Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 26, 1995 TAG: 9502270008
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CLIFTON, TENN. LENGTH: Medium
The sign informs motorists that the road they are traveling is kept clean by Wayne County's largest corporate citizen - the South Central Correctional Center.
When Corrections Corporation of America opened the prison in 1992, it tripled the population of Clifton overnight and infused much-needed jobs and revenue into the area's troubled economy. "The prison has kept this town alive," Clifton Mayor Bill Beckham says.
But without a doubt, the biggest economic benefits of private prisons like the one in Clifton go to the companies that operate them.
Running prisons for profit has become a booming industry as the country's elected officials, caught up in the anti-crime fervor of the American public, rush to pass laws that have sent the inmate population soaring.
In Virginia, for example, the General Assembly's vote to abolish parole is expected to create a prison bed shortfall of 23,500 within the next decade - an enticing market for companies like CCA.
CCA's plans to open a 1,500-bed medium security prison in Wythe County have ignited a firestorm of community opposition. And critics of private prisons elsewhere worry about companies putting profit before the welfare of inmates and taxpayers.
State leaders, however, have accepted the philosophy of CCA's president and chief executive officer, who argues that the private sector can run prisons better and cheaper than government.
"It is an obligation of government that it make the very best use of taxpayers' money," Doctor Crants says. "If it can get a dollar's worth of value for 90 cents in the private sector, then it has a fiduciary duty to implement that plan."
Some resentment still lingers in Clifton, as it undoubtedly will in Wythe County if CCA's plans go through.
Kevin Myers, the warden at South Central, understands why. "It's an unknown; it's scary," Myers said. "We have our own industrial pollution. Our industrial pollution has two legs and sometimes walks away from here, and that causes fear in the hearts of the local citizenry."
Opposition has waned as Clifton residents have seen the prison's influence - from new church roofs raised by inmate labor to a new bridge to span the neighboring Tennessee River.
"We're not dumping chemicals into the streams, and we're not spewing acid into the air," Myers said. "Once people realize there are other positives, besides the jobs we create, you don't hear as much protest."
by CNB