Josh Brodesky: Private-prison expansion a crime

The school, which until recently housed kindergarten for the Eloy Elementary School District, dates to the 1950s and has seen little renovation since then. It has a run-down look that suggests dead ends and reflects the significant budget cuts to the district over the last three years.

So it was fitting that Tuesday night the old school was packed, mostly with supporters and employees of Corrections Corp. of America, for the first in a series of public hearings on private-prison expansion in Arizona. At a time when the state has cut $183 million for K-12 education, the state will bid out contracts for up to 5,000 prison beds, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over the next five years.

"It's an unsustainable industry," Caroline Isaacs, of the American Friends Service Committee, told me after the meeting. "We just can't afford to incarcerate."

That certainly is the message from a 2010 state auditor general report, which says a plan to expand the system by 6,500 private beds would cost taxpayers $640.7 million through 2017. The report also says for light- and medium-security prisons, private options cost slightly more than state-run equivalents.

Most striking, though, is our surging incarceration rate. While our state population has doubled in the last 30 years, our prison population has jumped nearly tenfold to more than 40,000 inmates. One result, the auditor notes, is nearly all of our prisons are maxed out or over capacity, and in some instances temporary beds have been used.

And the plan is to keep locking people up. The auditor general's report says the Department of Corrections anticipates roughly 50,000 inmates by 2016 - even though incarceration rates have nominal, if any, effect on crime rates.

And then there are CCA's cozy connections as well as the allegations of inmate mistreatment. Chuck Coughlin, an adviser to Gov. Jan Brewer (and her former campaign manager), has a consulting company that has lobbied for CCA. In December, California's inspector general reported poor treatment of California inmates and flawed security practices at CCA's La Palma and Red Rock prisons in Eloy, as well as the Florence Correctional Center.

The Arizona Republic's Bob Ortega has reported on CCA's issues, which include allegations of guards beating Hawaiian inmates and not thoroughly checking the backgrounds of guards.

Corrections Corp. of America has four prisons in Eloy, and six total in Pinal County. With almost 2500 employees there, CCA is the Pinal County's largest employer. Its prisons house federal inmates as well as those from California and Hawaii. If it wins this contract, CCA would manage up to 4,500 Arizona inmates at its Red Rock and La Palma prisons, moving out-of-state inmates somewhere else. It is one of four proposals under consideration.

"What is most important to show is that we are a true partner with Eloy," Lucibeth Mayberry, a CCA vice president, said at the hearing. "That we are in this community to stay."

Eloy is a CCA town, and it showed at the meeting. One by one, city officials and business leaders praised CCA for the jobs it has brought, as well as the partnerships it has made. Many in the audience either work at CCA - Eloy's mayor does - have a family member who works there, or do business with CCA.

"They have been there for everything that we need," said Toni Lorona, president of the Eloy Chamber of Commerce. "We could not do without CCA."

Richard Reyes, a captain with CCA, said the prison has given him a career and place in the community.

"CCA has given Eloy residents an opportunity to grow," he said. "Working for CCA is not merely a job."

I found these speeches to be earnest and moving. But for all the talk about economic development, this contract won't necessarily lead to new jobs.

Spokesman Steve Owen said CCA sees this "as an opportunity to stabilize jobs in the community for existing employees."

There will be no job losses if CCA doesn't get the contract, he said.

So no guarantee of new jobs, which brings me back to the run-down Curiel Annex School.

Over the last three years, Eloy Elementary School District's budget has been cut from $6.3 million to $5.3 million, mostly from the state, Superintendent Ruby James said.

"We are pretty much running on old curriculum and trying to keep up," she said.

James was not critical of CCA. In fact, she was grateful for its donations of backpacks, crayons and $3,000 a few years ago.

But the comparison is striking.

Education is a path to economic development and innovation. But we are cutting it while funding hundreds of millions for a prison expansion cast as economic development.

And that combination is a real state crime.

Contact columnist Josh Brodesky at 573-4242 or jbrodesky@azstarnet.com