Private Prisons - Recipe For Disaster

This is an article that was in the Arizona Star concerning the recent riot in Indiana at a GEO facility where Arizona prisoners are housed.

None of the findings in Indiana's report on the riot that occurred in its New Castle facility, where some Arizona inmates are housed, are surprising to anybody who has been paying attention to prison privatization over the past 30 years. Ever since we began this experiment in for-profit incarceration, serious problems have cropped up over and over again in private prisons nationwide.

Many private prisons are woefully understaffed, and high turnover rates mean that staff are inexperienced and unsure of what to do in a crisis. The analysis released by the Indiana Department of Corrections bears this out, citing "unseasoned staff" as a cause of the riot.

Another factor cited in Indiana's report was "offender idleness." This basically means the prison didn't have enough guards to supervise recreation, oversee prison jobs or administer rehabilitative programs.

Other findings from Indiana include the admission that the prison was so poorly managed that they had prisoners playing basketball in the middle of the night and going to meals at all hours. There was poor communication at all levels, insufficient emergency plans, and doors and windows "not of proper strength or design to contain offenders in their housing units."

They didn't have the sense to keep tool boxes and ladders under lock and key, and both were appropriated by the prisoners during the riot.

Who in their right mind would run a medium-security prison with inexperienced staff, flimsy doors and windows, and no plan for how to manage a huge influx of prisoners? A for-profit corporation that is more concerned about its shareholders than it is about real public safety.

ARIZONA STAR (read the entire article here)