Private Prisons in the United States, 1999: An Assessment of Growth, Performance, Standards, and Training Requirements. Washington, D.C.: Federal Bureau of Prisons. -46Camp (original) (raw)

This report addresses issues surrounding the growth in the private sector's operation of adult, secure facilities for sentenced inmates in the United States. It is also an analysis of private sector standards in staff training, policy and procedure devoted to inmate security and custody, and some of the important indicators of the quality of private prison operations. This report fulfills a mandate from the U.S. Congress (pursuant to Public Law 105-277, Sec. 111). Private sector firms have responded to the need for prison beds created by the rapid growth in the jail and prison populations in recent years. This growth has generated tremendous opportunities for entrepreneurs to build, own, and operate prisons. The two largest firms, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (WCC) arose in the 1980s and rapidly expanded to provide care to more inmates in the United States than most State systems. The private sector housed 69,188 inmates in 94 prisons on July 31, 1999. Private prisons held 5.3 percent of the 1.3 million inmates under the jurisdiction of State and Federal Governments at this time. This marked a significant increase from the end of 1997, when there were 91 contracts that covered 37,651 inmates in 84 private prisons. CCA held 37,244 inmates in 45 prisons in 1999-53.8 percent of the total number of inmates in private prisons. WCC incarcerated another 19,001 inmates in 26 prisons-27.4 percent of the total number of privately held inmates. CCA was responsible for more inmates than those held in all but seven States and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). An additional nine State systems had more inmates than the total reported for WCC, or 16 States altogether plus the Bureau of Prisons. Together, CCA and WCC held 56,245 inmates, or 81.3 percent of the inmates held in secure, adult, private prisons. Along with the opportunities generated by the rapid influx of prisoners into the private sector, the private companies also experienced the challenges of operating rapidly expanding correctional systems. In particular, the private companies had to recruit, train, and maintain adequate numbers of correctional staff to operate their prisons.-iv-Some evidence suggests that the private sector prison providers had problems in maintaining adequately trained and experienced staff and that there were critical lapses in appropriate security practices. Both major companies, CCA and WCC, had inmates escape from their adult prisons in 1999. CCA had three escape incidents in 1999 during which four inmates were able to breach the perimeter and escape from secure facilities. CCA, and its subsidiary TransCor, also experienced escapes when inmates were being transported, either for medical treatment or to a prison. There were four such incidents in which five inmates escaped. WCC had two separate incidents in 1999 where one inmate in each incident was able to successfully escape from inside of a secure prison. One of the WCC escapes was particularly relevant for the BOP, an inmate escaped from the Taft Correctional Institution (TCI), which is operated by WCC for the BOP. Correctional Services Corporation (CSC) had significant problems with the McKinley County Detention Center it operated in New Mexico. There were two separate escape incidents in which nine inmates were able to escape from inside of the facility. (CSC has since lost the contract to operate this facility.) The Management & Training Company (MTC) also had one escape in 1999 in which three inmates were able to escape from inside of a secure prison. Private sector companies also experienced serious group disturbances in 1999, most of which could be viewed as riots. CCA (five incidents), WCC (three incidents), and CSC (one incident) experienced group disturbances in which chemical agents had to be used to control inmates, and/or injuries resulted to staff members, and/or significant property damage occurred. In the most tragic of these incidents, a correctional officer was killed at the Guadalupe County Correctional Facility, which was operated by WCC for the State of New Mexico. Research Plan for the Analysis The U.S. Congress (Public Law 105-277, Sec. 111, Fiscal Year 1999 Omnibus Appropriations Bill) required that the Director of the BOP initiate a study that "evaluates the growth and development of the private prison industry during the past 15 years, training qualifications of personnel at private prisons, and the security procedures of such facilities, and compares the general standards and conditions between private prisons and Federal prisons." To fulfill this requirement, the Bureau of Prisons' Office of Research and Evaluation (ORE), in conjunction with subject matter experts within the BOP and the National Institute of Corrections (NIC), developed a research plan with three major components: (1) a census of secure private prisons for sentenced, adult inmates, (2) a survey of Government employees responsible for administering the private prison contracts within agencies that utilized private prison bed space,-v-and (3) site visits to selected private institutions. This report covers the census and survey. A later report will discuss the findings of the site visits. Census The census identified 94 different institutions that held sentenced, adult inmates for departments of corrections in one of the 50 States, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, or the Federal Government. Nine of the prisons had contracted with two or more jurisdictions to hold inmates, meaning that, at the time of the census, there were 103 different contracts to hold adult inmates in private prisons. 3 The rapid influx of prisoners into the private sector brought challenges and opportunities. One of the most significant challenges was the need to recruit, train, and maintain adequate numbers of correctional staff that were necessary to operate the prisons they managed. Many of the concerns about private corporations and their staff capabilities came to a head in the aftermath of the highly publicized escape of six maximum risk inmates, five of them convicted murderers, from the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center (NOCC) in July of 1998. In a detailed and rare glimpse into the operations of a private prison, John L. Clark, the Corrections Trustee for the District of Columbia, provided a detailed examination of the problems experienced by CCA at NOCC during its initial operations. In addition to the much-publicized escapes, there were two inmate murders and numerous stabbings and assaults, including assaults on staff. Among his findings, Clark documented the lack of basic security practices and the inexperience and inability of staff to handle difficult inmates (Clark 1998). Since the escapes, staffing and procedural changes were instituted at NOCC, and the institution received ACA accreditation. WCC also experienced highly publicized problems in two of the prisons it operated in New Mexico: the Lea County and Guadalupe County Correctional Facilities. The incidents at these facilities are recorded in Table 1. At the request of the Special Advisory Group composed of New Mexico State Senators, State Representatives, the State Corrections Secretary, and the State Deputy Attorney General, a group of independent consultants were asked to examine the operations in New Mexico public and private prisons in light of the problems experienced by the New Mexico Corrections Department and WCC. The correctional consultants documented their evaluation in a report submitted to the Special Advisory Group (Austin, Crane, Griego, O'Brien, and Vose 2000). Among the types of problems documented, some were attributed to the New Mexico Department of Corrections, such as lack of surveillance of gang activities and inequity in housing conditions between the public prisons and the more Spartan private prisons. Other problems were more likely to be found in the private prisons: problems with inadequate numbers of staff, inexperienced staff, insufficiently trained staff (partly caused by difficulty in scheduling access to the State training academy), and physical plant deficiencies in the facilities owned by WCC. Richard Crane argued that part of the problem in operations at the two facilities originated with the complicated contractual arrangements between the Corrections Department, the Counties of Guadalupe and Lea, and WCC. To quote Crane (2000: 54): In the end, the complex contractual arrangements, the unclear facility missions, the need for prison beds, and the involvement of too many agencies and individuals in negotiations, resulted in contracts which fall well short of industry standards and create significant security, programmatic and fiscal implications for the State (p. 54). 8 Most of the inmates, 4,741, that were reported to be low security risks were held in four different private prisons for the BOP.