THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 5, 1995 TAG: 9504050460
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: PRIVATE PRISONS, PUBLIC OUTRAGE
SOURCE: LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: NASHVILLE, TENN. LENGTH: Long : 120 lines
Were it not for the perimeter of razor wire and chain-link fences, the building at 5115 Harding Place would easily blend in with the suburban sprawl of discount stores, motels and industry that surround it.
The Metro Davidson County Detention Facility is, after all, a business.
The more criminals who come here, and the longer they stay, the more profitable it is for Corrections Corporation of America, the Nashville-based company that runs the 872-bed prison. Under a contract with the Metro Government of Nashville and Davidson County, CCA is paid an average daily rate of $30 an inmate, or more than $9 million annually.
It is a mixture of criminal justice and marketplace economics that some are calling one of the biggest growth industries in the country.
If all goes as planned, CCA will soon begin construction of Virginia's first private prison, a 1,500-bed facility in Wythe County.
Because private companies are free from government bureaucracy and procurement requirements, they can build prisons faster and cheaper than the state can, CCA officials say. Supporters of prisons-for-profit say companies can also run prisons cheaper and more efficiently.
At the same time, the state saves money by not having to employ prison guards - by far the largest cost in operating prisons - and localities where the prisons are built gain a tax-paying, recession-proof corporate citizen.
Critics are not so easily convinced.
Some question whether it is really cheaper to keep criminals locked up in private prisons. A legislative study in Tennessee found little difference in identical facilities run by the company and the state Department of Corrections.
Skeptics also raise a more fundamental, philosophical question: Does the task of protecting society and administering justice belong in the hands of an industry driven by the profit margin?
``Taking away a person's liberty is about the most extreme thing the state can do to an individual, and to turn that over to a company operating purely on a profit motivation is the wrong thing to do,'' said Jenni Gainsborough of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project in Washington, D.C.
Jerome Miller, who runs the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives in Alexandria, shares those concerns.
``The problem is all the incentive in a privately run prison is to keep it full and to get as many people in there for as long as possible,'' Miller said. ``So all the incentive is in the wrong direction as far as public policy is concerned because it becomes an industry of locking people up.''
CCA's president and chief executive officer counters that the government should not dominate the correctional field for the same reason that anti-trust laws prohibit monopolies in the private sector.
``Before CCA came along, what we had for the most part of the century is a correctional monopoly untested by any other organization,'' said Doctor Crants, who has seen CCA grow into the largest private prison company in the country since he helped start it in 1983. ``I think the people are better off to have the competition that the private sector brings.''
In an annual report to stockholders and potential investors, CCA estimated that its annual operating cost per inmate was $14,890. Compared to a $16,860 cost in the public sector as determined by the Criminal Justice Institute, that amounts to a 12 percent saving.
Because CCA offers a stock option plan to its employees, it says guards are more likely to develop a sense of ownership in the facility and are generally more receptive to complaints from inmates.
Clarence Potts, a shift supervisor at the company's prison in Clifton, offered an example of the difference in philosophy between private and state prisons.
If an angry inmate threatens to tear out the sink in his cell unless a guard talks to him, a state guard might ignore him - figuring the government can easily replace a $1,500 stainless steel piece of equipment.
But at a CCA facility, ``If they tear something up, it comes out of our pocket,'' Potts said. ``Everybody kind of takes ownership in what we do.''
The bottom line, CCA officials say, is that giving inmates a voice, plus keeping them busy with lots of rehabilitation and treatment programs, makes for a more efficiently run prison.
Companies like CCA have been growing so fast that some critics say the private prison business could someday rival the defense industry, both in sales potential and, possibly, in the kind of scandals that defense contractors were involved in.
``Indeed, you see many of the same defense contractors moving into the corrections and law enforcement area,'' said Miller of the National Center for Institutions and Alternatives. ``It's the same crew from which you got the $6,000 toilet seats, and I think we are going to see some more of that.''
Another risk cited by critics is that the questionable relationships between contractors and government in the defense industry might also surface with prison companies and state legislators.
That happened to some degree in 1985, when CCA's failed effort to take over the entire Department of Corrections in Tennessee led to revelations that then-Gov. Lamar Alexander's wife held stock in the company. And one of the company's founders is the former chairman of the state Republican Party.
``There's no way you can put a billion or $2 billion into prisons without all sorts of cozy arrangements,'' Miller said, referring to estimates of what Virginia may spend on prison construction in the next decade.
``I don't think it's wise to replicate the defense procurement situation,'' said Gordon Bonnyman, a Tennessee lawyer who waged a lengthy legal fight that led to a reform of the state's prison system. Private prison operators ``understand, just like the defense industry, that their real audience is the elected officials,'' he said.
But others say the defense analogy is too far-fetched for an industry that is just beginning. In fact, only about 4 percent of the nation's 1-million-plus inmates are held in private prisons. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
GENE DALTON/Landmark News Service
Metro Davidson County Detention Facility in Nashville, Tenn., is
similar to the prison planned for Wythe County. Virginia's first
private prison has been designed as a 1,500-bed facility.
Graphic
KEN WRIGHT/Staff
GROWTH OF U.S. PRISON POPULATION
SOURCE: University of Florida Center for Studies in Criminology
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: PRISONS PRIVATIZATION by CNB