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Article:
Tutwiler Prison creates much-needed jobs
One of the state’s poorest counties will benefit from
the increased use of this facility
by DBJ
The fate of the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility
is still undecided, with Corrections Corporation of American
extending the current employees until May 8, when they hope
to have a new contract to house inmates at the privately-owned
prison.
The Tutwiler
facility is owned and operated by Corrections Corporation
of America, based in Nashville and one of the largest private
corrections firms in the U.S. Owen said that negotiations
were still ongoing on several fronts to lock in a new contract
for the private facility. The Alabama contract was a short-term
one, brought about in June 2003 by Alabama’s need
to comply with a court order concerning prison overcrowding,
said Chickering.
One possibility is for Hawaii to move 500 inmates from CCA
facilities in Arizona and 500 from Hawaii state facilities.
Other possibilities include shifting inmates from other
state facilities, from other CCA facilities, or from federal
facilities. Owen said that negotiations are ongoing with
the state of Hawaii. “They’ve come out and toured
the facility a couple of times,” Owen said. Officials
from other state and federal entities are making inquiries
as well; however, Owen declined to identify what state and
federal prison systems were also in the running for the
beds at Tutwiler.
The extension is the latest in a series of moves designed
to keep the facility operating. House Bill 544 was signed
by Governor Haley Barbour on February 3, thereby becoming
the first bill Barbour signed into law and the partial fulfillment
of a request Barbour made in his State of the State address
a few days earlier. “I ask this Legislature to grant
me the authority to house state prisoners and different
classifications at the private Tutwiler facility,”
Barbour said in his speech to the joint assembly. The bill
as passed allows all security classifications to be housed
at Tutwiler, which up to now hasn’t been allowed maximum
security inmates to be housed there.
Rep. Tommy Reynolds, D-Charleston, said the passage of a
bill allowing the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility
to hold all classifications of prisoners was essentially
a job-saving measure for one of the poorest counties in
the Delta. “The machinery of state government or of
private enterprise should be used to help people work,”
said Reynolds.
His rationale for the statement was to lower the costs to
state government of housing prisoners. “If the State
of Alabama can house prisoners twelve miles from Parchman
at 36% less than we can house them ourselves, common sense
says we need to capture those savings for Mississippi,”
Barbour said.
The Alabama prisoners moved from Tutwiler in March, leaving
only about 27 Tallahatchie County inmates remaining at the
facility. CCA personnel would remain at the facility to
manage that population, said CCA spokesperson Louise Chickering.
The Delta Correctional Facility also houses county prisoners,
with LeFlore County leasing a portion of the jail from the
state.
Chickering said in March that CCA was mindful of concerns
that maximum security inmates could pose safety threats
to the community. “(The prison) was originally designed
to hold all security types, including maximum,” said
Chickering. “So we are not having to make a change
to the physical plant.”
Another of Barbour’s correctional initiatives has
come to pass with the reopening of Delta Correctional Facility
in Greenville on April 1. Steve Owen, director of marketing
for CCA, said the facility currently houses 306 inmates.
“My understanding is that a number of those came from
the Parchman facility,” said Owen. Barbour had called
for such a move in his State of the State Address, saying
that shifting prisoners to the state-owned facility would
allow the state to close outdated facilities. The facility
was closed in October 2002 over appropriations issues by
Governor Ronnie Musgrove.
Discussions about prison systems in Mississippi tend to
revolve around two issues: job creation and government expenditures
to house inmates. At issue in Tutwiler are over 250 jobs,
while Delta Correctional’s closure cost Greenville
about 200 jobs, according to press reports. Tallahatchie
County reported 14.4% unemployment in September 2003, according
to the Mississippi Employment Security Commission.
CCA manages but does not own Wilkinson County Correctional
Facility and had managed Delta Correctional until its closure.
Other private prisons in Mississippi include East Mississippi,
Marshall County, and Walnut Grove Correctional Facilities.
The Tutwiler facility has never housed Mississippi prisoners;
the bill that created the prison in 1998 indicated that
only federal or out-of-state inmates be housed there, according
to press statements made by Epps. Private prison management
must prove that it can house inmates for 10% less than the
state can house similar classifications, according to press
reports.
The cost per day of housing inmates in Mississippi runs
from a high of $43.05 per day at Parchman in FY 2002 to
a low of $20.18 per day at restitution centers. Average
operating expense cost-per-day for private facilities in
Mississippi is $34.03, with another $4.64 per inmate per
day required for capital expenses, according to reports
issued by MDOC. The lowest cost-per-day among the state
facilities is Central Mississippi Correctional Facility
with a figure of $33.79 per day. Chickering would not comment
on the cost-per-day at their facilities, stating that typically,
CCA’s costs were from 5% to 25% lower than state-run
facilities. Reynolds denied that House Bill 544 was a measure
that would only benefit the private prison operator. “Whether
a facility has 'public’ or 'private’ on it really
does not matter when you’re negotiating that paycheck
at the bank or at the grocery store,” said Reynolds.
DBJ
