PRIVATE FOR-PROFIT PRISONS Your money, your morals, your choice Dianne Post, J.D. Legal Redress, Maricopa County NAACP

State of Arizona 23% of Arizona’s prisoners are held in private facilities

AZ has the 6th largest private prison population in the U.S.

CCA has 6 prisons in AZ that do not house AZ prisoners, no state oversight

1. La Palma Correctional Center—Eloy

2. Red Rock Correctional Center—Eloy

3. Saguaro Correctional Center—Eloy

4. Central Arizona Detention Center—Florence

5. Eloy Detention Center—Eloy

6. Florence Correctional Center—Florence

State of Arizona

Arizona has the top incarceration rate in the West

Arizona is the top spender on prisons

Arizona is the 4th highest in percent of budget 11% of general fund National average is 7%

The highest rate of imprisonment comes from the zip codes near South Mountain.

DOC has 43,000 beds and 39,000 prisoners

State of Arizona

In 20 years, our population increased 100%

In the same 20 years, our prison population increased 1036%

Our recidivism rate is 46.7%. National average is 40% (Sloan, 2011)

State of the Nation We are 5% of worlds population and 25% of the prison population.

1 in 100 people are in prison at a cost of $68 billion per year

2.5 million total, 377% increase since 1980

1 of 37 adults are under some kind of correctional agency, 7.2 million 1 in 18 men, 1 in 60 white men, 1 in 27 Latinos, 1 in 11 Blacks (Sloan, 2011)

ICE Detention and Removal – increased budget more than $184 million to $2.75 billion. Though there was an overall decrease in funds for ICE and a record low level of border crossings.

2011 record setting budget for Homeland Security of $45.1 billion

Immigrant Detention

Fastest-growing incarceration system in the United States: 3 million immigrants have been held in detention facilities across the country during the past decade.

ICE detains over 33,000 immigrants on any given day -- more than triple the number of people detained in 1996.

In Arizona, ICE detains 3,000 immigrants on any given day– a 58 percent increase over the past six years. Representing 10% of the country’s detained immigrant population.

Immigrant Detention

Cost: $1.7 billion; Average detention cost of $122 a day per bed.

Private companies currently manage approximately 8% of all state and federal prison beds, as compared with approximately 49% of all immigration detention beds.

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act (1996)

Mandatory detention; no bail in many cases

Increases list of deportable offenses; “crimes of moral turpitude” and “aggravated felonies”

Diminishes availability of relief from deportation

Removes discretion of immigration officials & judges

Dramatic increase in border patrol agents/enforcement/detention

Adds local enforcement authority

19th Century Experiment

Kentucky - 1825 for 7 years, entire system

California – 1851 for 10 years

Missouri - 1843 for 10 years

Nebraska – late 19th century

Convict Leasing After Civil War

Alabama

Arkansas

Texas

Virginia

Georgia

North and South Carolina

Louisiana

Mississippi

The End of the System

Workers – convict leasing was unfair labor competition

Reformers – inhumane conditions

By 1900 – no adult private for-profit prisons remained

Re-emergence of System

1960’s – Federal Bureau of Prisons, community centers, half way houses

1979 – INS for detention of immigrants

1980’s – state and local for county jails and state prisons

1986 – Congressional hearings on private prisons

Ramping Up

1991 – 1998 – increased 856%

End of 1999 – 14 corporations operated 150 facilities with income over a billion dollars

The system grows because it fails – i.e. prisoners stay longer, prisoners return.

Prisoners released in 2009 spent an average of 9 months longer than those released in 1990. Some nonviolent offenders serve 40 or more years. Prison Break: Budget Crises Drive Reform, But Private Jails Press On, Posted Oct 1, 2012 3:50 AM CST, By Terry Carter

Prisoners in Private Prisons- (Too Good to be True)

1999 2010 Change

Prison Population

1,366,72 1,612,395 +18%

Total Private 72,208 128,195 +80%

Federal Private

3,828 33,830 +784%

State Private 67,380 94,365 +40%

Prisoners & Detainees held by Private Prison Companies (Dollars & Detainees)

2002 2010 Change

Prisoners

State Prisons 73,497 94,365 +28%

Federal Prisons 20,274 33,830 +67%

Detainees

ICE 4,841 14,814 +206%

U.S. Marshals 4,061 17,154 +322%

Growth Industry

1980 – 1994 – profits up from $392 million to $1.31 billion.

1990 – 2009 – 7,000 to 129,000 inmates, 1600%

Conventions

Advertising

Military hardware production

Current Trends

Since 2005, the number of states with declining prison population levels has grown steadily – from 9 in 2006, 14 in 2007, 19 in 2008, to 24 in 2009 to 26 in 2011. Many of these states saw dramatic decreases in crime as they reduced their prison populations.

29,000 prison beds have gone off line since 2011

In Colorado, 4 prisons have closed and the 5th will close the end of December 2012.

$22 million was diverted from DOC to diversion and re-entry.

Current Trends

2012 – 6 states closed 20 prisons or expect to

Potential reduction of prison population by over 14,100 beds

Estimated savings of $337 million

Florida led nation with 10 closures, $65 million savings resulting in an estimated $337 million in savings. (Nicole Porter)

Discrimination

60% of those imprisoned are people of color

58% of Black youth are sent to adult prisons

Women of color are 69% more likely to be imprisoned

People of color get longer sentences

Truthdig, Chris Hedges, Gulag Nation USA, 2.3 million inmates, forced labor, rancid food – and it’s making the corporate overlords wealthy, March 18, 2013

Women

Rate of imprisonment for white women (.05%) and for black women (3%) or 6 times higher.

Reasons for imprisonment: 33% violent

67% drugs African American Women (Black Americans) and the Prison Industrial Complex,

Earl Smith, OpEdNews, 3/20/2013

Results

Study in Wisconsin 2012 showed that treatment even of diagnosed psychopaths saved $7 for ever $1 spent. ({Mis}guided light, Jenny Price, On Wisconsin, Fall 2012.

Incarceration and longer sentences are associated with higher rates of recidivism. (What Works: Effective Recidivism Reduction & Risk-Focused Prevention Programs (2008)

Impacts on Families

Peak crime is 15-25, keeping long past that achieves nothing.

Family may go on welfare, poverty trap

Costs of visits & even phone calls are astronomical so become estranged.

Social Disorder increases crime rates in neighborhoods.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/science/long-prison-terms-eyed-as-contributing-to-poverty.html?

Impact on Children

1 in 33 kids has a parent in prison or jail on any day

Disrupts bonds, separates siblings, triggers residential instability, causes ostracism from peers

Children have psychological trauma, fear, anxious, withdrawn, socially isolated, grieving, acting out

Increases odds of living in chronic poverty.

Phillips, S.D., Cervantes, W., Lincroft, Y., Dettlaff, A.J., & Bruce, L. (Eds.) (2013). Children in harm’s way: Criminal justice, immigration enforcement, and child welfare. Washington, D.C.: Jointly published by The Sentencing Project and First Focus.

Public Safety

Since 1995, Arizona has had a 43% drop in violent crime.

But a 21% increase in incarceration.

In the same time period, NY had a 53% drop in crime and a 30% drop in incarceration.

The crime drop is not a result of incarceration, quite the opposite. (What Works: Effective Recidivism Reduction & Risk-Focused Prevention Programs (2008)

Public Safety

Tripling the punishment for violent crime has little impact on crime rates. (Race to Incarcerate)

In the U.K. a 25% rise in imprisonment resulted in a 1% decrease in crime – mostly burglary but that was speculative.

A RAND study found that spending $1 million on drug treatment would reduce crime 15 times more effectively than imprisonment.

SHU Violence

In states that have reduced solitary confinement—Colorado, Maine, and Mississippi—violence has not increased.

Since Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman released 75 percent of inmates from solitary in the mid-2000s, violence has dropped 50 percent

I thought solitary confinement in Iran was bad until I went inside America’s prisons, May 4, 2013, Shane Bauer, Mother Jones

Criminalization

20% of Americans have felony records – 1 in 5

More Black men are incarcerated in the U.S. today than were in South Africa during the height of apartheid. South Africa has have approximately 25 million Black men and the U.S. has 40 million.

More Black men are under correctional supervision in the U.S. today than were slaves in 1850.

Once a prison is built, we are committed to filling it for 50 years.

Education

Since 1979, corrections and state universities have competed for the same 21% to 25% of the state’s General Fund dollars.

During that time, higher education’s share of the budget fell from 19.1% to 8% while corrections’ share rose from 4.3% to 11%.

Education

Between 1979 and 2003, inflation-adjusted per-capita spending on Arizona’s public universities fell by 25.7% (from $177.35 to $131.82).

Over the same period, per capita spending on the state’s prisons and juvenile facilities shot up by 185.5% (from $39.81 to $113.68).

Education

According to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee’s “Then and Now” comparison of the nine largest state agency budgets, between 2003 and 2013, state funding for the Arizona Department of Corrections increased 67%, while funding for state universities dropped 5% and community colleges fell an astonishing 50%.

How Did We Get Here?

Three Strikes

Truth in Sentencing

War on Drugs

Mandatory Minimums

Transfer youth to adult court

School to prison pipeline Planners use # of kids who can’t read at 3rd grade for # of beds needed in 20 years.

How did we get here?

“Yet it has been changes in our laws – particularly the dramatic increases in the length of prison sentence – that have been responsible for the growth of our prison system, not increases in crime. One study suggests that the entire increase in the prison population from 1980 to 2001 can be explained by sentencing policy changes.” p. 92, Michele Alexander, The New Jim Crow

How did we get here?

Study of federal system, that entire sentencing disparity can be explained by the initial charging decision of the prosecutor – using crimes with mandatory minimums for Blacks and not for whites. (Rehavi, M. Marit and Star, Sonja B, Racial Disparity in Federal Criminal Charging and its Sentencing Consequences, University of Michigan Law and Economics Working Paper, January 15, 2012)

Facts Our prison population is declining as is crime

1980 – 2010, our population doubled, our prison population grew 10 fold

Private prisons are less safe 66% more violence among prisoners 46% more violence toward staff

Private prisons are not accountable Refuse public records requests

Private prisons are more costly Medium Security State = $48.16 Medium Security Private = $55.30 (2010)

Jobs & Economic Development

2008, AZ Dept of Commerce, employment in Eloy remained 49-55% below national and Az averages

10% of the population is in the facilities

Average non-farm wages were $23,900 – 26% less than AZ average and 30% less than regional average

CCA refuses to release wage and salary data

The Corrections Corporation of America: How CCA abuses prisoners, manipulates public opinion and destroys communities, Corazon de Tucson, January 2012.

Follow the Money

Private Beds cost more

Costs rose 14% in 2012

State now promises 100% occupancy – retroactively to October 2011

State loses $3.5 million a year

Who Knew?

A.R.S. §41-1609.01(G) – a proposal must show cost savings to the state

Annual reports for 6 years showed no cost savings, and that AZ overpaid by $10 million

2003 – said well notwithstanding …

2007 – said well notwithstanding …

2012 – eliminated the requirement of reporting and quality assessment – that had not ever been done

ADOC Knew

State to buy back first private prison –Marana from MTC in 2015.

500 bed minimum security for $150,000

Ryan estimates $850,000 a year in savings or 10% per inmate per day.

Currently pay $49.03 per inmate.

State to buy Arizona’s first private prison, Gary Grado- gary.grado@azcapitoltimes.com, Arizona Capitol Times April 29, 2013 at 9:43 am

The Players - Executive

Jan Brewer - $60,000 in campaign contributions from CCA connections,

Paul Senseman – previous Brewer Chief of Staff, he and his wife, both lobbyists for CCA

Chuck Coughlin – Brewer campaign manager and advisor and lobbyist for CCA, dozen of his connected have seats on state boards etc.

The Players – Legislative

John Kavanaugh – Chair of House Appropriations, campaign contributions from GEO connected people, member of ALEC

Andy Tobin – House Speaker, campaign contributions of $6,000 from persons connected with six different private prisons, GEO biggest, MTC hefty

CCA Lobbyists

Since 2003, spent upwards of $900,000 each year lobbying federal officials

2005 spent $3.38 million alone

2011, spent $880,000

35 lobbyists

Spent $17.8 million lobbying, got $3.84 billion in contracts

The Corrections Corporation of America: How CCA abuses prisoners, manipulates public opinion and destroys communities, Corazon de Tucson, January 2012

Solutions – The Courts

AFSC filed challenge to 5,000 bed RFP, rejected for lack of standing at Superior and Appeals court. 2011

AFSC and NAACP filed procurement challenge for 2,000 bed RFP, rejected at administrative level for not being “interested parties”. 1,000 bed contract let to CCA in August. 2012

CLPI & Morris Institute filed to prevent sweep of $50 million in foreclosure settlement money into prison fund for 500 max beds, lost, filed petition for review 19 October 2012, 26 Nov. oral argument.

State Agencies

On 12 April 2013, Maricopa County NAACP filed a complaint with the Arizona State Board of Technical Registration against the architect firm.

Violation of law – torture Discrimination Public Duty

On February 7, 2013, Maricopa County NAACP joined by AFSC and several other groups requested an opinion from the AG on conflict of interest for those on both CCA and ABOR boards.

Legislature 2013

Introduced by Campbell, Mach, Wheeler, Alston, Dalessandro, Gabaldon, Gallego, Hernandez, McCune Davis, Otondo

HB 2126 – capacity, notification, officer w/felony or DV, ID, counts, escape costs

HB 2127 – security officer certification, no power outside

HB 2128 – cost comparison w/public

Legislature 2013

HB 2129 – prisoner transfer prohibition

HB 2130 – facility limits, no new facilities

HB 2131 – private prison study committee

HB 2132 – audit of DOC’s monitoring of for-profits

HB 2133 – public records

Solutions – The People

Globe, Arizona - put on ballot

Methodist Church – divest $1 million

Other churches – resolutions

Community groups – resolutions

61 Groups to 48 Governors after CCA offer

Divestment Campaign – Color of Change

How Can I Help?

Sign up sheet, email and phone – CLEARLY

Join Arizona Justice Alliance

Organize for me to speak at your group

Divest

Call Joint Committee on Capital Review against DOC request for 500 max security beds – Wed. is hearing

Committee on Capital Review

Senator Shooter, Chairman

Senator Griffin, Senator Landrum Taylor, Senator McComish, Senator Melvin, Senator Pancrazi, Senator Tovar

Representative Kavanagh, Vice-Chairman

Representative Alston, Representative Campbell, Representative Forese, Representative Gowan Representative Gray, Representative Sherwood