Ritter and Zavaras Tout Private Prisons

I smell a fight coming...

Private prisons are here to stay, Gov. Bill Ritter and his corrections chief said.

Because of the state's lack of capital construction dollars, it still doesn't have the ability to build expensive new prisons despite the projected growth in inmate population over the next few years.

That's why private prisons are needed to augment the state's bed needs, Ritter and Department of Corrections Executive Director Ari Zavaras said last week.

Still, both men are working on ways that they hope will mitigate not only the need for more private prison space, but public as well. That's why they are spending additional state dollars on programs designed to reduce recidivism.

"It is less expensive to build a private bed ... and private prisons provide the same quality of staffing, they provide the same kinds of benefits, and they also are able to do the kind of programmatic things that we expect of our public prisons - the substance abuse, mental health treatment," Ritter said. "We are investing money in our programs that are in public prisons that are related to vocational training and job training."

In the governor's proposed budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year, which begins July 1, Ritter is proposing earmarking about $5.9 million for 12 programs designed to reduce the state's high recidivism rate, which currently stands at about 52 percent.

The programs, which would be operated by the DOC and the departments of Public Safety and Human Services, include such things as job training, substance abuse and mental health treatment, and programs designed to prevent juveniles from ending up in the state's prisons when they become adults.

Of the 22,500 state prisoners, about 5,000 are being held in the state's five private prisons, three of which are located in Southern Colorado. Nearly 480 of them are being housed in a private prison facility in Oklahoma, something Zavaras said he doesn't care to do, but has little choice over.

"Having prisoners out of state is an absolute last resort for us," he said. "We only do it because we don't have the capacity in state. It's our desire to get them back here just as quickly as we have capacity in the state, and we're hoping that will be relatively soon."

The state spends about $54 a day per inmate to house those out-of-state prisoners, compared to the $52 a day it pays in-state private facilities.

"Quite frankly, they're our overall better-behaved (inmates), and it's a little bit tragic that somebody behaves themselves and then gets shipped out of state," he said. "Two of the privates here in the state are currently doing expansions as a result of a (bid) that they won from us. So yes, they will be part of our system probably forever."

Pueblo Chieftain