Industry watchers warn of problems with private prison operator

Politicians say a new corporate-run immigrant prison will bring opportunities to Lake County, Mich., but industry-watchers warn of potential problems.

The GEO Group Inc., formerly Wackenhut, one of the largest private prison operators, wants to reopen and expand Michigan’s once-shuttered private prison facility in Baldwin as part of a bid to fill a federal request for more space for “criminal aliens.”  Baldwin is halfway between Traverse City and Grand Rapids.

GEO’s maximum security youth facility in Baldwin was closed in 2005 when the state ended its contract with the group. The move was made for budgetary reasons but came in the midst of a lawsuit alleging abuse of inmates.

A state law passed in 2006 allowed GEO to reopen for purposes other than youth incarceration and specifically exempted the prison from oversight by the Department of Corrections (and the state from liability for what goes on there).

Some states that have a number of private prisons might have a staff person in corrections who would oversee the facilities, according to Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Marlin, but Michigan has only one private prison and the DOC will not be involved with it.

Continued – “That facility can operate efficiently and effectively without oversight from our department,” Marlin said, “If you are going to have 1700 prisoners there, I would fully expect whatever entity that contracts with them to have someone in there everyday.”

But according to guidelines from the federal Bureau of Prisons, hands-on government oversight of the prison involves supervision by regulators only 10 days per year and the prison will also have two years to become accredited by the American Corrections Association.

This is a problem, according to Ken Kopczynski, executive director of the watchdog group Private Corrections Institute Inc., because there has been a pattern of inmate abuse and poor working conditions at private facilities that are shielded from public records laws.

Private prison operators have used lobbying and campaign contributions to receive lucrative government contracts, Kopczynski said.

“Federal contracts are very lucrative for the industry, they pay for beds even if they are not filling them, and immigrants are great [money-makers] for companies because medical costs are low.”

The lower medical costs are partly because immigrant prisoners move through the system comparatively quickly and many are healthy working people, Kopczynski said, but immigrants have died due to a lack of care in prison.

“The underlying problem with for-profit corporations is that not only do they have to do the same job as the state they also have to turn a profit. The only way they can get it is from the employees or from the care and custody of their inmates