This week, we return to familiar territory – Arizona.  Earlier this week, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed a “compromise” budget agreement.  Included in that budget were 500 maximum security state-run prison beds and 1,000 private prison beds.  In fact, Arizona doesn’t need more prison beds due to the state’s declining prison population.

What’s more the budget includes a provision that would remove a requirement to study the quality and cost of public vs. private prisons.  That provision is convenient for the private prison industry after a front-page NY Times report found that private prisons in Arizona were actually costing the state more than public facilities.

If this situation makes you think Arizona is going insane, you’re not alone.  Here is what Arizona House Minority Leader Chad Campbell said of the new provision:

“It’s insanity, that’s the only way to describe this, removing the ability for the state to do a cost and quality analysis of the private prison contracts that are being funded by taxpayer dollars makes absolutely no sense whatever.”

To express your opinion on Arizona’s new budget, you can contact:

Governor Jan Brewer - http://azgovernor.gov/Contact.asp,  (602) 542.4331

House Speaker Andy Tobin - atobin@azleg.gov, (602) 926-5172

Senate President Steve Pierce - spierce@azleg.gov, (620) 926-5584

House Appropriations Chair John Kavanagh - jkavanagh@azleg.gov, (602) 926-5170

Senate Appropriations Chair Don Shooter - dshooter@azleg.gov, (602) 926-4139

Today’s Humpday Hall of Shame inductee is former Democratic Arizona Senator Dennis DeConcini.  DeConcini, who served in the Senate from 1977 until 1995, sits on the board of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

DeConcini’s membership on the CCA board makes him complicit in the anti-immigrant actions of CCA.   According to the Fuerza Coalition:

“On Tuesday, former Senator Dennis DeConcini will testify against SB1070 before the US Senate.  But DeConcini is on the Board of Directors for Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest private prison corporation, which manages immigrant detention centers across the US, including several here in Arizona.

CCA and other private prison corporations stand to profit handsomely if SB1070 is allowed to become law.  And DeConcini would share in that prosperity—his shares in CCA are currently worth $267,000. …

Tell DeConcini he can’t wag his finger at SB1070 while his other hand holds hundreds of thousands of dollars from the criminalization of immigrants. It’s time for him to choose a side: Community or Corporation?”

While we’re pleased that DeConcini plans to testify against SB1070, he seems to be pandering to the immigrant community while profiting from their pain.

We’ll keep you posted on DeConcini’s reaction to calls that he step away from CCA’s board.

Welcome to The Hump Day Hall of Shame:  Every Wednesday we highlight the private prison industry’s influence on public policy through campaign contributions, lobbying, and the revolving door of public and private corrections.

For today’s Humpday Hall of Shame, we go back to New Hampshire to look at who is being paid to push private prisons in the ”Live Free or Die State.”  They include the current mayor of Concord and several well-connected lobbyists.

According the New Hampshire Business Review, the current Request for Proposals to privatize the state’s entire prison system would reach historic proportions:

“Will New Hampshire become the first state in the nation to hand over its entire prison population to a corporation based out of state? And is it in the middle of doing so right now?  The New Hampshire Department of Corrections has put out a request for proposal that would essentially hand over the keys to a future penitentiary to an outside contractor for 20 years. Though the RFP still has to clear several hurdles, four companies have responded with plans to build, and probably run, a new prison for all of New Hampshire’s male (and perhaps female) inmates.”  (“Proposal under review would put all New Hampshire prisoners in private, for-profit facilities — the first state to do so,” April 6)

The four companies include industry heavy-hitters Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), GEO Group, and Management and Training Corporation (MTC) along with industry newcomer  Hunt Justice Group.  We decided to look at the lobbyists for these companies in New Hampshire.

According to the New Hampshire Secretary of State, GEO Group has enlisted the services of Michael Dennehy and Jim Bouley of the well-connected political firm Dennehy and Bouley .  Jim Bouley is the current mayor of Concord, N.H.’s capital. state.  Dennehy is the former Executive Director of the N.H. Republican Party and has worked with former N.H. governors Stephen Merrill and Craig Benson.

Corrections Corporation of America has four lobbyists in its employ – Glenn A. Wallace, Gina R. Rotondi, David G. Collins, and Brendan S. Perry - from the Rath, Young, and Pignatelli.  The firm brags about its government connections, with members including a former N.H. Attorney General, former Legislative Counsel to a N.H. Governor, and an elected member of the N.H. House.

Management & Training Corporation has hired Bruce Berke, Erle Pierce, and Elizabeth Murphy of the Sheehan Phinney Capitol Group.

We’ll keep you posted as the fight over prison privatization in New Hampshire heats up.

Welcome to The Hump Day Hall of Shame:  Every Wednesday we highlight the private prison industry’s influence on public policy through campaign contributions, lobbying, and the revolving door of public and private corrections.

This is the second in a two-part piece on the history of the State of Idaho’s contracting with private prison corporations.

Last week we reported that Idaho, despite a long run of horror stories and lawsuits involving private prison corporations, continues to contract with private prison companies like Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).   CCA operates the Idaho Correctional Center, a facility with the reputation so violent that it has earned the nickname “Gladiator School” from people incarcerated there.

This week, we will explore a possible explanation for Idaho’s continued contracts with private prison corporations in Idaho – campaign contributions to influential politicians in the state.  According to data from InfluenceExplorer.com, Corrections Corporation of America has donated more than $119,000 in campaign contributions to Idaho politicians since 2002.   GEO Group donated another $14,400 in just two election cycles – 2006 and 2008.

Perhaps no Idaho politician has received more support from the private prison industry than governor Butch Otter, who appoints the leadership of the Idaho Department of Corrections.  Otter has received campaign contributions of at least $19,000 from CCA and $5,000 from GEO Group since 2006.  CCA also gave $5,000 to the Idaho Republican Party.

At least 11 state legislators received more than $2,000 of Corrections Corporation of America campaign  donations since 2002. They include:

• Republican Sen. Dean Cameron ($3,250)
• Republican Sen. Patti Anne Lodge ($3,250)
• Republican Sen. Shawna Keough ($2,800)
• Republican Rep. Mike Moyle ($2,650)
• Republican Sen. Brad Little ($2,500)
• Republican Rep. Maxine Bell ($2,300)
• Republican Rep. Darrell Bolz ($2,400)
• Republican Sen. Denton Darrington ($2,300)
• Republican Sen. Gerry Sweet ($2,250)
• Republican Rep. Scott Bedke ($2,150)
• Republican Rep. Cliff Bayer ($2,050)

A number of other Idaho legislators received between $1,000-$2,000 during this time period:

• Republican Rep. George Eskridge ($1,900)
• Republican Sen. Russell Fulcher ($1,800)
• Republican Sen. John McGee ($1,800)
• Republican Rep. Dick Harwood ($1,750)
• Republican Sen. Bart Davis ($1,550)
• Republican Sen. Joe Stegner ($1,500)
• Republican Represenative Lawerence Denney ($1,500)
• Republican Rep. Julie Ellsworth ($1,450)
• Republican Rep. James Clark ($1,450)
• Republican Rep. Frank Henderson ($1,450)
• Republican Sen. Monty Pearce ($1,300)
• Republican Rep. Lee Gagner ($1,250)
• Republican Sen. Robert Geddes ($1,250)
• Republican Rep. Kathy Skippen ($1,200)
• Republican Sen. Jim Hammond ($1,000)
• Republican Rep. Wayne Meyer ($1,000)
• Republican Rep. Joe Wood ($1,000)
• Republican Rep. Janice McGeachin ($1,000)
• Republican Sen. Skip Brandt ($1,000)
• Republican Sen. Joyce Broadsword ($1,000)

In 1990, the State of Illinois banned most privately run detention centers and prisons through its Moratorium Act, which passed with bipartisan support.  The law has kept private prison giants like Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group out of the Land of Lincoln ever since.

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) had planned to change all of that in a proposed intergovernmental partnership between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Village of Crete.  The deal would have built a 700-bed facility in that community. Because this would be a federal, not a state or local detention center, the state would not have jurisdiction.

“Crete is best known for its role in carrying slaves to freedom as part of the Underground Railroad,” says Grassroots Leadership ED Donna Red Wing. “The last thing we want to see is Crete being used to help turn a profit by taking people’s liberty away.”

At a recent village board meeting, some residents complained that the process has been secretive and that some information in the literature being distributed had been blacked out.  Many of the attendees also felt that the size of the  minimum-to-maximum security facility was too big for their small village.

“SB 1064, if passed by the Illinois legislature,” said RedWing,  “would extend the privatization prohibition to cover even ICE facilities.”

This is the first in a two-part piece on the history of the State of Idaho’s contracting with private prison corporations.

Idaho, despite a long run of horror stories and lawsuits involving private prison corporations, continues to contract with private prison companies like Corrections Corporation of America.  Here’s the latest story:

“Guards at a private prison instigated – and watched – a gang fight that left him brutally beaten and unconscious, says a man who claims that Corrections Corporation of America guards “foster” brutality between inmates, and conceal injuries in the prison’s “in-house” medical center. Jacob Clevenger sued Corrections Corporation of America, CCA Western Properties, and Philip Valdez, warden of the CCA’s Idaho Correctional Center, in Federal Court.” (“Brutality alleged at private prison,” Courthouse News, March 26)

As we reported in November, Clevenger’s accusations are not the first at the Idaho Correctional Center.  In fact, the facility has a reputation as being one of the most violent correctional facilities in the nation, earning its nickname “The Gladiator School” from people incarcerated there.

The FBI investigated Idaho Correctional Center (ICC) after the Associated Press distributed video of a vicious beating of an inmate as staff watched even as the inmate pleaded to them for help.  That inmate, Hanni Elabed, suffered brain damage.

But, Idaho’s problems with ICC are only the latest in a long string of problems with private prisons.  Idaho pulled its prisoners out of not one, not two, but three private prisons in Texas following complaints of abuse and suicides squalid conditions.

I’ve written about these issues extensively at the Texas Prison Bid’ness blog.  In 2006, Idaho moved prisoners from the Newton County Correctional Center, a GEO Group-run prison, after reports of inmate abuse included prisoners being forcibly cuffed and maced.

Idaho then pulled its prisoners from the GEO-operated Bill Clayton Detention Center in Littlefield after the suicide of Idaho prisoner Randall McCullough, who, according to news reports, had spent more than a year in solitary confinement.  GEO was later hit with a massive lawsuit over in the McCullough case. Since the facility’s closure, Littlefield has had its bond ratings dropped and turned to two different private prison companies in an effort to fill the prison beds.  It even unsuccessfully attempted to auction its prison last year.

The fate wasn’t much better at the GEO-operated Dickens County Correctional Center.  That facility was initially closed in 2007 after an investigation of the suicide of Idaho prisoner Scot Noble Payne found “squalid” conditions.  The Idaho Department of Corrections’ Health Director called the facility the worst he’d ever seen.

"Live Free or Die"

New Hampshire was the first of the thirteen colonies to declare its independence.  The nation’s first free public library was established in Peterborough. Revolutionary hero General John Stark coined the phrase that is still associated with New Hampshire, “Live Free or Die.” New Hampshire, where we experience the first primary in the nation every four years, is quintessentially a New England state, rich and a little quirky in manner and politics and history.  And it is, these days, possibly a player in the private prison industry’s massive attempt to privatize our nation’s prisons and departments of corrections.

A House and Senate committee to develop a plan to privatize the Department of Corrections in The Live Free or Die State, New Hampshire, will report its findings and recommendations to the speaker of the house of representatives, the president of the senate, the house clerk, the senate clerk, the governor, and the state library on or before May 1, 2012.

Earlier this year the Department of Corrections issued RFP’s (due last month) for facilities accommodating prisoners, replacing both Concord’s century old State Prison for Men and Goffstown’s women’s prison.  The RFP was lauded by those close to private prison interests as it contained no specifics about size or location and could potentially include speculative building for anticipated larger New England needs. Nor did it specify whether the contractor would build the facilities or retrofit existing facilities.

According to Eli Gage, of Correctional News “It’s probably one of the more unique and creative (RFPs) put out for some time. The state has given the ability to leave things (a bidder) is open to do or not do, depending on what they like. Even some in the industry say it’s the best RFP they’ve seen in a while.”

This “model” RFP brought twenty different private prison companies into New Hampshire.  The “big three”, The GEO Group, Corrections Corporation of America and The Management Training Group were, of course, among the interested.

As we wait to learn the fate of the proposals to build a male facility and a female facility or a hybrid facility and, as we await what we hope will be an illuminating and truthful legislative privatization report, we think that it is important to take a very close look at the members of that legislature.  I would suggest that folks in New Hampshire examine very carefully the funds that help elect their representatives.  That information is available at the National Institute on Money in State Politics’ website www.followthemoney.org.  And, take a gander at the large number of legislators who are members of The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right wing organization of corporations and conservative foundations who dish up free trips and model legislation to its lawmaker members.

From our friends at ALECexposed:

New Hampshire House of Representatives

Amy Stasia Perkins (R-14), ALEC Civil Justice Task Force Member

Andrew Renzullo (R-27)

Betsy McKinney (R-3), ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force Member

Beverly T. Rodeschin (R-2) ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force and Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force Member

Carole McGuire (R-8), ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force Alternate

Dan McGuire (R-8), ALEC Education Task Force

Elaine B. Swinford (R-5), ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force Member

Gary Daniels (R-6), ALEC State Chairman and Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Member

J. Gail Barry (R-16), ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force Member

Jennifer Coffey (R-6), ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Member

John Hikel (R-7), ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Alternate

John Reagan (R-1), ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force Member

Jordan Ulery (R-27), ALEC State Chairman and Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force Member

Joseph Thomas (R-19), ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force Member

Ken Weyler (R-8), ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force Member

Kris Edward Roberts (D-3), ALEC Education Task Force

Lawrence B. Perkins, Jr. (R-14), ALEC Civil Justice Task Force Member

Marilinda J. Garcia (R-4), ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Alternate

Mark Warden (R-7)

Mary M. Allen (R-11), ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force Alternate

Maurice Villeneuve (R-18), ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force Member

Norman L. Major (R-8), ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force Alternate

Pamela Z. Tucker (R-17), ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Member

Robert E. Introne (R-3), ALEC Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force Member

Robert L. Theberge (D-4), ALEC International Relations Task Force Member

Stephen Palmer (R-6), ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force Member

Susan Emerson (R-7), ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force Member

Warren J. Groen (R-1)

Will Smith (R-18), ALEC Education Task Force

New Hampshire Senate

Sen. Sharon M. Carson (R-14), ALEC Civil Justice Task Force Member

You can find your representative and their contact information at:http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/members/wml.aspx

Lets watch our elected officials in New Hampshire very carefully over the next few weeks.  And if any should warrant a special mention in our Wednesday Hall of Shame blog, please email me at redwing@grassrootsleadership.org

I have an idea: New Hampshire has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation.  According to the United States Peace Index, which defines peace as “the absence of violence,” and looks at a set of five indicators, including homicide rates, violent crimes, percentage of the population in jail, number of police officers and availability of small arms (per 100,000 people) to rank the states, New Hampshire is the nation’s second most peaceful state.  As it confronts its old and decaying prisons, rather than contracting with a private corporation that will build larger, newer prisons with the potential for speculative regional commerce, the state might look at alternatives to incarceration.  Drug courts.  Halfway houses. Sentencing options. Intensive Supervisory Probation and Parole. Home confinement. Electronic monitoring.  Mental health courts.  Restorative Justice. Restitution.  New Hampshire could become a model for the rest of the nation, radically lowering its incarceration rates and finding creative and workable solutions.

We often use this blog to explore some of the terrible decisions made by policy makers, elected officials and private prison personnel. Today, however, we have something to celebrate in Florida.

Thanks to Representative Betty Reed (D-Hillsborough), House Bill 367, prohibiting the use of restraints (shackles) on incarcerated women in labor, delivery and recovery, passed in a 114 to 1 vote in the House.  Only Darryl Ervin Rouson  (D-St Petersburg) voted against the bill. Previously, Senator Arthenia Joyner (D-Tampa) and her colleagues passed the identical Senate bill, SB 524, in a unanimous decision.

Summary

Restraint of Incarcerated Pregnant Women; Cites act as “Healthy Pregnancies for Incarcerated Women Act”; prohibits use of restraints on prisoner known to be pregnant during labor, delivery, & postpartum recovery unless corrections official makes individualized determination that prisoner presents extraordinary circumstance; authorizes officer to apply restraints after consulting with medical staff; requires restraint to be in least restrictive manner; requires written findings as to extraordinary circumstance requiring restraints; restricts use of certain restraints during 3rd trimester unless significant security concerns are documented; requires that findings be kept on file for specified minimum period; authorizes woman restrained in violation of act to file grievance; directs DOC & DJJ to adopt rules; requires correctional institutions to inform female prisoners of such rules. Effective Date: July 1, 2012

When the bill becomes effective in July of this year, Florida will become the first southern state to ban the shackling of pregnant women in their third trimester and during childbirth.  That leaves thirty-five states across this country that allow the shackling of pregnant and birthing women.

Obstetricians recognize that women in labor need to be able to freely move and assume various positions during birthing, and that to restrain or shackle renders a mother and her child more vulnerable to complications. During the final stages of labor it is especially important for the physician to act quickly in order to avoid potentially life-threatening emergencies for both the baby and mother. Shackles severely limit this ability and add an unacceptable and unnecessary threat to the survival of the child and mother. Additionally, the vast majority of women are nonviolent offenders and the physical and mental burdens of childbirth mean that women present almost no security or flight risk at that time. In fact, since similar legislation passed in other states starting over a decade ago, there have been absolutely no instances of violence or flight.

We should not tolerate this barbaric practice that affects both mothers and their children. Under no circumstances should leg irons or handcuffs or belly chains be used on any pregnant woman who is in labor, delivery or recovery.

Please go to our website and sign our anti-shackling petition at http://www.grassrootsleadership.org/petition/

On this day as we celebrate the extraordinary advances of women across the globe, as we laud our heroines and our mentors, as we honor the achievement of women everywhere, I hope that we will call attention to the realities and the needs of women in our local, state and federal prisons and, in our ICE detention systems.

Imagine that you are a young woman, pregnant and in jail. Between six and ten percent of female inmates are pregnant and many will be shackled as they give birth.  Or, perhaps you are an older woman and you have served your time for years, even decades.  Your needs become greater, more complicated as you grow older.  The vast majority of women over fifty will not re-offend.  But, many will grow old, without proper medicine or health care and will only leave prison in death.

Approximately one in ten women will report sexual abuse in prison. That number jumps to one in four in privately run facilities. And, quite frankly, who do you tell?

Let us reassess America’s penchant for prison. With five percent of the world’s population, we incarcerate at five times that rate.  In sheer numbers and per capita, the United States of America incarcerates more people than any nation on earth.  And women, especially women of color, are seeing an extraordinary increase in incarceration rates.

It is time that we demand justice for women incarcerated or detained in public or private institutions. Abolish for-profit facilities.  Provide access to obstetrics and gynecological healthcare. Offer medical care and appropriate food and nutrition for pregnant inmates. Eliminate shackling during pregnancy, childbirth and post-natal care. Offer appropriate care for those who have been sexually, physically or emotionally abused.  Create safeguards against staff abuse. Provide treatment for drug abuse and dependency.  Offer educational opportunities including GED preparation.  Expand visitation rights.  Find and use alternatives to incarceration.

Let us celebrate International Women’s Day with meaningful actions that remember those women who struggle to survive, every day, in America’s corrections and immigration systems.

Please be in touch with Grassroots Leadership at GrassrootsLeadership.org  or connect with me at 704.332.3090, ext.1 or at redwing@grassrootsleadership.org

Thank you,

Donna Red Wing

These past few weeks the for-profit prison industry has its sights on Michigan.  The Michigan House of Representatives is considering bills HB 5174 and HB 5177 to reopen a youth correctional facility in order to house adult inmates. The North Lake Facility for Youth, or Baldwin facility, was opened in 1998 by Wackenhut Corrections Corporation – now know as The GEO Group shuttered the facility in 2005.  GEO, in a speculative move with high hopes of filling the prison with Californians, expanded the prison from less than 500 to about 2400 beds. The expected California contract did not fully materialize and the GEO Group’s Lake County facility, dubbed the ‘punk prison’, stood empty for some years.

The Wackenhut/GEO Group’s track record at the youth facility was atrocious:

-Youth were held in solitary confinement, a few for more than one hundred days at a time.  One mentally ill inmate spent more than 400 days in ‘segregation.’

- Seventy-six suicide attempts were documented from July 2004 through March 2005

- There were confirmed beatings and rapes.

-Parents complained that children with lesser offenses were not safe from those who had committed violent crimes.

-There was a demonstrated lack of mental health and educational services.

-The facility was chronically understaffed.

-It was a violent facility.

In the United States District Court, Western District of Michigan (Case No. 5:05-CV-0128 ) the Michigan Protection & Advocacy Service, Inc. brought a lawsuit against the Michigan Department of Corrections “to challenge and remedy the Defendant’s illegal and unconstitutional use of isolation, denial of adequate mental health services, and denial of appropriate educational services to young prisoners with mental illness and/or developmental disabilities. The Defendant’s actions and inaction have caused youth with mental illness and developmental disabilities great and irreparable harm.”

When Michigan closed Baldwin in 2005, it was then hit with a $5.4 million lawsuit by GEO/Wackenhut. The corporation, responsible for the operation of the facility and all of the problems that led to its closing, wanted to keep Baldwin open or force the state to continue its payments for an empty facility.  The case was eventually heard by the Supreme Court of Michigan which ruled: “Defendants [the state of Michigan] were entitled to cancel the lease … [and] exercise by the state of its contractual right of cancellation does not constitute a government taking of private property.”

And, now The GEO Group and privatization are back. In a state with a declining need for more prison beds, HB 5174 and HB 5177 make no sense.  These bills would allow yet another contract between the The GEO Group (yes, the same GEO Group with its abysmal track record and its unsuccessful suit against Michigan) and the Department of Corrections to fill their beds, for a price, at the Baldwin facility.  To fill those 2,400 beds, Michigan would need to move inmates in from its own public prisons.

Since the state does not need new prison beds, one has to wonder why some members of the Michigan legislature are so wedded to the idea of filling The GEO Group’s beds and coffers with Michigan inmates and taxpayer dollars.  It is time, I think, to follow the money. And, to ask hard questions.  Who has taken funds from the private prison industry?  Who will? The Geo Group has been very clear that its future is tied to “its ability to secure contacts to develop and manage new correction, detention and mental health facilities.” And the world’s largest private prison purveyor, Corrections Corporation of America, recently sent a letter to forty-eight governors with a proposal to take over their prisons and contract back to the state.

In Florida we worked to stop the unnecessary transfer of facilities from the public to the private sector.  In Michigan we are working to stop the speculative and expensive folly of recessitating an empty and unnecessary for-profit facility. Will Michigan be the next ‘pay-for play’ state, rewarding those who are willing to ‘play’?

The billion-dollar prison corporation’s game is the willingness to make a profit on the lives of incarcerated Michiganders. In this game of “Whack-A-Mole”, our mallet is truth, transparency, and the public good.

The American Friends Service Committee/Michigan is inviting people of faith and good will to sign onto their petition against prison privatization at http://support.afsc.org/site/Survey?ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&SURVEY_ID=3623

Or you may email Natalie Holbrook at NHolbrook@afsc.org

For more information about prison privatization please visit us at GrassrootsLeadership.org or call us at 704.332.3090, x1.

Thank you.