Arizona Prisoners In Colorado

It seems that we would have already learned our lesson about what can happen with out of state prisoners being brought to Colorado. Two riots in Crowley and the sexual assaults in Brush and we still are talking about allowing private prisons to treat people like commerce.
Pueblo Chieftain
WALSENBURG — Huerfano County Correctional Center will soon transfer all of its Colorado inmates to other state facilities to make room for nearly 752 Arizona inmates, corrections officials said Monday.

According to Allan Cramer, public information officer at the Corrections Corporation of America-run facility, Colorado inmates will be moved from Huerfano to three of the organization's other facilities in Colorado.

"We are going to take the little more than 600 inmates that we have here and put them in facilities in Crowley, Bent and Kit Carson counties. We will then backfill the Colorado inmates with Arizona inmates," Cramer said.

Nothing in Colorado statute keeps the state from accepting inmates from other states.

Cramer said that the mass transfer is a business decision and involves Colorado, Arizona and CCA, which is based in Tennessee. "These sort of things happen all the time. It's not something that is unusual," Cramer said.

CCA, the largest private prison company in the United States, has four prisons in Colorado. The CCA prison in Walsenburg opened in November 1997 and currently houses about 610 Colorado Department of Corrections inmates.

State Rep. Liane "Buffie" McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, said Monday that she does not want Arizona's inmates in Colorado facilities.

McFadyen said that Arizona may classify and differentiate its inmates differently than Colorado.