Private prison roundup

Here are a number of private prison related items that deserve Grits readers' attention:

• Texas Prison Bidness: Geo's Karnes County Correctional Center found out-of-compliance for overcrowding, understaffing
• Texas Prison Bidness: Johnson County to foot bill for expanded LaSalle Southwest Immigration detention center?
• Texas Prison Bidness: GEO Group expands Laredo Detention Center by 400 beds for immigrant prisoners
• Texas Prison Bidness: Detention Watch Network: Canadian National dies at Houston Processing Center 
• Think Progress: GEO Group agrees to nationwide settlement after widespread claims of violence
• Politico: The Private Prison Racket: Companies that manage prisons on our behalf have abysmal records. So why do we keep giving them business?

Sheriff insists Johnson County Jail must add capacity to house outside inmates

The Sheriff in Johnson County is insisting that the commissioners court must pay to expand the county jail, according to this report out of Cleburne, though "County Judge Roger Harmon appeared to offer every possible scenario Monday that might prevent a big-ticket expense – building, or at least major renovation and expansion, of a county jail."

Sheriff Bob Alford, though, insisted building additional capacity is the only option. Commissioner Don Beeson opined, "Its not popular, but we have a responsibility. We just simply have outgrown this facility."

But have they? According to the latest report by the Commission on Jail Standards (1/1/14),  the Johnson County Jail has a capacity of 870 but only 454 local prisoners, meaning local demand presently only takes up 52% of available jail beds. When one takes into account more than 250 contract prisoners, though, the jail is 81% full. So the push to expand the jail isn't due to rising local needs but stems from past decisions by the commissioners court to speculatively build excess capacity to house inmates from elsewhere. 

The ill-fated decision to overbuild the jail has haunted the county for years. In 2010, their previous contractor dumped the county because they couldn't find inmates to fill the empty beds. The new contractor, LaSalle Corrections out of Lousiana, has been more successful at filling the beds and now wants the county to build them extra capacity. Judge Harmon, though:

had pointed words for LaSalle Southwest Corrections, the company that operates the jail.

"It is in our contract with LaSalle that they will take care of maintenance issues," Harmon said. "Why don't they take care of their contractual obligation? They're not."

The contract calls for repairs under $5,000 to be performed by LaSalle. There are at least two of those issues that arise monthly, Sheriff Bob Alford said. But no amount of $5,000 maintenance repairs can solve all the jail's issues, Beeson said.

"If it were a $5,000 issue, we wouldn't need a $20 million jail," he said.

The contract with LaSalle Southwest Corrections for operation of the jail saves the county about $1 million annually, Alford has said.

"The taxpayers of this county put us in office to represent the taxpayers," Harmon said. "They did not put us in office to represent a corporation."

It's disingenuous for Alford to claim the LaSalle contract "saves" the county money. Really, LaSalle's contract only saved the county from the consequences of their own poor decision making. Now he wants commissioners to double down on the bad decision that got them in trouble in the first place. True, the county was losing money hand over fist before LaSalle took over because they'd overbuilt the jail and couldn't find contract inmates to pay the bills. But they don't owe the private prison firm anything and certainly aren't obligated to raise taxes to build additional jail capacity. If the county now needs extra space for their own prisoners, they've got plenty. The only reason to build more is for LaSalle's benefit, not their own.

Private jail contractor dumps Johnson County: Promised immigration beds never materialized

As the Webb County Sheriff pushes construction of a massive new jail for the purpose of housing federal immigration prisoners, their commissioners court should look to Johnson County to understand how that might not pan out like they hope. According to a story in the Cleburne Times-Review ("CEC bailing out," March 24):

Johnson County Law Enforcement Center should have a new private subcontractor no later than Sept. 15 after the recent decision of Community Education Centers to end its agreement with the county to run the jail.

CEC signed a three-year contract with the county in September 2008.

CEC used an escape clause, County Judge Roger Harmon said Tuesday, extending the county six months notice of contract termination.

CEC warden James Duke could not be reached for comment, but CEC officials told Johnson County commissioners that the corporation was losing money in its operation of the jail.

Johnson County entered the contract with CEC on the assumption that a near-endless wave of immigration detainees would fill up as many jail beds as they could build. As it turned out, that wasn't the case:

CEC expected to make the bulk of its money by filling unoccupied beds with immigration detainees.

“The average population is 450 to 500,” Duke said last year. “There are empty beds. That’s attractive to us. We take those empty beds and help the county get contracts with other entities such as Immigration Customs Enforcement. Corrections 2 [block] has 176 beds. We put ICE detainees in those beds. ICE pays Johnson County, and the county reimburses us.

“The county makes $5 off every detainee. The county makes money, and we make money.”

That wasn’t the way it worked out, Harmon said. ...

“When CEC contracted with us, we were running about 600 inmates per day,” Harmon said. “Nobody knows why, but the numbers recently have been running around 400 per day. Incarceration numbers are down statewide and nationwide, from what I understand. You wouldn’t think it would be that way with high unemployment, but it is.”

As of March 1, according to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, Johnson County had just 338 inmates in the jail, so the supposed profitmaker has now become a money suck. By contrast, Cameron County entered into a similar scheme and encountered the opposite problem: Their jail has so many federal prisoners they now must send pretrial detainees three hours away to be housed by other counties at higher costs. So Texas counties have been burned by these deals coming and going. It's never as simple or cheap as it sounds up front when it's pitched. Never.

RELATED: Just to have mentioned it, Texas Prison Bidness had a couple of recent posts related to the private prison contractor now leaving Johnson County:

• Family sues CEC over son's death in Texarkana jail
• Will McLennan County Sheriff continue to receive pass-through payments from CEC?