Thursday, December 13, 2012

Jail vendors profit from overincarceration, abandon ship, raise prices when jail numbers decline

Two examples of vendors who wrongly bet that incarceration rates would remain high and now are abandoning ship in the face of actual or perceived de-incarceration trends:
The latter item includes this happy explanation why the misnamed private-prison company Community Education Centers is pulling of the Bowie County Jail when its contract ends next year:
In a letter to Bowie County Judge Sterling Lacy, Michael Peletier, Senior Vice President of CEC, said, “Our obligation to manage this agreement will therefore conclude February 13, 2013.”

Lacy said he received a phone call after receiving the letter and the caller informed Lacy that CEC “just could not turn a profit there anymore which kind of makes sense because we don’t have many contract beds to start with and we have been working for two years to reduce our own jail population. The income is so thin and they don’t see that changing in the next two years. They don’t see Harris County or the state of Texas or anybody putting prisoners out contracts in the future and I think that all contributed to it.”

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bowie County is in the drink because they lost their federal inmate contract due to:

sex with inmates;
escapes; and
cell phones and other contraband in the jail.

Why is no one telling this story.

Anonymous said...

In the article the Sheriff says God will take care of it so he doesn't have to worry about it.

Anonymous said...

I am a true insider and can tell you how CEC does not care about the employees or the inmates here in Texas.All businesses have to make money-I do not have a problem with that,but one prison has not had a raise in 6 years,promises of raises that never happened,yet the insurance doubles,they put the money in their pockets(owner,ceo's,management)need more employees,short staffed,can't take care of the inmates like we would like,but cec ignores the problems!The contract needs to be cancelled! Always lies!CEC needs to look deep in their own company and clean out the dirt.There has to be someone in CEC that cares,just has to be!