Policy Memorandum
Soraya Reyes and JingYan Zhang
Communication in a Public Setting
Dr. Hoffman
Executive Summary:
As of 2013, there were 133,000 state and federal prisoners housed in privately owned prisons in
U.S., constituting 8.4% of the overall U.S. prison population. Today, 30 states allow prison privatization, with seven states housing more than a quarter of their prison population privately
(BJA, 2011). In this fast-growing industry, much controversy related to safety issues in private
prisons has come to the public’s mind. A nationwide case study has shown that private prisons
guards are assaulted at a 49% higher rate than comparison to public correctional guards. Private
prisoners were assaulted 65% more likely to be assaulted than those incarcerated in state correctional facilities (Fischer, 2013). There have been many lawsuits filed against private prisons regarding correction officers’ abusiveness that have resulted in inmates’ death. Two of largest private prisons, Correctional Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group, with annual combined revenue $3 billion have been accused of mismanaging their prison systems due to cost cutting measures that place both inmates and correctional officers in danger.
Policy Memo
To: State Legislature, General Assembly, General Court, Legislative Assembly
From: Soraya Reyes and Jingyan Zhang
Date: Monday, May18, 2015
Re: The Continuance of Safety Issues Surrounding the Privatization of the Prison Complex Sys
tem
The Problem
There is a systemic and institutionalized problem that continues to exist in our prison system.
The “culture of violence” within the prison system has been on the rise according to recent allegations. New reports reveal that inmates are being beaten and sometimes killed by the very people that are hired to protect them, the correctional officers. In-house surveys reveal that the white
inmates are reporting being physically assaulted by the black inmates and that black inmates are
reporting being physically assaulted by the guards (Guelp, 2014). This type of victimization creates a where the victim becomes the predator (Orriss, 2004).
In May 2012, a riot in CCA-operated facility in Mississippi caused the life of a Corrections Officer and left sixteen staff members and three prisoners injured. Between 2005 and 2009, at least
eight people have died at the GEO Group-operated George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, the state's only privately run jail. Recently 2,800 inmates have been
transferred out of a private prison in South Texas after a riot there on Feb 20, 2015. The prisoners were protesting inadequate medical services, which — along with cruel treatment and sexual
abuse. The facility has been closed for repairs, and 90 percent of its staff is being laid off.
GEO Group, one of the largest private prisons in America, submitted a proposition to 48 state
governors. If accepted it would contractualize each of the accepting states to fill the prison to a
90% full capacity for the 20 year life of the contract. If the state is unable to meet their obligation
then they would be held fiscally responsible for the lack of profit and would be required to pay
those corporations loss revenue (Kirkham, 2012).
Increasing Profits
Violence in private prisons and the lack of safety for both inmates and correctional officers is the
result of cost cutting measures. Cost cutting measures are the primary culprit for maximazing
private prison profits. The reduction of security and lack of inmate monitoring are products of
taking the short cut to profits. These elements can be curtailed by placing strict policies on private prison institutions that adhere to the same rules and regulations as the public sectors. The
approach taken on maximizing profits by sacrificing proper training, adequate staffing, higher
wages, cultivates a noncompliant staffing environment that does not place safety first (Fischer,
2013).
Why Do We Need to Regulate
The corporations not meeting their own financial goal therefore they continue to take short cuts
while infringing upon civil rights laws . Class action lawsuits have been brought against GEO
Group
Inc.,
(GEO),
and a
forprofit
prison
firm.
The
PENNY
ALLISON
and
ZORAN HOCEV AR, individually and on behalf of a class of others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. The GEO Group, Inc.” lawsuit, it accuses GEO of “violating constitutional rights under
color of state law by illegally strip searching them in the absence of reasonable suspicious and
others similarly situated upon entry into the jails after being charged with minor offenses;” (David Rodovsky, 2010). This incident is serves as an example of poor judgement on the correctional officers behave due to poor training. This lawsuit is just one of many that have been
brought against GEO Group Inc. GEO has also been accused of refusing to provide medical care
and deliberately allowing violence. By the Eighth Amendment prisoners have a right to be free
of cruel and inhumane conditions. Many of these prisoners are not provided with timely medical
treatment due to lack of staffing. Prisoners have a right to adequate medical care. Prisoners diagnosed with mental illness have a right to medical treatment that is appropriate for their circumstances (Thomson Reuters, 2015).
If the proposition of incorporating the public prisons that was submitted by the GEO Group to
the 48 state governors is accepted it will have the most debilitating effect on improvised communities as it is a well-known fact that African Americans are 2.5 times more likely to be incarcerated than white and Hispanics. Yet the White populations break the law at the same rate as the
black population (Report of The Sentencing Project to the United Nations Human Rights, 2013).
In this Policy Options Brief we briefly examine the history behind the expansion of the privatization of the prison complex system, present different policy options that create a better equality
among racial lines, generate a check and balance system and offer more safeguards for the correctional officers and inmates if these options are accepted.
The Prior History
With the United States leading the way among other nations holding the highest prison population rate with holding only 5% of the world’s population the United States has managed to incarcerate 25% of the world’s prisoners. Prison privatization began to expand under
the Reagan Administration due to the declaration on the War on Drugs, the changes in federal sentencing and the changes in correctional policy. This has led
to the increasing rate of incarceration, prison overcrowding and
the rising per capita cost of incarceration which has become problematic for the local, state and federal governments (Pelaez, 2008).
Creating a Safer Environment
We have proposed six policy options that would decrease spending while increasing safety in the
private prison sector. We hope that state legislature would incorporate these ideals into their
standard private prison institutions to ensure the safety of all within the prison system.
Policy Option 1: Using Tactical Decision Games Training verse Class Room training.
A nationwide case study has shown that private prison guards are assaulted at 49% higher rate
than comparison to public correctional guards. It also highlighted that private prisoners were assaulted 65% more than those incarcerated in state correctional facilities.
"Privately operated prisons appear to
have systemic problems in maintaining
secure facilities" concluding that forprofit/private prisons have significantly more escapes, homicides, assaults,
and drug abuse compared to government-run prisons” (Fischer, 2013).
Correctional officers are required to
attend a training academy and when
they are assigned to a facility they are provided with an on-the-job training process Public prison
require 232 hours of training (Martinez, 2013). As per recent allegations brought against correctional officers of abusing inmates while in their care it illustrates the training that the correctional
officers receive are not enough. Correctional officers should undergo massive training involving
real case scenarios. Case studies show conducted in Europe shoed that correctional officers that
received video training delivered a must better test result. At the conclusion of the study it re-
vealed an increase the rate of positive outcomes keeping everyone involved in the scenario safe.
The changes have shown to have had an increase of 600%. If correctional officers were to use
more realistic case scenarios such as Tactical Decision Games, I predict the positive outcome to
be that much greater. Research shows that more the more physical practice one has the better the
outcome (Leland, 2010).
This Policy Option would decrease lawsuits filed against private prisons and could have an annual savings of hundreds of millions of dollars. Using an example one lawsuit brought against
GEO Group for the beating death of Gregario de la Rosa was settled for 40 million dollars (Bob,
2010).
Policy Option 2: Increase wages and benefits for guards
There is a reported 53% of a turnover rate in private prisons versus 16% in public prisons (PublicInterest.org) Using The Department of Colorado as an example it reported having 33 CCA
guards watching over 1,222 inmates at a time of a riot. One of the reasons for the lack of personnel was due to the low pay for the private prison correctional officers. Private prison officers are
paid $1,818 per month compared to $2,774 a month for state prison correctional officers.
(Friedman, 2012) T
Policy Option 3: Improving prison conditions by lowering the Truth-in-sentencing
requirement
In a 2001 Monograph created by the Bureau of Justice Assistance it pointed out that the private
prisons complex are not profitable institutions making the reported claim by corporate officials
of having a saving of 20% fictitious. The real number is 1% which when looking at the big picture, the state would be have to dispense state money to these private institutions more readily
then not if the guaranteed capacity is not upheld (Coalition, 2001).
Allowing non-violent offenders to serve 70 percent of their time could have an annual savings of
1.55 billion dollars a year. This money could be used to reinvest in the penal system and provide
staff personal with better training (Knafo, 2013).
This policy option could bring in a potential savings: 150,000 bed years, $1.55 billion for the
private prisons.
Policy Option 4: Abolishing Discriminatory Laws
In 1980’s crack epidemic Congress in an effort to continue the War on Drugs passed legislative
laws that penalized those using crack cocaine much harsher than pure powder cocaine. This has
led to many arguments in the discriminatory practice by the Juridical System due to the common
knowledge that crack cocaine is a poor man’s drug used in African American community verses
powder cocaine that is more expensive drug used more by affluent whites. This is seen by many
as a classist discriminatory practice that has led to more disparities among racial lines. Although
The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 decreased the disparity among those that are apprehended using
crack and cocaine there are those that are still incarcerated for using crack cocaine. This law
should be extended to those incarnated before the law was instituted (Knafo, 2013). This initiative would create a greater justice between across all ethnicities in the juridical system.
Policy Option 5: Publishing Prison Statistics:
Private prisons will be required to publish statistics on method of operation. This would inform
the public on the prisons success or failure of daily operations. Private prisons are not subject to
open records meaning that they are in no obligation in showing record of their operation which
measures their ability to manage prisoners in the facility (Citizens For Responsiblity and Ethics
in Washington, 2015).
Policy Option 6: Fining Corporations:
Enforcing safety standards and heavily fining institutions for violations would be an effective
approach in challenging the penal system. This would create a counter effect on the proposal creating a state funding balance. Gov. Martinez proved to be effective when she first took office.
She demanded contractual compliance with the private companies tantamount to the maintenance of safety regulations for the staff and inmates (Fischer, 2013). The reduction of security
and lack of inmate monitoring are actual issues that can be curtailed by placing strict policies on
private prison institutions that adhere to the same rules and regulations as the public sectors and
mandate fines up towards the millions on the corporation that did not meet the safety standards
of operation (Ryne Kessler, 2014). This method has proven to be effective in maintaining safety
regulations for staff and inmates coherently, due to the demand of contractual compliance. In
fact, beyond amending the FOIA, legislation could also mandate disclosure of all records held by
private prisons and the corporations that run them making the private prison sector transparent.
This imitative would allow the state to collect millions of dollars in fines which could be used
when the state falls short of meeting the 90% occupancy guarantee contractual.
Recommendations:
Policy Option 1 and 2 are a little more difficult to be applicable, since the private prisons are prioritizing profit. High quality staff and appropriate ratio of prisoner-to-guard will increase the
safety of private prisons by controlling the potential risk of prison violence and riots. However,
the expenses related to staffing account for approximately 70 to 80% of total operating costs.
thereby making this option less attractive due to the fact that private prisons will try to maximize
the revenues by reducing staffing cost.
Policy Option 3 and 4 involves the reduction of the incarceration rate. The United States has
25% of the world’s prisoners with only 5% of the world’s population. (Lee, 2015)
The overcrowding situation has resulted in the exacerbating conflict between inmates and inmates with correctional officers. In the long term, if the harsh sentencing regulations could be
lifted, the incarceration rate could go down which would alleviate the overcrowding problem in
both public and private prisons. This will ultimately address the safety issue in private prisons by
improving prison conditions. However, the downside of these two policies is that it is more difficult to be applied since it requires the overhaul of sentencing policies on a federal level.
Policy Option 5 can be regarded as the most appealing in improving safety in private prisons.
Currently private prisons are exempt from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), whereas their
public counterparts are subject to open records laws. The two largest private prison contractors
CCA and the GEO Group have a combined annual revenue of $ 3 billion (Sanchez, 2011). They
spend millions of dollars each year to lobby against the passage of Private Prison Information
Act, in order to keep “trade secret” private. Private prisons have a long-history of lawsuits regarding abusive practice. Private prisons are spending taxpayers’ dollars without taxpayers’ scrutiny. By disclosing information such as the operating cost, prison condition, the public can oversee the operation of private prisons in a more constructive way.
Policy Option 6 is the most effective way to improve safety in private prisons. It has a set up uniformed regulation to require private prisons to perform as well as public prisons, challenging
those that violate safety regulations in providing a better performance. Fining is the most direct
way to urge private prisons to operate by the rules which discourages those to violate safety
rules.
Overall, we highly recommend Policy Option 5 and 6. We believe that those two options would
be the most effective and efficient addressing safety issues in private prisons. Policy 1 and 2
conflict with the fundamental interests of profit-driven private corporations. Policy 3 and 4 require the reform of penal system which is time-consuming and taking lots of effort.
Inclusion, we disagreed with the response panel’s recommendations. The panel stated that our
presentation lacked clarity and that they were confused as to what the objective was. We feel that
the object was clear from the beginning of the video introduction and then moved on to the safety in prison issues due to the sector’s cost cutting measures. We did agree with the panel and the
Professor that there not any private prisons in the State of New York but we also felt that because the proposal was sent to 48 state governors, Governor Cuomo could be entertaining the
idea of opening the doors for private prisons so therefore we provided some possible safeguards.
As we looked closer we were able to see where the confusion laid and so we elected to change
the addressee under the Professor’s advice hoping to make the policy memo clearer and more
direct.
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