CCJRC January Newsletter

News From CCJRC



Out with the Old and In With the.....Old

Scandal Rocks Department of Corrections

Pueblo Private Prison Stopped

Official Out of State Transfer


What's the Buzz?

Upcoming Events

Membership page

NEWS FROM CCJRC

Out With the Old and In with the …..Old: Zavaras Re-named new head of DOC

In a rather surprising move, Governor–elect Bill Ritter named Ari Zavaras as the new Director of the Department of Corrections. As some of you may remember, Mr. Zavaras already held that position during the Romer administration.

Ari Zavaras was a longtime Denver police officer, joining the force in 1965 and then taking over as Chief from 1987 to 1991. Zavaras headed the DOC from 1993 to 1998 and then took over as director of public safety under Bill Owens. He was the DOC director during the time of the largest prison expansion in the state of Colorado.

More recently, Mr. Zavaras worked in the private prison industry as the Western Regional Director for Community Education Centers, Inc., (CEC). CEC currently operates 6 for-profit facilities in Colorado, including the Cheyenne Mountain Re-entry Center in Colorado Springs, and Tooley Hall in Denver.

The relationship between Mr. Zavaras and the private prison industry, coupled with the recent scandal over former DOC director of prisons, Nolin Renfrow, demonstrates how “fluid” the relationships are between private prisons and the Department of Corrections. This raises numerous concerns about the capacity of the Department of Corrections to fulfill its obligation to monitor the private prison industry in Colorado. Even former legislators have to have a 2 year cooling off period before they can be lobbyists.

Private Prison in Pueblo Stopped

Colorado has formally cancelled a 2003 contract with the GEO Group to build a 500 bed private prison in Pueblo. GEO won the contract to build a facility four years ago at the same time that Community Education Center won the contract to build the Cheyenne Mountain Re-entry Center; (CMRC) in Colorado Springs.

Pueblo citizens voiced opposition at the thought of a private-prison in their community. Geo first had its sights on building the private prison on Pueblo Boulevard, near the old state honor farm’s motorsports park. In the face of community opposition, the city then offered Geo a different site at Pueblo’s airport industrial park. Some economic development officials objected that the industrial park was no place to put a prison that they thought would detract from the city’s efforts to attract employers that create good primary jobs.

However, ultimately GEO received the green light from city official, and purchased the land at the airport and received the permission necessary form the Federal Aviation Administration. But GEO cut its own throat on the deal. According to the cancellation letter that DOC sent GEO, GEO demanded repeated changes in the contract. GEO wanted government financing and wanted to change the size of the proposed prison.

Then GEO demanded more money. They requested either more money per person that they housed or they wanted the state to "guarantee" that they would send a certain minimum number of prisoners to both of the proposed prisons in Pueblo and Ault. This guarantee would have amounted to $1 billion dollars over 30 years for two prisons. The state refused to give GEO such a guarantee and even questioned whether such a guarantee would be legal under state law. Interestingly, no other private prison company in Colorado has ever insisted on be guarantees.

Since the beginning, CCJRC opposed this private prison and helped organize the successful opposition of the first proposed location on Pueblo Blvd. CCJRC also successfully sued the Pueblo County Commissioners for passing ordinances related to the prison without the appropriate public hearings as required under the state sunshine law. CCJRC also pushed to have a federal environmental impact study done before construction could begin on the prison. This community opposition, coupled with concerns from the business community and local elected officials over the location in a prime industrial park helped to torpedo the idea.

However, basic incompetence, greed and arrogance proved to be their downfall. As the Pueblo Chieftan said to GEO in a recent editorial, "Good Riddance! Don't let the door hit you on the way out." It is not clear at this point whether the Department of Corrections will be accepting bids from other private prison operators and, if so, whether Pueblo is still being considered at a possible location. We will keep you updated. Many thanks to Representative Buffie McFayden for pushing for accountability.

Transferred: It’s No Vacation

The North Fork Correctional Facility is a private prison facility run by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and is located in Sayre, Oklahoma. Why are we worrying about facilities in Oklahoma?

Well, ten days before Christmas, in an unabashed show of emotional sentiment, the Colorado Department of Corrections sent 240 Colorado residents to do their time there.

CCA also manages four facilities here in Colorado and they are the defendant in a lawsuit that was brought against them after the riot in Crowley Correctional Facility in 2003. One of the main reasons that riot started was because of the problems associated with people transferred here from out of state.

But wait, there’s more. By the end of January, this month, they are going to send another 240 Colorado residents to live in Oklahoma. And so on and so on and so on….

The DOC says that they are working on providing video-visiting from one or more Colorado locations. They will notify us when that occurs. Meanwhile, 240 families have to try to figure out how to travel nearly 600 miles in order to see a loved one who has been transferred, and that is if they live in Denver. The duration of out of state placement is unknown at this time. Prisoners who qualify to be sent out of state must meet certain criteria.

The person must be Medium-custody or below

They must be at least two years to parole eligibility

Sex offenders who are presently not participating in treatment

People who have been evaluated with minimal psychological and/or medical needs

People who have been terminated from Therapeutic Community Treatment

Colorado’s state prisons are filled to capacity, but transferring people to private out-of-state prisons has never been a good answer. Colorado prisoners transferred to a CCA facility in Mississippi rioted. Washington prisoners transferred to private prisons in Colorado have rioted, twice. When will we learn?

The prison population is growing by about 100 people a month. The prisons are full, the jails are full with DOC backlog and community corrections is full. The time is NOW to insist that Colorado legislators affressively develop a plant to immediately address prison overcrowding. There are many ideas for progressive and effective sentencing reform but, even if they were passed by the legislature, it still wouldn't address our immediate problem Only a plan that specifically identifies ways to release people now and prevent prople from going to prison can address the current crisis. The state simply can't build their way out of this crisis. The Joint Budget Committee meets on the 4th and the 15th of this month to look at the DOC’s budget for 2007.

Facility Information:

North Fork Correctional Facility
1605 East Main
Sayre, Oklahoma 73662
(580)928-8200

Scandal Rocks Department of Corrections

State officials are investigating whether Nolin Renfrow, the former director of prisons for the Department of Corrections, violated state laws when he set up a prison consulting business while till employed by the state. State Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, called for an audit that revealed that he filed incorporation papers with the Secretary of State for a prison consulting business five months before he retired from DOC. Mr. Renfrow claimed $14,000 in sick and vacation pay from the Department of Corrections while he worked on behalf of GEO to help them land a $100 million contract to build a 1,500 bed private prison in Ault, Colorado. Mr. Renfrow admitted that he stood to gain $1 million (1% of the contract) for GEO getting the contract.

GEO was awarded the Ault contract despite the fact that GEO, has already failed to perform on a contract they received in 2003 to build a private prison in Pueblo. DOC recently cancelled the Pueblo contract.

Representative McFayden is questioning whether, in light of the scandal, the prison contract in Ault needs to be cancelled and rebid free from the taint of the obvious conflict of interest and possible criminal violations that occurred in the original bidding process.

Gary Golder, who took over as director of prisons, reportedly told state lawmakers that he has asked the department’s inspector general to investigate and turn over any evidence of wrongdoing to prosecutors.

CCJRC once again applauds Rep. McFayden for all of her work on this issue. We will keep you updated as soon as we hear anything more on this situation.

wHat's tHe BuZz?? New for 2007
Changes at CCJRC
The Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition has moved!! Okay, it wasn't very far, we moved down the hall from our old tiny little walk-in closet office, to some spacious new digs down the hall. It's a great opportunity and proof that we are
growing more every year. Thanks in large part to all of you. We are now at 1212 Mariposa St. Suite #6 if you come looking for us.

NEW WEBSITE

We are also launching our new website in late January. Filled with facts, stats and information and extremely user-friendly. Please go to www.ccjrc.org !!

Please give us any feedback that you have!!

GOODSEARCH is here!!! You can support CCJRC everytime you use the internet by making "Good Search" your homepage and using Colorado Criminal Justice
Reform Coalition as your non-profit charity, we get one penny every timeyou search the internet.

Go to http://www.goodsearch.com/ to understand more. Also, you have to type in the whole name of the organization (Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition) and not just CCJRC.

If you want to make GoodSearch your home page you can click here and go to http://www.goodsearch.com/MakeHomepage.aspx which
is the link that will explain how to do that. Thank you for your support.

UPCOMING EVENTS

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS BRIEFING TO THE JOINT BUDGET COMMITTEE

JOINT BUDGET COMMITTEE
Legislative Services Building, 3rd Floor
200 East 14th Avenue
Denver, Colorado 80203
303-866-2061

January 15, 2007
Monday, January 15

1:30-5:00 Hearing for the Department of Corrections - Rescheduled from 1-4-06

COLORADO WOMEN'S 18TH ANNUAL LEGISLATIVE BREAKFAST
Thursday, February 8
7:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
Colorado State History Museum
1300 Broadway Denver CO

This year our keynote speaker: Lieutenant Governor Barbara O’Brien and our legislative panelists will be Representative Morgan Carroll, Representative Rosemary Marshall, Representative Ellen Roberts and Senator Nancy Spence. Sign up below to attend this inspirational event.
Or contact Chairperson Faith Winter at fwinter@thewhitehouseproject.org

YOU can be a CCJRC
FREEDOM FIGHTER

Recently, CCJRC has started our "Freedom Fighters" program. Instead of giving larger donations once or twice a year, members are making generous monthly donations of $10, $15, $20 or more by credit or debit card or by check. This allows CCJRC a real opportunity to budget throughout the year so that we can spend more of our time on fighting the battles we all care about and less time on fundraising. Our members really like it because they can budget their non-profit charitable giving. Go to our secure membershippage or give us a call at 303-825-0122. Thank you for your support.

CCJRC, 1212 Mariposa St. #6, Denver Co 80204

To join right now, online (with a credit card), visit our secure membership page (www.ccjrc.org) (your credit card information will be encrypted and protected).