State Scraps Plans for Privately Run Prison Facilities

The California Department of Corrections has scrapped plans to contract with private firms to operate four 500-bed prisons, citing lower than expected inmate population.

Private prison firms were gearing up to submit bids Feb. 4 but received letters from corrections officials late Thursday informing them that the plan was “terminated in its entirety.”

“It’s strictly a population issue and based on the figures we have right now, we would not be in a position to need the beds,” Corrections Director Cal Terhune said Friday.

Several experts recently have noted a slowdown in prison population growth. But earlier this week the Department of Corrections said there are 162,381 inmates in state prisons and predicted that the prisons will exceed their capacity of 177,197 by April 2004.

Former Gov. Pete Wilson two years ago agreed to increase the number of private prison beds by 2,000 in an effort to slow spending on new state-run lockups. Half the cells were to have housed alcohol and drug abusers.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., which represents state prison guards, opposes private prison beds, in part because the union would not represent guards at private facilities. The union has been among the largest donors to Gov. Gray Davis, giving his campaign $2 million last year.

The union has lobbied to block efforts by Corrections Corp. of America to place state inmates at a prison it built outside the desert town of California City. The prison, which could house 2,300, was completed earlier this year. But it has only 16 inmates, who arrived this month from the U.S. Marshal’s Service.

Several other firms had been working for months on bids to land the 2,000-bed state contract.

“We’re out of pocket a lot of money and very discouraged that this has been canceled,” said Rodney Blonien, lobbyist for Wackenhut Corrections Corp. He estimated his client had spent $1 million.

One company, Cornell Corrections Inc., declined to bid. The state was agreeing to pay operators $45 per prisoner per day, significantly less than Cornell said it would need.

“It looked like everybody was trying to make it not work,” said Cornell Vice President Marvin Wiebe.