Private Prisons

Over the next 5 years analysts expect the private share of the prison "market" to more than double.

By Eric Bates/The Nation Magazine

 A few hours after midnight one August evening last year, Walter Hazelwood and Richard Wilson climbed a fence topped with razor wire at the Houston Processing Center, a warehouse built to hold undocumented immigrants awaiting deportation. Once outside, the two prisoners assaulted a guard, stole his car and headed for Dallas.

When prison officials notified the Houston police that the men had escaped, local authorities were shocked. Sure, immigrants had fled the minimum-security facility near the airport a few times before. But Hazelwood and Wilson were not being detained for lacking the papers to prove their citizenship. One was serving time for sexual abuse; the other was convicted of beating and raping an 88-year-old woman. Both men, it turned out, were among some 240 sex offenders from Oregon who had been shipped to the Texas detention center months earlier--and local authorities didn't even know they were there.

The immigration center is owned and operated by Corrections Corporation of America, which manages more private prisons than any other company worldwide. While C.C.A. made nearly $14,000 a day on the out-of-state inmates, the company was quick to point out that it had no legal obligation to tell the Houston police or county sheriff about their new neighbors from Oregon. "We designed and built the institution," explained Susan Hart, a company spokeswoman. "It is ours."

Yet like a well-to-do rancher who discovers a couple of valuable head of cattle missing, C.C.A. expected Texas rangers to herd the wayward animals back behind the company's fence. "It's not our function to capture them," Hart told reporters.

Catching the prisoners proved easier, however, than charging them with a crime. When authorities finally apprehended them after eleven days, they discovered they could no more punish the men for escaping than they could lock up a worker for walking off the job. Even in Texas, it seemed, it was not yet a crime to flee a private corporation.

"They have not committed the offense of escape under Texas law," said district attorney John Holmes. "The only reason at all that they're subject to being arrested and were arrested was because during their leaving the facility, they assaulted a guard and took his motor vehicle. That we can charge them with, and have."

The state moved quickly to pass legislation making such escapes illegal. But the Texas breakout underscores how the rapid spread of private prisons has created considerable confusion about just what the rules are when a for-profit company like Corrections Corporation seeks to cash in on incarceration. Founded in 1983 with backing from the investors behind Kentucky Fried Chicken, C.C.A. was one of the first companies to push the privatization of public services. The selling point was simple: Private companies could build and run prisons cheaper than the government. Business, after all, would be free of red tape--those inefficient procedures that waste tax dollars on things like open bidding on state contracts and job security for public employees. Unfettered American capitalism would produce a better fetter, saving cash-strapped counties and states millions of dollars each year.

Sooner or later, people realize that "the government can't do anything very well," Thomas Beasley, a co-founder of C.C.A. and a former chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party, said near the start of prison privatization. "At that point, you just sell it like you were selling cars or real estate or hamburgers."

Not everyone is quite so enthusiastic about the prospect of selling human beings like so many pieces of meat. By privatizing prisons, government essentially auctions off inmates--many of them young black men--to the highest bidder. Opponents ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Sheriffs Association have argued that justice should not be for sale at any price. "The bottom line is a moral one," says Ira Robbins, who wrote a statement for the American Bar Association opposing private corrections. "Do we want our justice system to be operated by private interests? This is not like privatizing the post office or waste management to provide services to the community. There's something meaningful lost when an inmate looks at a guard's uniform and instead of seeing an emblem that reads 'Federal Bureau of Prisons' or 'State Department of Corrections,' he sees one that says 'Acme Prison Corporation.'"

But such moral concerns have gone largely unheeded in all the excitement over how much money the boys at Acme might save taxpayers. There's only one problem: The evidence suggests that the savings reaped from nearly fifteen years of privatizing prisons are more elusive than an Oregon convict in a Texas warehouse.

In 1996 the General Accounting Office examined the few available reports comparing costs at private and public prisons. Its conclusion: "These studies do not offer substantial evidence that savings have occurred." The most reliable study cited by the G.A.O. found that a C.C.A.-run prison in Tennessee cost only 1 percent less to operate than two comparable state-run prisons. The track record also suggests that private prisons invite political corruption and do little to improve quality, exacerbating the conditions that lead to abuse and violence.

Although private prisons have failed to save much money for taxpayers, they generate enormous profits for the companies that own and operate them. Corrections Corporation ranks among the top five performing companies on the New York Stock Exchange over the past three years. The value of its shares has soared from $50 million when it went public in 1986 to more than $3.5 billion at its peak last October. By carefully selecting the most lucrative prison contracts, slashing labor costs and sticking taxpayers with the bill for expenses like prisoner escapes, C.C.A. has richly confirmed the title of a recent stock analysis by PaineWebber: "Crime pays."

"It's easier for private firms to innovate," says Russell Boraas, who oversees private prisons for the Virginia Department of Corrections. As he inspects a medium-security facility being built by C.C.A. outside the small town of Lawrenceville, Boraas notes that the prison has no guard towers--an "innovation" that saves the company $2.5 million in construction costs and eliminates twenty-five full-time positions. "Think about it," Boraas says. "A state corrections director who eliminates guard towers will lose his job if a prisoner escapes and molests a little old lady. The president of the company won't lose his job, as long as he's making a profit."

Although corrections officials like Boraas initially viewed the drive to privatize prisons with skepticism, many quickly became converts. The crime rate nationwide remains well below what it was twenty-five years ago, but harsher sentencing has packed prisons and jails to the bursting point. There are now 1.8 million Americans behind bars--more than twice as many as a decade ago--and the "get tough" stance has sapped public resources and sparked court orders to improve conditions.

With their promise of big savings, private prisons seemed to offer a solution. Corporate lockups can now hold an estimated 77,500 prisoners, most of them state inmates. Over the next five years, analysts expect the private share of the prison "market" to more than double.

Corrections Corporation is far and away the biggest company in the corrections business, controlling more than half of all inmates in private prisons nationwide. C.C.A. now operates the sixth-largest prison system in the country--and is moving aggressively to expand into the global market with prisons in England, Australia and Puerto Rico. That's good news for investors. The Cabot Market Letter compares the company to a "a hotel that's always at 100 % occupancy...and booked to the end of the century." C.C.A. started taking reservations during the Reagan Administration, when Beasley founded the firm in Nashville with a former classmate from West Point. Their model was the Hospital Corporation of America, then the nation's largest owner of private hospitals. "This is the home of H.C.A.," Beasley thought at the time. "The synergies are the same."

From the start, those synergies included close ties to politicians who could grant the company lucrative contracts. As former chairman of the state G.O.P., Beasley was a good friend of then-Governor Lamar Alexander. In 1985 Alexander backed a plan to hand over the entire state prison system to the fledgling company for $200 million. Among C.C.A.'s stockholders at the time were the Governor's wife, Honey, and Ned McWherter, the influential Speaker of the state House, who succeeded Alexander as governor.

Although the state legislature eventually rejected the plan as too risky, C.C.A. had established itself as a major player. It had also discovered that knowing the right people can be more important than actually saving taxpayers money. The company won its first bid to run a prison by offering to operate the Silverdale Work Farm near Chattanooga for $21 per inmate per day. At $3 less than the county was spending, it seemed like a good deal--until a crackdown on drunk drivers flooded the work farm with new inmates. Because fixed expenses were unaffected by the surge, each new prisoner cost C.C.A. about $5. But the county, stuck with a contract that required it to pay the company $21 a head, found itself $200,000 over budget. "The work farm became a gold mine," noted John Donahue, a public policy professor at Harvard University.

When the contract came up for renewal in 1986, however, county commissioners voted to stick with Corrections Corporation. Several enjoyed business ties with the company. One commissioner had a pest-control contract with the firm, and later went to work for C.C.A. as a lobbyist. Another did landscaping at the prison, and a third ran the moving company that settled the warden into his new home. C.C.A. also put the son of the county employee responsible for monitoring the Silverdale contract on the payroll at its Nashville headquarters. The following year, the U.S. Justice Department published a research report warning about such conflicts of interest in on-site monitoring--the only mechanism for insuring that prison operators abide by the contract. In addition to being a hidden and costly expense of private prisons, the report cautioned, government monitors could "be co-opted by the contractor's staff. Becoming friendly or even beholden to contract personnel could lead to the State receiving misleading reports."

But even when problems have been reported, officials often downplay them. The Justice Department noted "substantial staff turnover problems" at the Chattanooga prison, for instance, but added that "this apparently did not result in major reductions in service quality." The reason? "This special effort to do a good job," the report concluded, "is probably due to the private organizations finding themselves in the national limelight, and their desire to expand the market."

The same year that federal officials were crediting C.C.A. with "a good job" at the undermanned facility, Rosalind Bradford, a 23-year-old woman being held at Silverdale, died from an undiagnosed complication during pregnancy. A shift supervisor who later sued the company testified that Bradford suffered in agony for at least twelve hours before C.C.A. officials allowed her to be taken to a hospital. "Rosalind Bradford died out there, in my opinion, of criminal neglect," the supervisor said in a deposition.

Inspectors from the British Prison Officers Association who visited the prison that year were similarly shocked by what they witnessed. "We saw evidence of inmates being cruelly treated," the inspectors reported. "Indeed, the warden admitted that noisy and truculent prisoners are gagged with sticky tape, but this had caused a problem when an inmate almost choked to death."

The inspectors were even more blunt when they visited the C.C.A.-run immigration center in Houston, where they found inmates confined to warehouselike dormitories for twenty-three hours a day. The private facility, inspectors concluded, demonstrated "possibly the worst conditions we have ever witnessed in terms of inmate care and supervision."

Reports of inhumane treatment of prisoners, while deeply disturbing, do not by themselves indicate that private prisons are worse than public ones. After all, state and federal lockups have never been known for their considerate attitude toward the people under their watch. Indeed, C.C.A. and other company prisons have drawn many of their wardens and guards from the ranks of public corrections officers. The guards videotaped earlier this year assaulting prisoners with stun guns at a C.C.A. competitor in Texas had been hired despite records of similar abuse when they worked for the state.

Susan Hart, the C.C.A. spokeswoman, insisted that her company would never put such people on the payroll--well, almost never. "It would be inappropriate, for certain positions, [to hire] someone who said, 'Yes, I beat a prisoner to death,'" she told The Houston Chronicle. "That would be a red flag for us." She did not specify for which positions the company considers murder an appropriate job qualification.

In fact, C.C.A. employs at least two wardens in Texas who were disciplined for beating prisoners while employed by the state. And David Myers, the president of the company, supervised an assault on inmates who took a guard hostage while Myers was serving as warden of a Texas prison in 1984. Fourteen guards were later found to have used "excessive force," beating subdued and handcuffed prisoners with riot batons.

The real danger of privatization is not some innate inhumanity on the part of its practitioners but rather the added financial incentives that reward inhumanity. The same economic logic that motivates companies to run prisons more efficiently also encourages them to cut corners at the expense of workers, prisoners and the public. Private prisons essentially mirror the cost-cutting practices of health maintenance organizations: Companies receive a guaranteed fee for each prisoner, regardless of the actual costs. Every dime they don't spend on food or medical care or training for guards is a dime they can pocket.

As in most industries, the biggest place to cut prison expenses is personnel. "The bulk of the cost savings enjoyed by C.C.A. is the result of lower labor costs," PaineWebber assures investors. Labor accounts for roughly 70 percent of all prison expenses, and C.C.A. prides itself on getting more from fewer employees. "With only a 36 percent increase in personnel," boasts the latest annual report, "revenues grew 41 percent, operating income grew 98 percent, and net income grew 115 percent."

Like other companies, C.C.A. prefers to design and build its own prisons so it can replace guards right from the start with video cameras and clustered cellblocks that are cheaper to monitor. "The secret to low-cost operations is having the minimum number of officers watching the maximum number of inmates," explains Russell Boraas, the private prison administrator for Virginia. "You can afford to pay damn near anything for construction if it will get you an efficient prison."

At the C.C.A. prison under construction in Lawrenceville, Boraas indicates how the design of the "control room" will enable a guard to simultaneously watch three "pods" of 250 prisoners each. Windows in the elevated room afford an unobstructed view of each cellblock below, and "vision blocks" in the floor are positioned over each entranceway so guards can visually identify anyone being admitted. The high-tech panel at the center of the room can open any door at the flick of a switch. When the prison opens next year, C.C.A. will employ five guards to supervise 750 prisoners during the day, and two guards at night.

Another way to save money on personnel is to leave positions unfilled when they come open. Speaking before a legislative panel in Tennessee in October, Boraas noted that some private prisons in Texas have made up for the low reimbursement rates they receive from the state "by leaving positions vacant a little longer than they should." Some C.C.A. employees admit privately that the company leaves positions open to boost profits. "We're always short," says one guard who asked not to be identified. "They do staff fewer positions--that's one way they save money." The company is growing so quickly, another guard explains, that "we have more slots than we have people to fill them. When they transfer officers to new facilities, we're left with skeletons."

At first glance, visitors to the South Central Correctional Center could be forgiven for mistaking the medium-security prison for a college campus. The main driveway rolls through wooded hills on the outskirts of Clifton, Tennessee, past picnic benches, a fitness track and a horse barn. But just inside the front door, a prominent bulletin board makes clear that the prison means business. At the top are the words "C.C.A. Excellence in Corrections." At the bottom is "Yesterday's Stock Closing," followed by a price.

In addition to employing fewer guards, C.C.A. saves money on labor by replacing the guaranteed pensions earned by workers at state-run prisons with a cheaper--and riskier--stock-ownership plan. Employees get a chance to invest in the company, and the company gets employees devoted to the bottom line. "Being a stockholder yourself, you monitor things closer," says Mark Staggs, standing in the segregation unit, where he oversees prisoners confined for breaking the rules. "You make sure you don't waste money on things like cleaning products. Because it's your money you're spending."

Warden Kevin Myers (not related to C.C.A. president David Myers) also looks for little places to cut costs. "I can save money on purchasing because there's no bureaucracy," he says. "If I see a truckload of white potatoes at a bargain, I can buy them. I'm always negotiating for a lower price."

But what is thriftiness to the warden is just plain miserly to those forced to eat what he dishes out. "Ooowhee! It's pitiful in that kitchen," says Antonio McCraw, who was released from South Central last March after serving three years for armed robbery. "I just thank God I'm out of there. You might get a good meal once a month. The rest was instant potatoes, vegetables out of a can and processed pizzas. C.C.A. don't care whether you eat or not. Sure they may cut corners and do it for less money, but is it healthy?"

The State of Tennessee hoped to answer that question when it turned South Central over to C.C.A. in 1992. The prison was built at roughly the same time as two state-run facilities with similar designs and inmate populations, giving officials a rare opportunity to compare daily operating costs--and quality--under privatization.

The latest state report on violence at the three prisons indicates that South Central is a much more dangerous place than its public counterparts. During the past fiscal year, the C.C.A. prison experienced violent incidents at a rate more than 50 percent higher than state facilities. The company also posted significantly worse rates for contraband, drugs and assaults on staff and prisoners.

"If that doesn't raise some eyebrows and give you some kind of indication of what the future holds, I guess those of us who are concerned just need to be quiet," says John Mark Windle, a state representative who opposes privatization.

Corrections officials note that understaffing can certainly fuel violence, which winds up costing taxpayers more money. The state legislature has heard testimony that employee turnover at South Central is more than twice the level at state prisons, and prisoners report seeing classes of new recruits every month, many of them young and inexperienced. "The turnover rate is important because it shows whether you have experienced guards who stick around and know the prisoners," says inmate Alex Friedmann, seated at a bare table in a visitation room. "If you have a high turnover rate you have less stability. New employees come in; they really don't know what's going on. That leads to conflicts with inmates."

Internal company documents tell a similar story. According to the minutes of an August 1995 meeting of shift supervisors at South Central, chief of security Danny Scott "said we all know that we have lots of new staff and are constantly in the training mode." He "added that so many employees were totally lost and had never worked in corrections."

A few months later, a company survey of staff members at the prison asked, "What is the reason for the number of people quitting C.C.A.?" Nearly 20 percent of employees cited "treatment by supervisors," and 17 percent listed "money."

Out of earshot of their supervisors, some guards also say the company contributes to violence by skimping on activities for inmates. "We don't give them anything to do," says one officer. "We give them the bare minimum we have to."

Ron Lyons agrees. "There's no meaningful programs here," says Lyons, who served time at state-run prisons before coming to South Central. "I can't get over how many people are just laying around in the pod every day. I would have thought C.C.A. would have known that inmate idleness is one of the biggest problems in prisons--too much time sitting around doing nothing. You definitely realize it's commercialized. It's a business. Their business is to feed you and count you, and that's it."

Given all the penny-pinching, it would seem that C.C.A. should easily be able to demonstrate significant savings at South Central. Instead, a study of costs conducted by the state in 1995 found that the company provided almost no savings compared with its two public rivals. The study--cited by the General Accounting Office as "the most sound and detailed comparison of operational costs"--actually showed that the C.C.A. prison cost more to run on a daily basis. Even after the state factored in its long-term expenses, C.C.A. still spent $35.38 a day per prisoner--only 38 cents less than the state average.

The study contradicted what is supposed to be the most compelling rationale for prison privatization: the promise of big savings. But the industry champion dismissed its defeat by insisting, much to the amazement of its challengers, that it hadn't tried very hard to save tax dollars. "When you're in a race and you can win by a few steps, that's what you do," said Doctor R. Crants, who co-founded C.C.A. and now serves as chairman and chief executive officer. "We weren't trying to win by a great deal."

The comment by Crants, as remarkable as it seems, exposes the true nature of privatization. When it comes to savings, the prison industry will beat state spending by as narrow a margin as the state will permit. To a prison company like C.C.A., "savings" are nothing but the share of profits it is required to hand over to the government--another expense that cuts into the bottom line and must therefore be kept to a minimum, like wages or the price of potatoes. At its heart, privatizing prisons is really about privatizing tax dollars, about transforming public money into private profits.

That means companies are actually looking for ways to keep public spending as high as possible, including charging taxpayers for questionable expenses. The New Mexico Corrections Department, for example, has accused C.C.A. of overcharging the state nearly $2 million over the past eight years for operating the women's prison in Grants. The company fee of $95 a day for each inmate, it turns out, includes $22 for debt service on the prison.

Last summer, a legislative committee in Tennessee calculated that state prisons contribute nearly $17.8 million each year to state agencies that provide central services like printing, payroll administration and insurance. Since company prisons usually go elsewhere for such services, states that privatize unwittingly lose money they once counted on to help pay fixed expenses.

The "chargebacks," as they are known, came to light last spring when C.C.A. once again proposed taking over the entire Tennessee prison system. This time the company offered to save $100 million a year--a staggering sum, considering that the annual budget for the system is only $270 million.

Like many claims of savings, the C.C.A. offer turned out to be based on false assumptions. Crants, the company chairman and C.E.O., said he derived the estimate from comparing the $32 daily rate the company charges for medium-security prisoners at South Central with the systemwide average of $54. But the state system includes maximum-security prisons that cost much more to operate than South Central. "It's almost like going into a rug store," says State Senator James Kyle, who chaired legislative hearings on privatization. "They're always 20 percent off. But 20 percent off what?"

Yet the sales pitch, however absurd, had the intended effect of getting Kyle and other lawmakers into the store to look around. Once there, the prison companies kept offering them bigger and better deals. Given an opportunity to submit cost estimates anonymously, firms offered fantastic savings ranging from 30 percent to 50 percent. Threatened by the competition, even the state Department of Corrections went bargain basement, offering to slash its own already low cost by $70 million a year. Despite opposition from state employees, legislators indicated after the hearings that they support a move to turn most prisoners over to private companies--a decision that delighted C.C.A. "I was pretty pleased," Crants said afterward. The governor and legislators are wrangling over the details, but both sides have agreed informally to privatize roughly two-thirds of the Tennessee system. A few prisons will be left in the hands of the state, just in case something goes wrong.

Lawmakers didn't have to look far to see how wrong things can go. South Carolina decided last February not to renew a one-year contract with C.C.A. for a juvenile detention center in the state capital. Child advocates reported hearing about horrific abuses at the facility, where some boys say they were hogtied and shackled together. "The bottom line is the staff there were inexperienced," said Robyn Zimmerman of the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice. "They were not trained properly."

Once again, though, such stark realities proved less influential than the political connections enjoyed by C.C.A. The chief lobbyist for the company in the Tennessee legislature is married to the Speaker of the state House. Top C.C.A. executives, board members and their spouses have contributed at least $110,000 to state candidates since 1993, including $1,350 to Senator Kyle. And five state officials--including the governor, the House Speaker and the sponsor of the privatization bill--are partners with C.C.A. co-founder Thomas Beasley in several Red Hot & Blue barbecue restaurants in Tennessee.

The political clout extends to the national level as well. On the Republican side, Corrections Corporation employs the services of J. Michael Quinlan, director of the federal Bureau of Prisons under George Bush. On the Democratic side, C.C.A. reserves a seat on its seven-member board for Joseph Johnson, former executive director of the Rainbow Coalition. The Nashville Tennessean points to Johnson as evidence that the company "looks like America.... Johnson is African-American," the paper observes, "as are 60 % of C.C.A.'s prisoners."

Johnson played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role earlier this year, using his political connections to help C.C.A. swing a deal to buy a prison from the District of Columbia for $52 million. It was the first time a government sold a prison to a private company, and C.C.A. hopes it won't be the last. Earlier this year, with backing from financial heavyweights like Lehman Brothers and PaineWebber, the company formed C.C.A. Prison Realty Trust to focus solely on buying prisons. The initial stock offering raised $388.5 million from investors to enable C.C.A. to speculate on prisons as real estate.

Why would cities or states sell their prisons to the C.C.A. trust? PaineWebber cites the lure of what it calls "free money." Unlike many public bond initiatives earmarked for specific projects like schools or sewage systems, the broker explains, "the sale of an existing prison would generate proceeds that a politician could then use for initiatives that fit his or her agenda, possibly improving the chances of re-election." Companies building their own prisons certainly receive friendly treatment from officials. Russell Boraas invited companies bidding on a private prison to a meeting and asked what he could do to help. "I said, 'Guys, I know quite a bit about running construction projects, but I don't know much about private prisons. What are you looking for? What can I do to make this user-friendly for you?' They said it would be nice if they could use tax-exempt bond issues for construction, just like the state." So Boraas allowed companies to finance construction with help from taxpayers, and a local Industrial Development Authority eventually aided C.C.A. in getting $58 million in financing to build the prison.

Such deals raise concerns that private prisons may wind up costing taxpayers more in the long run. Although governments remain legally responsible for inmates guarded by public companies, firms have little trouble finding ways to skirt public oversight while pocketing public money. Instead of streamlining the system, hiring corporations to run prisons actually adds a layer of bureaucracy that can increase costs and reduce accountability. Prison companies have been known to jack up prices when their contracts come up for renewal, and some defer maintenance on prisons since they aren't responsible for them once their contract expires.

Even more disturbing, private prisons have the financial incentive--and financial influence--to lobby lawmakers for harsher prison sentences and other "get tough" measures. In the prison industry, after all, locking people up is good for business. "If you really want to save money you can lock prisoners in a box and feed them a slice of bread each day," says Alex Friedmann, the prisoner at South Central. "The real question is, Can you run programs in such a way that people don't commit more crime? That should be the mark of whether privatization is successful in prisons--not whether you keep them locked up but whether you keep them out."

C.C.A. officials dismiss such concerns, confident the current boom will continue of its own accord. "I don't think we have to worry about running out of product," says Kevin Myers, the warden at South Central. "It's unfortunate but true. We don't have to drum up business."

Perhaps--but Corrections Corporation and other company prisons already have enormous power to keep their current prisoners behind bars for longer stretches. Inmates generally lose accumulated credit for "good time" when they are disciplined by guards, giving the C.C.A. stockholders who serve as officers an incentive to crack the whip. A 1992 study by the New Mexico Corrections Department showed that inmates at the women's prison run by C.C.A. lost good time at a rate nearly eight times higher than their male counterparts at a state-run lockup. And every day a prisoner loses is a day of extra income for the company--and an extra expense for taxpayers.

Some C.C.A. guards in Tennessee also say privately that they are encouraged to write up prisoners for minor infractions and place them in segregation. Inmates in "seg" not only lose their good time, they also have thirty days added to their sentence--a bonus of nearly $1,000 for the company at some prisons. "We will put 'em in seg in a hurry," says a guard who works at the Davidson County Juvenile Detention Facility in Nashville.

The prison holds 100 youths--"children, really," says the guard--most of them teenage boys. "They may be young, but they understand what's going on," he adds. One day, as a 14-year-old boy was being released after serving his sentence, the guard offered him some friendly advice.

"Stay out of trouble," he said. "I don't want to see you back here."

"Why not?" the kid responded. "That's how you make your money."

The New York Times
May 24, 2000, Wednesday
Editorial Desk

New York State's inflexibly draconian drug laws, enacted under Gov. Nelson Rockefeller in 1973, have helped propel the state prison population to a fivefold increase between then and 1999. Some 22,300 drug offenders are currently confined in state prisons. Many of these inmates are nonviolentusers or small-time sellers who were dispensing drugs to support their own addictions. The annual budget cost of this incarceration is a staggering $700 million. But the human costs are even more horrendous. Excessive prison sentences destroy families for no good reason and prevent nonviolent offenders from leading productive lives.

Thousands of inmates are in prison who could be effectively rehabilitated with drug treatment. Thousands of children whose parents have been sentenced to inappropriately long terms have spent their childhoods in the costly, often callous foster care system. It is time Gov. George Pataki and the State Legislature put an end to decades of waste by repealing these laws.

It is not enough that, nearly every holiday season, Governor Pataki shows mercy to a few prisoners who have been caught by drug laws that impose mandatory minimum sentences of 15 years to life on offenders convicted of selling as little as two ounces, or possessing as little as four ounces, of cocaine or heroin. Last Christmas he commuted the sentences of four inmates, all of whom were first-time, nonviolent drug offenders who had been sentenced to either 15 or 20 years to life.

But these isolated gestures of mercy cannot begin to cure an inflexible and irrational system in which nonviolent drug offenders are being sentenced to terms longer than those imposed on rapists and other violent criminals. The solution is to abolish these laws and give judges discretion at sentencing to consider the circumstances of the crime and the offender's background.

The unfairness of the Rockefeller laws can be seen in the cases of Donna Charles and Leah Bundy, two women who are serving time under these laws, though good social policy would have allowed their release years ago.

Ms. Charles had never been in trouble with the law before her drug arrest. But desperate for money to rent an apartment after she and her children found themselves essentially homeless, she agreed to carry a package of cocaine to Memphis for a drug dealer. She was arrested at La Guardia Airport. She was offered a plea bargain of three years to life for criminal possession, but chose to go to trial, and was convicted and sentenced to 17 years to life in 1987. She left behind two young children, who have spent their childhoods farmed out to family friends and in foster care. Even the judge who sentenced her recently pleaded for clemency on her behalf.

Ms. Bundy was also convicted of criminal possession. She was in her boyfriend's apartment when the police raided the unit and found drugs. She went to trial and was sentenced to 15 years to life. She was then 21 years old, and her children were 1, 2 and 3 years old. In the nine years that she has been in prison, her children have been in foster care and informal care arrangements. Her rehabilitation has been so impressive that Joseph Bruno, the State Senate majority leader, lobbied for clemency on her behalf to Governor Pataki last year, but her clemency request has not been granted.

Thousands of other inmates are in the prison system under another Rockefeller-era law that applies to second-time offenders. Those offenders face a mandatory minimum sentence of four and a half years for selling as little as $10 worth of cocaine. Many are small-time dealers who sell drugs to support their addictions, and most never go through drug treatment. Yet these offenders are filling the court dockets and prison cells when they could be rehabilitated through treatment programs and other less costly alternatives to incarceration.

Governor Pataki and leaders like Mr. Bruno should show some common sense by repealing these outmoded laws and restoring rationality to drug sentences. The fortunate few who have won clemency leave behind tens of thousands of others incarcerated by a system of unjust laws.

San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday, April 9, 2000

A Question of Control
Prison officials say the isolation unit is used only for `the worst of the worst.' But prisoner rights advocates say it's an increasingly common and unjustifiable form of punishment.

by Angela Davis & Cassandra Shaylor

When Linda Garcia refused to leave her cell at Valley State Prison for Women because she didn't want to submit to a strip search, eight male guards in riot gear pepper sprayed her, jammed into her tiny cell and restrained her while a female guard conducted the search, a procedure Garcia likened to rape.

Vaughn Dortch, who has a diagnosed mental illness, was removed from his cell in Pelican Bay State Prison and placed by correctional officers in a bath of scalding hot water. The guards scrubbed his burning body with a wire brush, taunting him with racist epithets. Dortch sustained third-degree burns over 80 percent of his body as a result of this abuse.

Both of these prisoners were confined in security housing units (SHUs) in California prisons. Stories like theirs are increasingly common in SHUs, or control units, the highest security level in an expanding network of state and federal prisons.

These units are designed for the long-term and total isolation of prisoners, who are confined 23 hours a day in cells that are typically 6 by 8 feet-the size of a small bathroom. Often operated by remote control, these units permit only the most minimal interaction with other human beings. Even guards remain at a distance, seeing prisoners only when they deliver meals. In Washington state, one of the newest versions of these modern-day dungeons-called a ``supermax''-is run entirely by computer. In most control units, prisoners are allowed three one-hour solitary exercise periods each week in cement yards, often smaller than dog runs in kennels.

Prisoners held in these units say they are treated worse than caged animals. This may very well be true: At a time when zoos are eliminating cages in favor of habitats with greater freedom of movement, more and more human beings are relegated to bolted cages. The correctional community argues that these control units are the only sure way to house the ``worst of the worst'' prisoners within the system. But studies show that this security level exceeds what is necessary for most of the prisoners incarcerated in the units. A 1995 Congressional Oversight Committee examined the Marion, Ill., control unit and found that 80 percent of men housed there did not require such a high level of security.

Prison officials often reel off the names of a few high-profile violent prisoners kept in control units to justify the confinement of hundreds of others. However, researchers have discovered that many of these prisoners are mentally ill. It is hardly surprising that total solitary confinement causes further mental deterioration.

Control units have also been used to punish jailhouse lawyers who file suits against departments of correction or who help other prisoners with legal work.

For those prisoners who are violent, time spent in the SHU environment, which allows for no constructive outlet for feelings of anger and frustration, only makes them more violent and self-destructive.

The widespread use of control units is a fairly recent trend. Just 15 years ago, most prisoners rarely spent more than 30 days in isolation. According to the National Campaign to Stop Control Unit Prisons, there are now about 20,000 prisoners confined in 57 supermax units in 42 states. The current boom in prison building, coupled with the move away from rehabilitation and toward repression in prison, has contributed to an increase in the number of these units. Now entire institutions modeled on the control unit are opening across the nation.

The rise of control units is disturbing by itself. But we should be even more concerned when we consider the current context of the control unit __ mass imprisonment and an expanding prison industrial complex. According to a recent study by the Justice Policy Institute, the United States, which accounts for only 5 percent of the world's population, incarcerates 25 percent of the world's prisoners. Moreover, half of the 2 million prisoners in the country's prisons and jails have been convicted of nonviolent offenses; an estimated 60 percent are in for drug-related offenses.

The racial disproportions of the general prison population are especially reflected in control units. At Valley State in Chowchilla, for example, 65 percent of women confined in the SHU are women of color. At Pelican Bay, 83 percent of SHU-confined prisoners are men of color; the majority (66 percent) are Latino.

In men's SHUs, this racial differential can be explained by the practice of giving identified ``gang'' members indeterminate SHU sentences. This means that they do not leave the SHU until they parole, die, or name other prisoners as gang members.

Steve Castillo is currently serving an indeterminate sentence in the Pelican Bay SHU for assisting alleged prison gang members with their legal cases. He has challenged the California Department of Corrections' gang validation process, which bases gang membership on vague evidence and loose affiliations. Being African American or Latino from a county known for its gangs can by itself result in a gang label and a SHU commitment.

Recent incidents in California prisons demonstrate how prison guards exploit the prevalence of gangs to create and foster conflict. At Corcoran, for example, guards set up fights between members of rival gangs and then shot and killed men on the yard. These shootings reveal the complicity of the prison administration, which promotes the very gang activity it presumes to punish by means of the control unit.

The stress of confinement in a control unit can eventually cause psychological deterioration. Many prisoners report extreme mood swings, uncontrollable crying spells and a desire to harm themselves. For mentally ill and mentally disabled prisoners, SHU time is devastating. Some prisoners experience hallucinations and paranoid delusions. Many deteriorate to the point of yelling incessantly, banging their heads against the cement walls, or smearing feces and urine on themselves. Ironically, this behavior, which is produced by the SHU, can be used to justify longer SHU terms.

"Prisoners are in fact punished for their mental illness -with isolation, harassment and often additional prison time,'' said Leslie DiBenedetto of California Prison Focus, a group that advocates for the elimination of control units.

The closing of state mental hospitals and the defunding of mental health services has resulted in the criminalization of vast numbers of mentally ill people. A recent Bureau of Justice Statistics report indicates that over a quarter of a million mentally ill people are housed in U.S. jails and prisons. Changes in sentencing guidelines, such as mandatory minimums and three-strikes laws, prohibit judges from taking mental illness into account.

Some prisoners who exhibit extreme manifestations of mental illness as a result of SHU confinement receive temporary treatment in mental hospitals. However, according to state mandate, prisoners are returned as soon as they are stabilized (usually with heavy doses of psychotropic medication).

Control unit prisoners are barred from participating in educational, vocational or religious programs. In this environment of extreme sensory deprivation and forced idleness, the only available activity is often reading and writing. Given that 40 percent of U.S. prisoners are functionally illiterate, this amounts to a total lack of stimulation. Despite the knowledge that the cultivation of outside relationships is crucial to a successful transition back into the community after release, SHU prisoners are rarely allowed contact with family or friends. This means that SHU prisoners are headed toward the revolving door that leads out, but also back in, to prison.

Women in control units face the additional burden of sexual harassment by the mostly male staff. Women in the SHU at Valley State report daily assaults on their bodily integrity. Male guards, who can see into the cells at all times, watch the women changing their clothes and using the toilet. According to SHU prisoners, showers and strip searches become spectacles for voyeuristic guards, who do not hesitate to make obscene comments. Prisoners further accuse guards of requiring them to expose themselves in exchange for medical treatment or hygiene supplies.

Over 60 percent of female prisoners have been sexually or physically abused at some point in their lives. Prison sexual abuse repeats past trauma as it sexualizes punishment. Robin Jones, a Valley State SHU prisoner, for example, reported that guards so consistently sexually harassed her that she papered over the window in the door of her cell whenever she dressed or used the toilet __ an action that resulted in an extended SHU sentence.

Let us not forget that we are talking about the United States -the country where we perceive ourselves as civilized and enlightened in comparison to the rest of the world. How can we reconcile this notion of the nation with the fact that we imprison more people-and under increasingly repressive conditions-than any other country? The use of extended isolation and sensory deprivation is recognized as torture around the world. Recent reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have condemned the use of control units in the United States as a violation of international human rights law.

The emergence of control units and supermax prisons marks a throwback to practices that were largely dispensed with 200 years ago. Solitary confinement originally was introduced as an alternative to corporal punishment, but the practice was phased out because it caused extreme psychic disturbances and also because it was ineffective in assisting prisoners who would eventually return to communities outside of prison. Inspired by what he witnessed on a tour of a Pennsylvania prison in 1842, English novelist Charles Dickens wrote: ``I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body.'' What would Dickens say now if he visited the SHU at Pelican Bay, which cages 1,500 prisoners in total isolation for years on end?

Despite the acknowledged decline in crime, more and more prisons are built, more and more people are imprisoned and tough-on-crime rhetoric shows no signs of abating. The isolation institutionalized in the control unit has become so common that we treat it as normal and necessary. The prison has become a site of extra-legal punishment-sexual harassment and abuse, medical neglect, psychological damage and destruction of families and communities. Do we want to promote a system that people 100 years from now will think about with the same revulsion we now feel toward such historical punishments as burnings at the stake? Do we want to live in a society that condones control units, supermax prisons and the unspeakable brutality of high-tech, long-term isolation?

Perhaps we should ask these questions now rather than later.

San Francisco Chronicle
April 9, 2000

Chronicle Sunday recently asked former and current prisoners to address the question: ``Do conditions in our nation's prisons violate the Constitution's guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment?'' Here are excerpts from their letters. _____ I can't speak for the conditions of the nation's prisons; only for those I was in. Each one was its own little house of horrors. The smell, noise and fear that permeates from these holes of inhumanity still linger in my system after two and a half years of freedom.

All those holier-than-thou people who pass every single crime bill should take note of what I say: It only takes three drunk-driving arrests in a six-month period and you're right in the mix with your worst nightmare. But then, if you have money, (like) Jim Mitchell, Charles Keating or O.J., don't worry; our prisons are just for those poor folk who can't afford proper defense. Vacaville State Prison was my first stop. In the summer of 1984, the temperature at midnight was 80 degrees. My cellmate and I were both on heat-sensitive medications, and with the daytime temps at 110, the cell temperature was nearly 120. Four years later three men died in the same cell block under the same conditions. Cruel and unusual?

August of the same year in Vacaville, two men were fighting without weapons. The guard in the tower decided to blow one of the inmates' heads off. End of fight. I still had 13 years and 10 months ahead of me. Cruel and unusual?

Next stop, San Luis Obispo. Late one night I heard a soft pounding down the tier. An inmate was in severe pain. The guard on duty said that if they called the ambulance, the inmate would be charged $125. The next morning, my friend went to check on him. He was dead. Cause of death __ a ruptured appendix. Cruel and unusual?

On to the eyesore of Marin __ San Quentin. The general conditions and overall programs at this joint were and still are atrocious. Inmates are forced to stand for an hour in horrible wind nightly to eat dinner. The two-bunk cells are so poorly designed that a locker covers a quarter of the bed on the top bunk. I finally decided to sleep on the floor, where at least I could stretch out.

The suicides at San Quentin are amazing. I never knew doing time would subject me to watching guys do swan dives off the fifth tier. One guy ripped his jugular out with a can opener. How about the inmate who was shot to death while dangling from the fence? They left his body there for four hours as a lesson to us all.

But the most cruel and unusual punishment is delivered by the Board of Prison Terms. I believe that the worst case of cruelty happened last year to my old cellmate, Eddy Z. Eddie was told by a parole panel of three men that he was suitable for parole. They told him as soon as his papers were filed through Sacramento he would be freed. He celebrated the good news and was gleefully anticipating his return to his family after 15 years when the governor decided to invoke a new law and rescind his parole. It was like unstrapping a guy from the electric chair and then, minutes later, shooting him.

It is very sick what has happened to our society. I know plenty of beasts that wander the prison halls and no, they should never get out. But people can change. I really believe that. I did.

No name please __ still on parole.
NAME WITHELD

I was convicted for possession of stolen mail material and dealing in a controlled substance (Xanax). I served time in both state and federal institutions, including several hellish county jails. In several jails we were forced to sleep in shifts to keep the cockroaches from crawling in our mouths. Jails are crammed, it is miserable, and the noise and 24_ hour lighting is enough to drive you mad. I was in intake for three weeks. Intake is a big wing of tiny rooms with no bathroom, and you and another person are in a 7_by_5_foot space. You spend 22 hours a day in this room, only going out for meals and showers at 5 a.m.

At the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Ky., we had a six_day water outage where 300 women had to use the same stinking toilet because they would only wash the waste down when it got full. There were over 2,500 women at the facility during this outage, so you can imagine the stench.

I also witnessed extreme acts of violence. I saw a woman have her throat cut from ear to ear over a 25_cent cup of instant coffee. I have been out of prison since 1994. I still have nightmares. I am terribly afraid of the dark. I can't stand any amount of noise. I do most of my business like shopping and such during the night because I can't stand crowds of people. I am going to school and consider myself extremely lucky to be going somewhere in my life. I was only 21 when I went to jail. I am 29 now and know that I could never go back.

P.L. HORAK
Bloomington, Ind.

A month and a half after my 20th (birthday), I was arrested on a charge of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and use of a firearm. I'm going on my sixth year in prison. I'm thousands of miles away from my family and every time I ask to move closer, I get the same old line: ``It's too crowded.'' It's not like I'm not aware of that; I live with the overcrowding every day.

Another shame of prison life is lack of rehabilitation. Education has been practically eliminated, and except for the menial jobs that you perform, like food service and groundskeeping, there isn't a chance for a man to learn a viable trade anymore. With the mandatory sentences that are being handed out, many people are doing long sentences, and by the time they get out, they will be unprepared to obtain gainful employment, which is a major reason recidivism is so high.

Those who are fortunate enough to have loved ones left on the outside that will help ease the transition will have a better chance than those who don't.

Society needs to think toward the future. Lawmakers have not thought of the consequences of these long sentences. They have pacified the various self-serving associations such as prosecutors and correctional and law enforcement political action committees. The public sector needs to take a good long look at these laws and how they will affect us and our children's children.

RICHARD DANIEL PERRINE
Federal Correctional Institution, Greenville, Ill.

I just finished three years of parole after three years of prison for growing pot. I spent time in prisons in Ecuador, Miami, San Luis Obispo, Wasco State Prison and Avenal State Prison. Soladad State Prison is where I paroled from. I feel I am in a very good position to tell you about the California prison system.

I am by no means a strong liberal __ I believe that if you hurt someone, you have to pay the price. The problem with the system today is that we are locking up kids for minor drug crimes in the name of profit for the prison system. Maybe I deserved to be in prison, as I was growing over $3 million worth of pot, but to see the kids in there for minor drug crimes is a crime in itself. Lock up violent criminals __ and believe me, I saw plenty __ but over 60 percent of the people inside are just kids, and we are just making them anti_society, anti_good.

Someday we will wake up and understand that locking up drug offenders was so off_base. We as a people will end up paying a dear price for our terrible mistakes. We need to open our eyes and realize that, yes, there is a need for prisons, but the nonviolent drug offenders need to be dealt with in a different way than the violent element.

STEPHEN P. BOHRER
San Luis Obispo

In 1965 I was sentenced to Angola for sales of simulated narcotics for 61/4 years with no parole eligibility. The first week I was there, I was beat up by the prison guards and dragged to the ``hole,'' where I and thousands of other men were fed only two thin slices of bread and water per day. I spent 30 days one time.

The worst of it all, things like this happen right here in the USA. I hate our penal system, and I am glad there are people who want to change things. I have three sons, and now I worry that maybe one day, one of my boys will be tortured like I was. I bet my poor mom really suffered, seeing her only son lose so much weight. Often when she would come visit me, I would be all beat up and mom would just sit there and cry like a little baby.

WILLIAM RHODES
New Orleans, La.

Two appointees of ex-Governors Deukmejian and Wilson declared (in reply to this San Quentin prisoner's demand for restoration of winter clothing) that the balmy weather caused by global warming ended any need for warmer clothes once considered necessary at the bayside prison.

Prisoners are marched outdoors and back in underwear in sub-freezing wind and rain. Others shiver in thin, one-ply denim as 30_degree wind blasts them, awaiting entry to the chow hall or canteen.

No staff venture out into this weather without many layers of winter clothing.

The only thing balmy about this fiasco is the neo-Nazi mind-set of the prison-jail industrial complex, where semi literate guards commonly make $60,000 a year, while teachers make half that.

DOUGLAS CLARK
San Quentin

The California Department of Corrections loses, delays or blocks inmates that appeal cruel or indifferent conditions. We're not all complaining of broken cookies or chunky peanut butter. We're talking humane issues __ medical care, programs to occupy our time for some benefit to society, or even the decency to be able to shower every day.

JOEL BROWN
High Desert State Prison, Susanville

There are many avenues to safeguard some federal prisoners against physical abuse, although many prisoners, women especially, are subjected to overt sexual harassment. However, there are very, very few safeguards in place against emotional abuse, which can be equally devastating to one's general well_being. This is especially true in the case of inmates who demonstrate any intellect at a level over plant life.

The one hope many inmates have inside those confines is being able to reach out to a fellow inmate who has the education and knowledge to help them out. But those of us who exercise the initiative and do that are subjected to much harassment from the administration, which is threatened by someone who can actually wade through B.S. written in policy and then use it to exact some real prison justice. But caveat emptor: Don't you dare show you have a brain cell. When those in charge of the system use your children and sick parents as leverage to silence you and keep you under their ``mind control,'' I'd say that constitutes a blatant example of cruel and unusual punishment.

SANDRA SHOCK
New Port Richey, Fla.

For the people who are criminals, taking into full consideration these last 1,000 years of prison and penology, conditions are not too awful. No lions versus prisoners, no whips, daily beatings, manacles on the walls, only a few isolated beatings and deaths. Let's be frank: How well should rapists, robbers and killers be treated?

There is a situation today that is cruel and unusual, however, and that is Security Housing Unit prisons, such as Pelican Bay. It's the ``treatment'' of the person while s/he's there that I don't condone.

The corruption caused by the drug laws of this nation have created the mess in which we find ourselves today. The more correct question would have been: ``How will the legalization and regulation (of drugs) either by government or by natural free market controls improve the cruel and unusual conditions found in our prisons and jails today?''

ROBERT JAMES RILEY
Federal Correctional Institution, Lompoc

At the time of this writing, I am in the hole/Security Housing Unit because I wrote an article regarding the High Desert State Prison uprising on Nov. 22, 1999. Because of that article I was assaulted. I was found ``outside'' in a secure perimeter, unconscious with two black eyes, a broken nose, two cut lips, hematomas on my face and head, and my front teeth are due to come out any day.

When I requested that photos be taken of my injuries, I was denied. When I requested to have X-rays taken of my ribs and to have my lip sutured, I was denied again. The next day, when I was told that I would be placed in the hole pending an investigation, I requested once more that the Investigative Services Unit take photos, as they should in conducting any real investigation. I was denied that request.

At one point, I thought I had a seizure, as I do suffer seizures. However, the prison guards and officials were happy to tell me that I was assaulted. No suspects were discovered. They informed me that they will try to find out why I was assaulted. They believe that the African Americans are upset with me. I have been in prison for seven years and the only blacks that are upset with me are the ones that work for them.

L.J. GUILLORY
High Desert State Prison, Susanville

I had a stroke in March 1999, and I was placed here in the treatment center. At that time I could not do anything for myself. I would lay in bed, wet, dirty and unbathed. The staff did very little for me. The only help I could rely on was a porter (janitor) who helped me. She would keep my room clean, as well as my body. She also would get me out of bed so I did not just lay there all the time. This porter is not a staff member; she is an inmate like I am. The staff here would bring me food that I could not eat because I could not cut it or open the packages.

There's so many women here who won't stand up for fear of losing their ``out'' date, but for myself, I have no date and even if I did, right is right and wrong is wrong.

SALLY WHITHAM
Central California Women's Facility, Chowchilla

Prisoners are not different from anyone else, except a little more broken than most. It is OK to incarcerate, but while you have the ``menace'' contained, please help heal the brokenness with the time available.

Treatment is a workable option for punishment. Ask me. I finally received treatment in my last stay and it honestly changed my life from the inside out. While you're considering life-positive ideas, think about changing the war against drugs. The blatant hypocrisy is poison to our society.

Remember that if how we handle our people isn't working, change. If that doesn't work, change again. We consider ourselves an advanced society. Perhaps technically we are, but socially, humanely, we are as primitive and ignorant as a caveman.

Jon Franklin
La Honda