Tag Archives: Ohio

CCA offers to buy prisons from 48 states

Desperation or disaster capitalism by CCA?
Trying to get as entrenched as possible before more people catch
on that private prisons

don’t save money for states?

Andrew Jones wrote for Raw Story yesterday,

Private prison company offers to buy 48 states’ prisons

In exchange for keeping at least a 90 percent occupancy rate, the
private prison company Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) has
sent a letter to 48 states offering to manage their prisons for the


low price of $250 million per year, according to a letter obtained
by the Huffington Post.

The company says it’s a way for states to help manage their current
budget crisis. “We believe this comes at a timely and helpful
juncture and hope you will share our belief in the benefits of the
purchase-and-manage model,” CCA chief corrections officer
Harley Lappin said in the letter.

What does CCA

want in return?

…a 20-year management contract, plus an assurance that the prison
would remain at least 90 percent full….

So if a state,
such as Georgia,

was thinking of sentencing reform,
or of getting on with decriminalizing drugs,
either would become quite difficult after signing such contracts.

Here’s
CCA’s offer letter, complete with a blank to fill in for the state.

Maybe CCA is realizing that it’s coming to the end of its rope
on its old tricks, such as these, pointed out by

Chris Kirkham in HufffintongPost yesterday,

Continue reading →

Ohio selling off prisons

The governor of Ohio created a budget shortfall, and wants to solve it
by selling off private prisons in “a yard sale” in a recession,
like “a junkie” for “his next fix.”


According to testimony by a nonpartisan research institute:

“The biggest source of Ohio’s budget problem is not overspending or
compenstation for public employees. It is a reduction in revenue.

…

The tax changes also were weighted to high-income Ohioans. More than 40
percent of the income-tax cuts are going to the five percent of families
with income of $135,000 or more a year. Meanwhile, the bottom three-fifths
of Ohio families will receive just 13 percent of the total tax cut.

According to a recent poll,
the people of Ohio think this is unfair and don’t believe the governor
can fix the budget without raising taxes.

There are other reasons selling off prisons to private prison
companies such as CCA is a bad idea.



Mark Niquette wrote for Bloomberg 29 June 2011,

Kasich Tries to Avoid Arizona’s Mistakes in Ohio Prison Selloff:



Still, Democratic lawmakers, including Representative Matt Lundy of
Elyria, question whether Ohio is making a wise move.

“The buyer wins and the taxpayers lose when we sell in the middle of
a recession,” Lundy said during press conference last month, calling
the move “a yard sale.”



Selling assets for “one-time” money is a mistake, Louisiana Treasurer
John Kennedy said. He opposed a plan by Republican Governor Bobby Jindal
to sell three prisons to raise $90 million, a proposal the Legislature
didn’t approve.

“A junkie can sell his TV or his stereo or his iPod and generate money
for his next fix,” Kennedy, also a Republican, said in a telephone
interview from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. “But if he’s going to ever
get well, he needs to face his addiction.”

An even better quote in that story comes from CCA’s own Steve Owen:

Continue reading →

Former CCA employee is Ohio prison chief in while state is selling off prisons



Joe Gullen writes in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, 21 March 2011, that

Private corrections company with ties to government officials will not get special treatment while Ohio sells five prisons, director says

A private corrections company with ties to both the governor’s office and
the corrections department will get no special treatment as Ohio moves
to privatize a chunk of its prison system, the corrections department
director said Monday.

Gary Mohr, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and
Correction, has pledged to remove himself from Gov. John Kasich’s recent
proposal to sell five Ohio prisons to avoid even the appearance of a
conflict of interest.

Mohr is a former consultant and managing director for Corrections
Corporation of America, a Nashville-based company that is eligible to
bid on the state prison contracts once they are made available next month.

The company, which bills itself the leading private-sector provider
of corrections services to governments, also hired Kasich’s former
congressional chief of staff, Donald Thibaut, as a lobbyist in January.

Oh, my, how would any of that produce an appearance of conflict of interest?

As for hiring Kasich’s former congressional chief of staff as a lobbyist,
Owen said CCA has long had a lobbyist in Ohio to educate elected officials
on the services the company provides. CCA owns and operates a Youngstown
facility that houses federal prisoners.

“There’s nothing hidden and no agenda,” Owen said.

Well, in that case, CCA should have no objection to finding out, for example,
who they had lobbying the Georgia legislature lately.

-jsq