particular interest to us, of course, is the list of Texas private prison lobbyists, including Robert "Ray" Allen, the former legislator who now is earning hundreds of thousands of dollars as a lobbyist, and his former chief of staff, Scott Gilmore. Plus, Allen was lobbying on the federal level in 2002 and 2003, representing the National Correctional Industries Association while he was still in the Texas legislature (in his defense he said that he was lobbying on the issue of prison labor, not prison privatization).

According to the list compiled by PCI, there were three dozen lobbyists working the state capitol in 2007 on behalf of companies with some connection to corrections (not all of them working for private prison companies). Of the private prison companies with paid lobbyists working the capitol on their behalf this session:

• Corrections Corporation of America had eight paid lobbyists (PCI rap sheet)
• GEO Group had five paid lobbyists (including two "GEO Care" lobbyists) (PCI rap sheet)
• Avalon Correctional Services had two paid lobbyists (PCI rap sheet)
• Cornell Corrections had one paid lobbyist (PCI rap sheet)
• Centracore had one paid lobbyist (Scott Gilmore)
• MTC had one paid lobbyist (PCI rap sheet)

PCI has also updated their incidents page with new information about incidents in Texas prisons (including a 36-page GEO Group incident report for Texas prisons 1995-2004). All around, they're just a great resource, which is why they're also listed on our "Links" page as an ally. 

Yesterday, Kathleen reported that detention center protests have spread from big protests outside T. Don Hutto and civil disobedience at CCA’s Houston Processing Center to a 75-person strong rally in front of the Willacy County Processing Center in Raymondville.

The 2,000-bed ICE detention center, operated by MTC, first drew headlines when it was announced that it would be built in only 90 days and would consist of a series of windowless Kevlar pods. The project then drew fire from Willacy County Attorney Juan Guerra who warned county officials that they couldn’t spend excess project funds on other county projects, as they had planned.

MTC’s Processing Center is by no means the first private prison or prison scandal to engulf Raymondville. Already home to a 1,000-bed private state prison, a 500-bed private federal jail, and a 96-bed county jail, the county is known, even by county leaders, as Prisonville.

As the Texas Observer has reported, Willacy County had already experienced trouble with a previous private prison project. In 2005, two Willacy County Commissioners and one Webb County Commissioner plead guilty to accepting bribes from at least one company involved in the previous MTC prison project, a scheme that involved prison developers Hale-Mills and Corplan.

And, in 2006, a jury rewarded $47.5 million in a lawsuit against the Wackenhut Corporation to the family of a prisoner who was beaten to death in 2001. Wackenhut (now known as the GEO Group) was operating the prison when the prisoner was beaten to death by other prisoners in what the lawsuit contended was a "...pattern and practice of allowing beatings and fights between inmates for money." Since the lawsuit, Corrections Corporation of America has taken over operation of that private prison.

Even though this latest private prison for ICE is made up of temporary structures, its impact on Raymondville's legacy of private prison scandals will be long term.

About 75 protesters from across the state gathered outside of the Willacy Detention Center in Raymondville this weekend. The private prison, which attracted national attention when it became operational in a mere 90 days, holds 2,000 people. The protesters very aptly described it as a "tent city" --- the prison is not made up of buildings, but a series of windowless structures made of fabric stretched tight over frames. These tents, in turn are surrounded by razor wire (see the photo below).

Raymondville Prison Aerial ShotThe 2,000-bed prison is the largest immigrant detention prison in the United States, and part of a broader plan by ICE to imprison more people than ever for immigration violations. The prison has attracted national attention for problems with conditions inside (you can read Democracy Now's interview with Jodi Goodwin or the rawstory.com's excellent story about conditions at Willacy last month).

Protesters did not announce when they plan to return to Willacy's gates, but you can probably find out at their new blog: Tent City. With any luck, the protests will grow larger over time, like the 400-person protest at Hutto that was also this weekend.

Jun 23 07 protest at HuttoThis past Saturday, I joined more than 400 protesters gathered for a spirited vigil in honor of World Refugee Day outside the T. Don Hutto detention center.

As reported here at Texas Prison Bid’ness, Hutto, which holds migrant and refugee families with their children, has been the site of growing protests and problems inside the facility. Saturday’s vigil was sponsored by Amnesty International, and co-sponsored by a number of other groups.

A “freedom bus” from San Antonio, and two buses from Dallas joined protesters from Taylor, Austin, and Houston at the vigil. Amongst the most powerful speakers were Elsa and her children, who spent 6 months incarcerated at Hutto, and Selhadin, an African refugee formerly detained at the GEO Group’s Pearsall Detention Center. National LULAC president Rosa Rosales also gave a fiery speech and Elizabeth Kucinich, wife of presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, lent her support to the cause.

Hutto’s publicity problems continue to grow in the press as well. Today, The Daily Texan added its voice to the chorus of press outlets calling for the closure of Hutto, calling CCA a “member of the club of misery profiteers.”