THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 6, 1995 TAG: 9509060466
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
Corrections Partners Inc. has the inside track on a contract to build and operate Virginia's first private prison, in Brunswick County, Secretary of Public Safety Jerry W. Kilgore said Tuesday.
Kilgore said the Department of Corrections will begin contract negotiations soon with Kansas City, Mo.-based CPI and Wackenhut Corrections, which ranked first and second in the department's review of nine proposals.
``The obvious preference is to go with CPI,'' Kilgore said, ``If we reach an impasse, then we go to Wackenhut.''
Wackenhut offered a choice of prison sites in Charlotte, Greensville or Mecklenburg counties.
Kilgore said he hopes a contract for the 1,500-bed, medium-security prison can be signed within a month. If everything goes as planned, the prison could open within 18 months.
The cost is one of the major items to be negotiated. Neither Kilgore nor CPI President Robert A. Buchanan would disclose the price proposed by CPI. An 825-bed medium-security prison recently was built for about $30 million.
Gov. George F. Allen's administration is promoting prison privatization as a cost-saving measure. The 1994 General Assembly authorized 3,800 of the 10,000 private beds the administration wants to add over the next decade.
Unlike other areas where prison construction proposals have met with heated opposition, Brunswick has embraced the project and the 323 jobs it would create. The county's unemployment rate in July was 6.8 percent. The state rate was 4.5 percent.
``It's an economic development instrument as we see it,'' said Jeffrey Johnson, the county administrator. ``Nobody at the public hearings expressed any opposition to the private prison, and it was unanimously endorsed by the Board of Supervisors.''
Buchanan said 95 percent of the jobs would be given to local residents. He said the project would pump $17 million a year into the Brunswick economy after the prison opens. Also, the company would pay ``hundreds of thousands'' of dollars a year to the county in lieu of taxes, Buchanan said.
The private prison would be built on 42 acres adjacent to the state's Brunswick Correctional Center. ``We've had the correctional facility here for years and have never had any problems,'' Johnson said.
Buchanan said the five private prisons his company already operates have had no escapes, inmate uprisings or other major problems.
CPI last month became a wholly owned subsidiary of Corrections Corporation of America, which operates about 35 private prisons with about 25,000 beds nationwide.
KEYWORDS: PRISONS PRIVATIZATION by CNB