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HB 198 expands contracted bed capacity with private vendors and counties by 1,000-beds and 500-beds respectively.
Expanding private prison capacity is a problem for Texas because:
- While staff to prisoner ratios are important predictors of unit safety, prison unit size is another important indicator.
Larger units -- particularly if staffed in the ways private contractors have staffed them through limited training and low
pay-- increase the chances of escape, violence, and other management problems;
- It is now well-understood that the much of the supposed savings associated with private prisons come from the private
industry's low wages and inadequate staff training;
- The historical problems in private prisons' performance in Texas and nationwide must be considered in evaluating the
relative costs of public and private facilities. Because litigation has been -- and we believe, will continue to be -- necessary
to bring these facilities in line with the Constitution, these problems must be calculated into the long-term liability costs
that cut into any projected costs savings.
Highlights of Private Prison Scandals in Texas:
- In 2007, a Corrections Corporation of America guard at Webb County Detention Center is charged with delivering fake
cocaine to man who was not identified by prosecutors and trying to hire someone to kill her CCA supervisor;
- At a facility managed by CiviGenics, a jailer is arrested in 2005 for violating the civil rights of a female inmate;
the jailer is accused of sexual activity with a person in custody;
- At the Willacy County State Jail in 2006 the family of a local man killed at a prison run by Wackenhut (now GEO) was
awarded $47.5 million by a Willacy County jury. The inmate was beaten to death four days prior to completing his sentence;
- Three Willacy County Commissioners plead guilty after being indicted for receiving kickbacks during the construction
of the Management and Training Corporation federal prison project (2005) and many more.
Alternatives to expanding contracted prison capacity:
- Mandate that Texas abide by its own minimum guidelines in the release of inmates and reduce the reliance as a labor
force on reliable "trustee"; inmates who are otherwise parole eligible (results in release of estimated 8,200 inmates,
eliminating current need for new beds and allowing for conversion of existing beds);
- Expand the incentive program created by the 79th Legislature to strengthen community supervision by increasing the use
of individualized assessment, drug treatment, and progressive sanctions, and require compliance by all counties who accept
these state funds;
- Continue to reduce recidivism, a key to reducing the inmate population, by expanded use of drug courts, where re-arrest
rates are just over half the re-arrest rates for those not diverted; and finally;
- Stop the relentless enhancement of felony penalties. Despite high incarceration, Texas' crime rates have not come down
as rapidly as those in states with far lower incarceration rates, and new studies show that very high incarceration rates
are actually associated with increased crime.
The State will ultimately be held responsible for any problems in private prison facilities.
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