Public Prisons, Private Menace
According to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections' website, the mission of the DOC is to “protect the public through the constructive management of offenders placed in its charge.” Listed methods to achieve this include: Developing individualized correctional strategies based on the uniqueness of each offender; providing opportunities for the development of constructive offender skills and the modification of thought processes related to criminal behavior and victimization; and providing and managing resources to promote successful offender integration within the community.
The vision statement on the same page leads the DOC to also: Hold offenders accountable by requiring them to contribute to the recovery of victims and the community; work with the community to engage offenders and prevent them from becoming anonymous; and promote the integration of offenders into the community so that they become valued and contributing members.
These all seem like positive and worthwhile goals. Individualized treatment, counseling to avoid future criminal acts, and vocational training with the community integration necessary to put it to work are all strategies that can reduce the number of re-offenders and keep Wisconsin growing stronger while reducing crime rates. The successful implementation of these plans adds value to communities in our state and our nation.
But there is a group that sees no value in reducing recidivism. There is a group that desires greater incarceration rates, not lesser. There is a group that sees individual plans and rehabilitation training as wastes of precious money. There is a group who has no desire to make communities safer or more stable.
Who is it whose interests are so counter to our own? The corporations that run for-profit prisons.
One of the largest operators of private prison is Corrections Corporation of America. On their website they say, “CCA designs, builds, manages and operates correctional facilities and detention centers on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the United States Marshals Service, nearly half of all states and nearly a dozen counties across the country.” And they are looking to expand. An article in the Capital Times on Feb. 23 reported that CCA had sent letters to 48 states, offering to buy and run their existing public prisons.
Private prison corporations like CCA (a for-profit, publicly traded corporation) cite the benefits to state budgets that this would provide. In addition to the one-time infusion of cash this would bring, private prisons typically cost less per prisoner than publicly-operated ones. The prisons would also pay property and sales taxes. States looking to plug budget holes and save money on future corrections expenses see this as a win-win opportunity.
The problem is that money isn't everything, and counting on per-inmate savings may not be the panacea it seems. CCA recently bought the Lake Erie Correctional Facility from the state of Ohio. While the $72.7 million purchase price helped eliminate red ink in the budget, Ohio is obligated to keep the prison filled to at least 90 percent capacity for the duration of the 20-year contract. What happens if Ohio loses a large amount of its population? What happens if the crime rate drops precipitously?
CCA profits most when its prisons are full. What keeps prisons full? Harsh penalties and habitual offenders. CCA has the penalties portion covered by its constant lobbying efforts. The Capital Times noted that as “a prominent member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, aka ALEC, Corrections Corporation of America crafted Arizona's immigration law into a model bill, parts of which showed up last summer in a Wisconsin Assembly proposal...” They've spent millions of dollars convincing legislators to get tougher on crime and criminals.
And what increases recidivism rates? Many things, including a lack of family contact while in prison, a lack of vocational training, poor medical and psychiatric care, and inhumane conditions within the prisons themselves. A BBC article from December 2010 reported on a video of CCA guards watching one inmate beat another, doing nothing to intervene. It turns out the FBI already “had been investigating whether guards at the Idaho Correctional Center violated the civil rights of inmates.” Additionally, “prisoners have filed a number of lawsuits against the prison in the past, saying the facility covers up [similar] attacks by denying the prisoners medical treatment.” Prisoners unused to civil treatment will have a much harder time readjusting to society when they are released. This increases the odds that they will soon return to the tender mercies of the Corrections Corporation of America.
Wisconsin already has a burgeoning prison population. It has more than doubled since the year 2000, from about 10,000 to about 22,000. This explosion has led to the 11x15 Campaign for Justice, an effort to reduce our state's prison population to 11,000 inmates by 2015. The project was begun by WISDOM, “a grassroots organization, comprised mostly of religious congregations of many denominations, which works to have a common voice on issues of social justice.” Citing systemic problems with the criminal justice system itself, 11x15 hopes to install more effective and less expensive options for dealing with offenders.
If Wisconsin sells its prisons to CCA, that could never happen. Keeping our prisons full would be a contractual obligation. The good of communities and individuals wouldn't matter.
For-profit prisons should have no place in Wisconsin's criminal justice system. They should have no place in America, at all.
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