THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 5, 1995 TAG: 9504050462
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: PRIVATE PRISONS, PUBLIC OUTRAGE
SOURCE: BY LAURA LAFAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE LENGTH: Long : 267 lines
Shovel has yet to hit dirt, but the prospect of the state's first private, for-profit prison has already so divided and enraged this bucolic mountain community that it may never recover.
``It's like the Civil War,'' said Wytheville Town Manager Wayne Sutherland.
The 1,500-bed prison - to be built on 100 acres of a dairy farm 1 1/2 miles east of the Wytheville town limits - has pitted town against county, rich against poor, business against government, readers against the local newspaper and county supervisor against county supervisor.
Voters in the county's Black Lick District got so mad at their county supervisor for supporting the prison that they accused him of malfeasance and filed a court petition calling for his removal. Supervisor Charles Dix was cleared at a hearing. But, like other officials in favor of the prison, he remains a villain to many.
There is even a song opposing the prison, written and sung by a local pharmacist:
They want to take our pastures,
And our cute little babbling brooks,
Replace it all with concrete walls,
And medium-security crooks!
But residents of Wythe County and other localities across the commonwealth may as well get used to the idea of privately built and operated prisons in Virginia.
Since last year, a crackdown by the Parole Board has cut the number of inmates being released on parole to 12 percent, filling the state's 42 prisons to capacity and causing severe overcrowding in local jails. In October, the General Assembly abolished parole altogether for those convicted of crimes committed after Jan. 1. As a result, the state's inmate population - 23,000 at last count - is expected to double in the next decade.
To offset the overcrowding, the legislature this year agreed to allocate $13 million to send up to 2,000 inmates out of state and to keep an additional 3,800 in yet-unbuilt private prisons in Virginia. Since then, 150 inmates have been shipped to a privately run prison in Texas. More are expected to leave after the General Assembly officially approves the budget this week.
Meanwhile, a corporate gold rush has swept the commonwealth. Representatives from private prison companies have been feverishly trolling the state, searching for appropriate sites for prisons.
At least six companies are prospecting, according to Secretary of Public Safety Jerry Kilgore. One of them - United States Corrections Corp. of Louisville, Ky. - considered Tazewell and Bland counties before choosing a site in Charlotte County. Another, Florida-based Wackenhut Correctional Corp., is competing with the state for a prison site in Tazewell County.
But leading the pack was Corrections Corporation of America. The Nashville-based company, which operates 27 prisons in eight states, Puerto Rico, Australia and the United Kingdom, was founded in part by T. Don Hutto, director of the Virginia Department of Corrections from 1977 to 1982.
In early December, almost two months before the General Assembly agreed to allocate money for private prisons, CCA signed an option to buy the Wythe County land for $1 million.
``We know people in various states and we hear about these things,'' said Hutto, now in charge of the company's international business and vice-chairman of its board of directors. ``We follow elections. . . . It's not difficult for us to identify where the overcrowding is and where the serious needs are. . . state, well, that's obviously an opportunity for private managers.''
This week, said Kilgore, the Department of Corrections plans to send requests for proposals to all companies interested in building prisons in the state. They will have 60 days to respond with sites and plans.
According to Russell L. Bortass, private-prison administrator for the state Department of Corrections, the agency is looking for companies with plans to build roughly six prisons: a 1,500-bed medium-security facility like the one CCA plans for Wythe County; a 300-bed return-to-custody prison for parole and probation violators; and four pre-release centers - one in each geographical area of the state - capable of accommodating 150 to 250 inmates each.
But those qualifications are not etched in stone, Kilgore said.
``We want to give the companies great flexibility,'' he said. `We're not closing any doors. So it's unclear about the exact number of facilities.''
The state will probably sign 20-year contracts with several different corrections companies, Kilgore said. The contracts will be renewable every five years.
``We need a mix (of companies) for Virginia to really get a feel and to experiment with privatization,'' he said.
Gov. George F. Allen has repeatedly promised that the state will not build any prisons in places where they are not wanted. But the rules for private prisons will be different.
A bill introduced in January by Del. William P. Robinson Jr. (D-Norfolk) would stop corporations from building prisons in any area where the local governing body has not endorsed the idea after a public hearing. Allen has amended the bill to require a 30-day period of public comment, after which a board would have 30 days to endorse or reject a prison.
In the amended version of the bill, no action by a board would amount to tacit approval.
So far, the state has encountered informal opposition to only one proposed state facility: a 1,267-bed maximum-security prison planned for the Eastern Shore. The Northampton County Board of Supervisors has not yet voted on the matter.
Opposition to private prisons has also been minimal in most areas.
A number of counties - especially in the rural, depressed southwestern region of the state - are eager for the jobs promised by private-prison companies. Most of the 100 people who showed up at a public hearing over the proposed private prison in Charlotte County two weeks ago supported the idea. And when a similar hearing was held in Tazewell County, few bothered to come at all.
Not so in Wythe County, where some opponents of the prison feel that the county, at the junction of Interstates 81 and 77, can attract a better class of industry.
An estimated 900 people attended a Feb. 1 public hearing at George Wythe High School, where a prison opponent got into a yelling match with the county administrator. The Board of Supervisors voted - amid booing, jeering and cries from the crowd of ``It's hot in hell!'' and ``Hang `em high!'' - to welcome the prison to Wythe County. The vote was 4-3.
Those who voted yes said they did so because they think the prison will benefit the county. It is expected to bring 250 to 300 jobs at salaries almost unheard of in a county where most workers make little more than minimum wage. Among the expected salaries: $18,175 for a correctional officer; $29,361 for a registered nurse.
``They pay their receptionist $15,000 year,'' said County Supervisor Jack Crosswell. ``Just their receptionist. For this area, that's good money.''
And then there is the jail issue. The county jail, built in the 1920s to house about 14 inmates, now holds an average of 44. County officials live in fear of the federal judge who one day, they expect, will order them to build an expensive new facility.
CCA, which has promised to house the inmates at low cost, would solve that problem.
Since the vote, however, life for the supervisors who endorsed the prison has turned nightmarish. A petition against Supervisor Dix resulted in a court hearing over whether he misused his office by letting CCA pay his way to Texas so he could investigate the impact of a CCA prison there. A similar petition continues to circulate against County Supervisor Olin Armentrout, who also went on the trip. And Crosswell, the supervisor who invited CCA to look at Wythe County in the first place, said he has been harassed and threatened by anonymous callers.
``They've accused me of being bribed and all like that,'' said Crosswell, a 66-year-old former Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent who now raises beef cattle in the county's Speedwell district.
``They think I'm the archdevil, I reckon. . . . One night I got a call from someone saying how would I like about 500 people to come down and charge my house? I told him, `Go ahead. But you better bring some body bags because not all y'all are going to make it back to Wytheville.' ''
There has even been talk of impeaching County Administrator Billy R. Branson.
``I don't know how you impeach an administrator,'' said the slow-talking, gruff-voiced, red-suspendered Branson. ``But they are. Why? Because they think I brought this prison here.''
A former president of a United Mine Workers local, Branson has spent 18 years as Wythe County's administrator. At 63, he was planning to retire soon. But now he thinks he may stick around.
``I'll never quit a fight,'' he said. ``I hope I'm honest and fair. But I don't like to be shoved too much.''
Branson's nemesis - the nemesis of all who support the prison - is a group called Citizens Against the Prison, or CAP. The organization's headquarters, a Main Street storefront slathered with giant anti-prison slogans and staffed by volunteer retirees, has become a social center for everyone who fears that a prison will destroy Wythe County's ``quality of life.''
``We have a beautiful town and county and we just feel like the prison will not do it any good,'' said Mack Vaught, a retiree who sat behind a table at CAP headquarters on a recent weekday.
``Right now, when you go to bed at night, you don't worry about anything. If we have a prison, we'd have to worry about locking the door, getting sensor lights. The prison would always be on your mind.''
Farron Smith, whose husband, local developer Bill Smith, got into the yelling match with Branson at the public hearing, agreed.
``We're very fortunate here,'' she said. ``We have a nice, clean little town. We're right at the junction of two interstates and we have a low unemployment rate (6.9 percent). We don't have to do this.''
A community of 25,000 bounded by the Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountains, Wythe County has had only three slayings in the past 15 years and considers itself protected from the social ills that plague the outside world. Smith and other CAP members said the prison will bring crime, AIDS, prostitution, drugs and the families of prisoners to their sanctuary. They worry about prison escapees.
They worry about land values.
``More people own real estate around here than don't,'' said Bill Smith. ``Maybe it's a self-serving thing, but it's something that affects everyone who owns a piece of property.''
CAP members also said they feel betrayed by the Board of Supervisors for voting to welcome the prison without so much as an advisory referendum. The board, they said, has ``circumvented the democratic process.''
County officials insist that CCA was treated the same way the county treats all industries interested in locating there. But CAP members speak darkly of bribery, conspiracy and ``the arrogance of power.''
``The way it was done has infuriated all of us,'' said Charles Crockett, a retired Wythe County native.
``The fact that the negotiations were secret and the fact that our supervisors failed to listen to us. . . . Our own elected officials have chosen to be more dedicated to CCA than to the people who elected them.''
But CAP's attacks on the integrity of Wythe County's officials seems to have only strengthened their resolve.
Bringing the prison to Wythe County has become a matter of honor.
``I'm a man of my word,'' said Crosswell. ``And once I make a commitment, I stick to it. I didn't even plan to run (for office) again. But now, with all this controversy, I'd look like I was yellow if I didn't.''
One thing that has changed is the approval of the local newspaper. When plans for the prison were first announced in December, editors at the Southwest Virginia Enterprise figured ``it would bring living wages for the county's heads of families,'' according to Publisher Greg Rooker.
``And then we looked at how the election went. Allen carried this county 70 percent. So we said, `Well, that's what these people want. No parole. More prisons.' And we wrote an editorial saying, basically, that the good probably outweighed the bad.''
Readers were outraged. Letters to the editor came fast and hard. A few local companies even pulled their advertising.
``I had people cry in my office,'' said Rooker. ``Asking me how could we do this to the county. I kept trying to explain this was not an endorsement.''
Later, when Enterprise reporters began asking state officials about what kind of impact a private prison might have, Rooker and his staff became alarmed.
``We started looking into it and we found that they haven't done anything,'' said the publisher. ``They haven't prepared for anything. They don't know what they're doing. And the less we (could find) out, the more alarmed we became. We don't want an experiment here.''
An editorial appeared in January opining that Wythe County had not been given enough time to consider the prison issue. Another, in February, urged the supervisors to demand a fully detailed report from the state. The Enterprise editorial board is now squarely opposed to the prison.
``This is like building a nuclear bomb,'' said Rooker. ``And then saying, `Well, we'll worry about the aftermath later.' ''
But CCA officials remain unmoved by the dissension in Wythe County. The blessing of the Board of Supervisors, they have said, is all the approval they need. The company has not announced when it plans to break ground, but estimates that the prison will take 12 to 14 months to build.
Naomi Suther, whose son owns the dairy farm on which CCA plans to build, is looking forward to the day the controversy ends.
``This has gotten real ugly,'' she said. ``It's caused more damage to this community than a prison ever could.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
CINDY PINKSTON/Landmark News Service
Prison opponents Kelly Jones, left, Charles Crockett, center, and
Mack Vaught volunteer their time at the Citizens Against the Prison
headquarters in downtown Wytheville. The retirees fear that a prison
will destroy Wythe County's quality of life.
Graphics
WHY BUILD PRIVATE PRISONS?
LESS BUREAUCRACY:
Private companies are free from government bureaucracy so they
can build prisons faster and cheaper than the state can.
COST PER INMATE IS LESS:
PRIVATE: $14,890
PUBLIC: $16,860
OWNERSHIP: 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 Corrections Corporation of America facility, ``If they
tear something up, it comes out of our pocket,'' said Clarence
Potts, a Clinton, Tenn. shift supervisor. ``Everybody kind of takes
ownership in what we do.''
KEN WRIGHT/Staff
GROWTH OF PRIVATE PRISONS
SOURCE: University of Florida Center for Studies in Criminology
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
Map
KEN WRIGHT/Staff
KEYWORDS: PRISONS VIRGINIA PRIVATIZATION by CNB