Grassroots Prison Radio presents: "Crime Pays: A Look At Who's Getting Rich From The Prison Boom" (Starts with a few seconds of generic Middle Eastern or other music) Abu Graib--the infamous prison that's become synonamous with interrogation abuse scandals in Iraq. (To collage) "There are new photos and videos ...." "He twisted a piece of loose wire around the finger of a blindfolded prisoner ...." "Other images show soldiers acting inappropriately with a dead body ...." "Failure in leadership, lack of discipline, no training, and no supervision ...." "Were the abuses the work of a few bad apples?" "The collars used on prisoners, the dogs, and the cameras did not suddenly appear out of thin air ...." The American public was surprised to learn that private contractors had conducted the interrogations at Abu Graib. Americans might also be surprised to learn how deeply private contractors have been involved in the U.S. prison system over the last twenty years. Prisons are now a multi-billion dollar industry for the private sector. It's part of the privatization wave that has swept the country and that's now transformed today's prison industry. (To a few seconds of door slamming shut) Among the biggest beneficiaries of government contracts is private prison companies. (Segue to sounds of highway and birds) The prisons they own and operate don't attract a lot of attention--they're usually tucked away in the backwoods, off lonely stretches of highway. Private prisons are part of a lucrative growth area that's represented a bonanza for the private sector. Thirty years ago, prisons were not taken seriously as a big money-making venture. Today, the private sector reaps billions of dollars from the prison industry. Never before has it been possible to get so rich by incarcerating other people. (To a few seconds of music "When The Saints Go Marching In") Nowhere is such wealth more evident than here in New Orleans at the annual American Correctional Association conference. The ACA is the largest private correctional association in the country. Its trade shows attract private prisons, as well as corporate vendors who have profitted greatly, selling goods and services to prisoners and the prison industry. "I guess if more people are in prison, there's going to be a greater demand--but that's not up to us ...." Companies like Western Union. "We move money fastest worldwide ...." Point Blank Body Armor. "We sell ballistic vests, spike vests, edge weapon plates ...." L'Oreal's Soft Sheen. "Our products are hair care products which are designed for the Afro-American market ...." Speed Queen. "We have a 60 pound washer here today, mostly for the prisons where they wash a lot of sheets and towels at the same time ...." CM Security Group. "(filing sounds) "That's why we need steel like this--no one will get out." National Foods USA. "Everybody eats candy. Prisoners are no different --they like candy just like people on the outside ...." (To Actuality 1) "I was at a federal prison in New Jersey that had sixteen vending machines. That facility has 4000 inmates and they said those vending machines are refilled daily." Herb Hoelter works with prisoners in his capacity as director of NCIA, the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives. (To Actuality 2) "When you go to an American Correctional Association conference, you have the barbed wire vendors, you have the stun gun vendors, you have the telephone vendors, you have the vending machine franchises. You find very little talk about what programs might be more effective or how we can better manage our populations. It's all about what the industry is doing. And corrections has become a huge industry. It's become in most states the largest single budget item in the the state budget." (To music/Tom Waits for a few seconds) How did the growth in corrections spending happen? It started over twenty years ago, as the prison population began rising rapidly. (To Actuality 3) "We live in a country now with the highest incarceration rate in the civilized world." NCIA director Herb Hoelter. (To Actuality 4) "The incarceration rate in the United States for the last five years has been in the top three in the world, along with South Africa and Russia. We incarcerate now over six hundred per 100,000 citizens and no other European country comes anywhere near that." In the early 1980's, there were no private prisons and the total U.S. prison population was around 500,000. Today, the population now stands at over 2 million prisoners, a 400 percent increase. The reason for the big jump? Americans got tough on crime. (To sound effects--dogs barking, police shouting) When the crime rate went up in the '60's, the government reacted by jailing more offenders. Even when the crime rate went back down in the '90's, the prison population continued its meteoric rise. The public's fear of crime escalated, as media coverage of crime stories increased. (To sound effect/a few seconds of news report, then segue to Actuality 5) "There's no doubt that crime occurs and what we all want are safer communities. But I do think you have people living in extremely safe." Rose Braz is director of Critical Resistence, an activist organization seeking to roll back the prison industry. (To Actuality 6) "But if you read the papers, you watch the TV, you look at America's Most Wanted, you watch COPS, you are inundated with this image of people jumping out behind bushes at every turn. And I do think it instills a disproportionate fear of crime in people who are unlikely to be the victims of crime." (To siren sound effects for a few seconds) Tough-on-crime became a popular platform for politicans. Penalties for drug possession were increased. Mandatory minimum sentences were established. In the '90's, many states adopted three-strikes and truth-in-sentencing laws, requiring offenders to serve 85 percent of their sentences. The end result--longer sentences and an explosion in the prison population. (To Si Kahn music "Will you wait for me while I do my time/Will you wait for me, for ninety and nine") As the numbers of prisoners increased, states could not keep up with the expansion. Judy Greene, a criminal justice policy analyst, says the prison population boom led to serious overcrowding problems. (To Actuality 7) "States were quick to pass get-tough laws but slow to appropriate the kind of money that was needed to build prisons to take care of the overflow." Stepping in to fill the breach was CCA, the Corrections Corporation of America, one of the country's first private prison companies. Policy analyst Judy Greene says CCA's timing was fortuitous. In the early '80's, the concept of privatizing government services was starting to take hold. (To Actuality 8) "So by the early '90's, the market was emerging. We had a new administration of fiscal conservatives and free-market pro-business in Washington D.C. The Reagan administration was pushing the idea of privatization, and reinventing government and shrinking government. So for some key entrepreneurs with excellent connections to the Republican Party, people who'd been busy privatizing hospitals looked at this new market and got the idea some of the techniques they'd been applying to privatizing health care could be applied to privatizing corrections." (To sound effects/a few seconds of BBC crowd sounds) In the past when prisons got overcrowded, states could always fall back on parole and early release programs to keep the population down. Tough-on-crime laws eliminated parole and early release for the most part. CCA and other private prison companies helped absorb the overflow and thus played a key role in accomodating the prison population expansion. Scott Marquardt is president of the private prison company Management Training Corporation and spokesperson for a consortium of private prisons. He says the private sector can build prisons cheaply and more quickly. (To Actuality 9) "We can frequently design, build a facility and, from start to finish, have the facility open in twelve to eighteen months. When the public does it, to go through all the approval processes, generally they've taken over three years. We've been able to do it much quicker and we've also been able to save a lot of money." (To Live Oak prison sounds for a few seconds) Today, private prisons house six to seven percent of the entire U.S. prison population. Most of the private prisons are located in the south and are concentrated in states like Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Georgia. Thirty years ago, a lot of people would have said "not in my backyard." But these days, private prisons have been welcomed by small towns and communities hard hit by recession. (Segue to count sounds for a few seconds) The Leo Chesney Center is a minimum security prison for women owned by Cornell Corrections. (Segue to sounds of women conversing in the background) It's located in the town of Live Oak, fifty miles north of Sacramento, California. Live Oak is a rural town with no major industries and high unemployment. When the private prison project was first proposed in the late 1980's, Live Oak residents were evenly divided. (To Actuality 10) "In the early days, many were saying 'not in my back yard'." Dennis Loftus was a produce delivery driver, before he got hired as a prison guard at the Leo Chesney Center. (To Actuality 11) "The word 'prison' puts in mind escapees, people breakin' out and doin' hard and stuff-- ignorance--you know--not knowing. That's what they were afraid of the unknown. Now they know what it's about and they're not afraid of it no more. In fact, they like it. We do a lot for this community." (To woodshop sounds for a few seconds) The prison is now the town's largest employer and enjoys widespread popularity among its residents. A few years ago, the state threatened to shut down Leo Chesney, but town residents rallied to keep it open. Charles Eggert, former mayor of Live Oak, says the prison plays a critical role in the town's economy. (To Actuality 12) "Each day, they have what they call an outside crew, that comes outside the facility and takes care of public grounds, in terms of cutting lawns, edging, planting, landscaping. They cut weeds out of vacant lots to take the fire hazard out. What they do in terms of public service is roughly $300,000 a year or more that we would have to pay them to do so. If the ladies come out, it would take five men to replace them." (To music/Si Kahn "Ten thousand miles away/Ten thousand miles away/I am dreaming of my child/Ten thousand miles away") The women prisoners at Leo Chesney come from all over California, hundreds of miles away from their families. At other private facilities, out-of-state prisoners are often housed thousands of miles away from their homes. (Segue to highway/bird sounds for a few seconds) The town of Florence sits in the middle of the Arizona desert along Highway 79. As soon as you enter the town, the first thing you notice is row after row of prison barracks, surrounded by barbed wire fences and guard towers. Florence has three private prisons. Before the arrival of the private prisons, Florence was a town in sad shape twenty-five years ago. (To Actuality 13) "When I was in charge, I had thirteen cars-- three of them ran (laughs). I had three motorcycles and none of them ran." Tom Rankin has worn many different hats over the years. He was on the Florence town council, he was interim town council manager, and in the '80's, he was the police chief. (To Actuality 14) "The town's financial situation was not in good shape. When I was chief of police, the gas station, I had one station that would allow us to have credit for two weeks at a time. The employees here were getting just above minimum wage. The fire station was right next door to the police department. And we kept one of the older trucks, we kept it on an incline so if the battery didn't start, we could roll it down and pop the clutch. It's funny now, it wasn't funny then because we knew we were in trouble and we had to get something to improve on it." (To sound of door closing and Rankin tour of fire department) Tom Rankin is giving a tour of Florence's brand new fire department. Thanks to government money generated by the three private prisons, the fire department is state-of-the art--it has a fully equipped gymnasium, brand new fire trucks and equipment, kitchen facilities, and full staffing. (To Actuality 15) "We have a 24-hour a day medic service now that we never had before with EMTs and IEMTs and paramedics, right? You see--they've got their easy chairs and they've got their table-- all the amenities of home are right here. There's a lot of towns bigger than us that would love to have our facility--but they don't have it because they don't have that private prison money coming in." In addition to the fire department, Florence now has a brand new police department, a new park, a new senior center, and a newly renovated city hall. These new buildings were bought and paid for by the extra state and federal funding that's come in. With the additional prisoners from the three private prisons, Florence's total population has nearly tripled. The government funding formula is based on the census count, which includes prisoners, even thought they are not permanent residents. Florence now has the peculiar distinction of having the highest percentage of prisoners of any town with a population over ten thousand, thanks to the private prisons. (To Actuality 16) "Did we luck out? Yeah. You bet we lucked out. Are we glad to have them? You bet we're glad to have them. Do we want more? We got more land-- bring 'em on out here." (To music/Gene Autry "Back In The Saddle Again" for a few seconds, followed by Host Reintro) Prison towns like Florence and Live Oak have been the beneficiaries of taxpayer dollars going into their communities. But how are taxpayers benefitting from private prisons? Privatization advocates repeat the same mantra continuously-- government is wasteful and inefficient and the private sector can do the job better at less cost. Private prison spokesperson Scott Marquardt. (To Actuality 17) "There have been a number of studies that have been conducted to measure that and on average, these studies have shown that the operational costs are less when private companies operate a correctional facility by five to fifteen percent. And if the private company is involved in the design and construction of the facility, studies have shown that the savings are in the range of fifteen to twenty-five percent. So when you add that up, we're talking about billions of dollars in savings." Other studies dispute private prisons' claims of cost savings. The federal government's General Accounting Office issued a report in 1996 which found little or no difference in the operational costs between private and public prisons. In Colorado, state representative Buffy McFadyen has questioned claims of cost savings for many months. Colorado is projecting an increase in its prison population and the state legislature seems ready to add more private prisons. The problem, says McFadyen, is that Colorado has never done an audit to determine whether private prisons have actually saved the state money. (To Actuality 18) "Currently, Colorado is paying fifty dollars a day per inmate to our private facilities. The state prison that is 7 miles away Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility--the cost is sixty-six dollars a day. What I do not know is how much does the state pay, aside from the fifty dollars a day, how much are we paying for medical costs for inmates, transportation of inmates, case management of inmates, monitoring units-- to monitor the private prisons, how much are we paying for clothing, how much are we paying for training of the private prison employees, how much are we paying for riot control, and how much are we paying for inmate recovery?" (To music for a few seconds) So who's doing a better job running prisons and who's saving more money? It's hard to say--comparing private and public prisons is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. Studies comparing the two reach different conclusions, depending on who's funding the research. Dennis Burke is chief of staff for Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, a critic of private prisons. Arizona is a state with a lot of private prisons. Although they appear to cost less, Burke says that outward appearances can be deceptive. (To Actuality 19) "As evident in Arizona, private prisons will only take lower offenders. Like we've seen in health care, the state is left with the sicker of our citizens to take care of and in our prison systemand in our health system, we are required to take care of the most dangerous ones and their record can look good, only because they're dealing with the less dangerous offenders." Seventy percent of all private prisons are minimum security, housing low level offenders. Most of the hard core, violent felons are housed in state prisons and super maxes. Despite these differences, many private prisons share the same problems that plague government-run prisons--riots, gang violence, physical and sexual abuse. Arizona had shipped out 600 convicts to a private prison in Texas, hoping to save money. Instead, the transaction ended up costing Arizona taxpayers over $400,000. In January 2003, prisoners staged hunger strikes and riots over poor conditions and lack of food. The governor's chief of staff Dennis Burke says the prison company Correctional Services Corporation had violated the contract. (To Actuality 20) "We've had difficulties with that prison in Newton Texas. Our Department of Corrections has had to go back time and time again, and not only conduct thorough audits, but to request the prison provide the amenities and services they contended they would provide in their contract. It shows the difficulties we face transporting prisoners out of state and it also shows that the private prison companies' push to cut costs at the risk of public safety." To maximize profits, many private prisons cut corners in services. Most private prisons save money in lower staff salaries and less guard training. In California, private prison guards make as little as nine to ten dollars an hour. (To sounds of McFarland training class for a few seconds) This instructor is giving a training class to new guards at a private prison in McFarland, California owned by Wackenhut Corrections. Rodney Hall is the state monitor assigned to McFarland. (To Actuality 21) "I would say that training these particular people get is nowhere near as extensive as those in the Department of Corrections. The folks that work here in the private facility, they get their week of training in a approved, academic correctional setting. Whereas a person who works in the Department of Corrections is mandated to his sixteen weeks of training plus all the OJT training he's getting while on the job." (To McFarland prison sounds for a few seconds) Prison guard turnover rate is three to four times higher at private prisons nation-wide. The high turnover rate tends to result in guards with less experience. And in volatile situations, lack of experienced guards can lead to disastrous results. Lance Corcoran is excutive director of CCPOA--the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. In the event of a prison riot or other outbreak that threatens public safety, Corcoran says private prison guards are not qualified to handle such emergencies. (To Actuality 22) "For instance, Eagle Mountain--when a riot erupted, I guess it was about a year ago, and an inmate was killed, the staff literally left the facility. They called for help from the public facilities, which are about fifty miles away and Sentinella state prison as well as Calpatria state prison sent response teams to quell the riot." (To music/Sweet Honey music for a few seconds) One of the worst outbreaks happened in 1998 at a CCA prison in Youngstown, Ohio. Like a lot of economically depressed cities, Youngstown badly needed the jobs CCA could bring in. What it didn't need was the violent felons CCA brought in from Washington D.C. (To Actuality 23) "They had lied to the community continuously-- they had been having numerous problems at that facility. We kept bringing them to light and they would brush 'em off and nobody would listen to us." Tim Shaffer is a union president in Ohio, representing 10,000 corrections employees. (To Actuality 24) "They had problems like stabbings, large number of assaults, an inmate was killed up there. Classification problems--they were told there were only medium security inmates and there was actually maximum security inmates in the facility that should not have been mixed in. So it was a real serious security threat." (To ABC news report for a few seconds) Youngstown's problems continued to escalate, when six prisoners escaped. Four of them were convicted murderers. Union president Tim Shaffer says the city was thrown into a complete state of panic. (To Actuality 25) "These six inmates actually cut through the fence, because the alarm system on the fence was not working--it was known by the inmates. They activated the state of Ohio special response teams to go out searching for the inmates. The sheriff's department, the highway patrol, all this at the tax payers' expense. CCA never did pick up the tab there." Investigations into the Youngstown debacle reveal that lack of experienced guards was a major contributing factor. Eighty percent of the guards had never worked in a prison before and were completely unprepared for the violent D.C. inmates. The Youngstown scandal generated a lot of bad publicity for CCA. The company's stock was riding high in the early '90's. But after Youngstown, CCA's stock plunged to fifty cents a share and the company nearly went bankrupt. (To Host Reintro and 30 sec. music bed for optional station I.D.) In the late 1990's, high profile escapes, riots, and sexual assaults took place in Texas, Louisiana, and New Mexico private prisons. Investigations after these incidents consistently cited lack of experienced staff and high turnover as contributing factors. Given these problems, it's difficult for private prisons to claim superiority over government-run prisons. What's the rationale for funding them? (To music for a few seconds "Money Makes The World Go 'Round" from Cabaret) Private prisons owe their existence to political connections and influence peddling. Edwin Bender is executive director of the Institute on Money and State Politics. He did research into private prison campaign contributions and found that companies gave nearly $2 million dollars in state races during the 1998 and 2000 election cycles. Bender says campaign contributions went to Democrats and Republicans alike. (To Actuality 26) "It was whoever was in power in the legislature at the time. They will favor the winners, the incumbants, people who can help them get their business decision made. I want to emphasize-- these are business decisions--these guys are investing their campaign dollars in candidates that they think can help them make something happen for the benefit of their bottom line." (To Cabaret "Money Makes The World Go 'Round" music for a few seconds) The key players with the power to procure contracts are the high powered lobbyists hired by private prison companies. Because no disclosure is required, researcher Edwin Bender says it's impossible to know how much these lobbyists are getting paid. Bender says the influence of lobbyists is enormous. (To Actuality 27) "The private prison industry hires some of the best lobbyists in the state, some of the the highest paid. And those lobbyists know the ins and outs of their legislatures. They're not doing anything illegal, they're doing what lobbyists do, but they're out there every day. It is their job to ensure that their clients' wishes are met. And average Joe does not have that ability. He cannot guard his taxpayer money the way a lobbyist can go after that money for the private prison companies." (To more "Money" music for a few seconds) In addition to lobbyists, private prison companies have ex- prison officials on their payroll. Researcher Edwin Bender says the presence of these former officials gives private prisons a great advantage in procuring government contracts. (To Actuality 28) "I do know that private prisons industries hire former government officials on a regular basis. Those guys will go from a state prison to a private corporation and then they'll get hired by another state to run their corrections department and then go back. There's a revolving door and I don't think that's any different from any other industry." (To Actuality 29) "Typical example of that was when the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons Mike Quinlan retired. He went to work first as a consultant, then an official at CCA." Criminal Justice policy analyst Judy Greene. (To Actuality 30) "During the period that he was head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, he was not in favor of privatizing the federal prisons. Once he left government and went to CCA, he realized suddenly what a good idea this was, what the benefits were. And not too long after his joining CCA, the Bureau of Prisons started putting out requests for proposals for new private prisons." Hiring lobbyists, ex-politicans, and ex-prison officials is legal. However, some recent hires have raised eyebrows. . In New Mexico, Wackenhut Corrections hired Senate president pro tem Manny Aragon to be its lobbyist. Aragon held on to his senate post, while lobbying for Wackenhut. Bruce Cain is director of the Institute for Government Studies at U.C. Berkeley. Cain says while Aragon's dual jobs may be technically legal, they present serious ethical problems. (To Actuality 31) "The sitting official has the ability to log roll, has the ability to hold up the corrections officials budget if they're not going to comply with what the company wants. I mean, there are just a lot of reasons why an elected official should not be lobbying on behalf of a company that does business with the state. I think it impairs the judgment of the official. Instead of making decisions that are in the best interests of the state, the elected official is going to make decisions and influence others to make decisions based on this business relationship that they have and that seems to me to be a prescription for disaster." (To music for a few seconds) Critics say the power the private prison industry wields goes beyond lobbyists and government contracts. They accuse companies of promoting the tough-on-crime policies that have spurred prison growth. Private prison spokesperson Scott Marquardt denies the industry has lobbied for or against any legislation. (To Actuality 32) "We have never engaged in any lobbying in any state to impact sentencing decisions or decisions on who should go to jail. That I think would be a conflict for us to get in that debate. It's not something we participate in. That's a decision for the government to make. In terms of mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines or anything like that, we do not ever participate in that debate." (To Actuality 33) "It turns out they didn't have to go to state capitol and publically lobby for these bills. They were simply, quietly sitting in hotel rooms writing these bills with legislators who then took them home, introduced them, and got them passed." Research analyst Judy Greene says these bill-writing efforts were all made possible through ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC is a conservative public policy organization with great influence in Washington. ALEC brings together corporations and politicians and with their help, drafts and promotes model legislation. Judy Greene. (To Actuality 34) "For many years, the co-chair of ALEC's criminal justice task force--an organization that was pushing hard at the state level through the '90's for 3-strikes you're out, for mandatory drug laws, for truth-in- sentencing, offenders having to serve 85 percent of their sentences--all of these laws that helped to grow the prison boom --until recently, the vice president of the task force that created and pushed those laws at the state level was a high- level executive of CCA." (To music for a few seconds) The growth of the prison system has produced new opportunities for the private sector. Private prison companies are now operating half-way houses and juvenile detention centers, in addition to government prisons. Telephone companies like MCI, AT&T, and SBC have gained new customers from the prison expansion. (To music "Calling Baton Rouge" for a few seconds, then to Actuality 35) "It's a billion dollar a year market for the telecommunications carriers--unquestionably so." Charles Carbone is an attorney with California Prison Focus, a non-profit that defends the rights of prisoners. (To Actuality 36) "So we're talking about the largest prison populations in the world. As a consequence, it's no surprise that these family members are trying to communicate with their loved ones on a regular basis, when there are connection fees of $3 dollars alone, just to connect the call, much less the permanent charges which can be 30 cents, 40 cents, 50 cents a minute. You take all these nickles and dimes--and quite quickly, they add up to millions and literally billions of dollars." (To pay phone sounds for a few seconds) In California, a collect call from the local county jail costs seven times as much as a 50-cent pay phone call. The families who end up paying for the collect calls are among the poorest people who can least afford them. Prison rights attorney Charles Carbone. (To Actuality 37) "An average phone bill can be $100 or more. I know families who have bills of $300 or $350 a month. These are economically disadvantaged communities and family members. So that represents a large portion of that family member's monthly income and it really becomes a matter of 'do I talk to my loved one? Do I console them in prison? Do I keep them up to date on the events of their family or their children or their grandparents or parents? Or do I decide I can't afford it--it's too costly?' And that is an ethical, financial dilemna that no family member should be asked to make." (To Grateful Dead music "Truckin'" for a few seconds) Millions are made every year in the prison transportation business as well. Fifteen years ago, the inmate hauling industry barely existed. Today, increasing numbers of prisoners are being transported from state to state. (To Actuality 38) "I believe in one of the articles I wrote, there are more regulations on transporting cattle across state lines than there are in transporting inmates." Alex Friedman is a former private prison inmate and now a reporter for Prison Legal News. He's researched and written articles on prison transportation and what's required to start your own business. (To Actuality 39) "Well, you need a van and in many cases, very little else. There are literally some mom and pop companies that have sprung up that transport inmates in their own van. And you just weld a big wire mesh across the front and you buy a bunch of handcuffs. And in some cases, it is more stringent than that, you do have to have some kind of certification before you can do it. There is very little regulation in that regard. And as a result of that, there have been some pretty egregious incidents." (To Actuality 40) "When I boarded, the first thing I remember was the smell of urine--it was just rank. People had not bathed for days on end. Some men had been on the van for a week with no bath." This was just the beginning of Robin Darbyshire's nightmare aboard a private transport van. Robin had been arrested on a forgery charge in Nevada and was being transported back to Colorado to face trial. The journey should have taken eighteen hours. Instead it stretched out over four days. The van went all over the west coast, picking up and dropping off other prisoners. The driver of the van was Richard, an ex-prison guard who'd been fired for assaulting an inmate in Texas. (To Actuality 41) "At first, I thought he was being flirtatious although he was being obnoxious. So I tried to ignore it. When we picked up Rosalinda in Los Angeles, my antennas went up and I thought 'something is not right here.' At the point he was saying he wanted to take us out to the desert, rape, shoot us, leave us for dead in the Mojave desert and we're going through the Mojave desert, I begin questioning myself if there was a raging maniac in the van with us--and it just started escalating and it got worse and worse and worse. And as we were neared Mexico, I started having panic attacks." (To ominous-sounding music for a few seconds, then to Actuality 42) "As we pulled into the roadside park, they left me in the van. He came back and got me and I felt uncomfortable. I could just sense his demeanor had changed. He made me go into the restroom. At that point, he started taking off my belly chains and my box cuff. He said 'you're going to have sex with me.' And I said 'no, I'm not.' Then he mentioned to me 'well, if you say anything, I'm going to shoot you. If you try to scream, I'll shoot you and say you tried to escape.'" (To music for a few seconds, then to Actuality 43) "At that point, I got so angry, I started calling him a pig and it seemed like he just got more excited being called names--all I did was call him a pig. And att that point, he told me to lay down on the floor. He started unzipping his pants. He made me take the top and my bra off and as I lay down, he stepped on my hand to the point where I felt like he was crushing it. I closed my eyes. I remember him coming over to the side of me and trying to squat down but he was too heavy." (To music for a few seconds, then to Actuality 44) "He did at one point make me pull my skirt down. And I didn't know what else to do .... I was in a position where I thought 'well, I can't do anything--what am I going to do? I don't know if he's going to shoot me, because the more I tried to fight him, the more he got violent.' And I just gave in--I did what I was told." (To music for a few seconds) When the van finally arrived in Colorado, Robin reported the assault to the van company and to the state. No action was taken against the driver, but Robin refused to quit. Eventually, she contacted the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a lawsuit against Extraditions International. The lawsuit was settled with the company agreeing to pay Robin a substantial amount. (To Actuality 45) "It wasn't about money--it was about what was right. I was embarrassed, very ashamed. But I thought the only way to bring it to light is to speak up. With so many victims, they've been silenced, they've been intimidated to not speak. Or an issue gets pushed under the rug. I didn't crack one bit. And I stood my ground with them and I refused to let them intimidate me." (To music/Si Kahn "Nobody's Body But Mine"--"Take to the streets/Lift up your voice/Fight for your life while you still have a choice/Tell them nobody's body but mine ....") Robin suffered post-traumatic stress and near kidney failure after her four-day ordeal. Fortunately for Robin, she received immediate medical attention when she arrived in Colorado. Not all prisoners are so lucky. (To Actuality 46) "It was a nightmare. CCA, if you're on medication--I have a horrible seizure disorder--they didn't care." Jane was convicted on a forgery charge and sent to a Nashville jail owned by CCA. (To Actuality 47) "I was seizing and my roommate was beating on the door 'this girl's up here seizing' and nobody comes because there's no guards anywhere--they're way out in the hall somewhere and you're in a cell in this big pod and the buttons you push don't work. I busted my head open, broke a tooth, bit my tongue. And she said I lay there an hour and a half before anybody even came. They handcuffed and shackled me. I told them I was fixing to seize 'don't do this--don't take me down those steps.' They said 'you're going down the steps.' And they took me down these steps and I started seizing. They just let me fall--they carried me to the hospital in handcuffs and shackles seizing. It cracked my wrist. So it's not a good place." The state of prison health care is generally poor. Escalating medical expenses have put pressure on all prisons to cut costs. In private prisons, cost-cutting is particularly rampant. Reporter Alex Friedman served time at a Tennessee prison owned by CCA. Friedman says CCA had signed an incentive contract at his prison as a way of reducing medical costs. (To Actuality 48) "The contract that CCA entered into was that, if the doctor could reduce medical costs for inmates at the prison, they would increase his salary. So the more he saved on inmate medical care, the more he got paid. You provide fewer medications for inmates who need them, you do fewer consultations to outside doctors, specialists for whatever medical care is needed. The way that you save money is you provide less care." State and county prisons are also searching for ways to cut medical expenses. Many of these prisons are now farming out prisoner health care to private providers. For-profit companies now provide 40 percent of all inmate medical care. Several states and counties have turned over their entire prison systems to private health care companies. Pueblo County in Colorado contracted with Management Team Solutions to provide medical services for its jails. State Public Defender Doug Wilson says MTS's cost cutting measures had caused a drastic reduction in adequate health care for some of his clients. (To Actuality 49) "We just started getting kites--kites are the way inmates communicate with us--kite after kite after kite about 'I'm not getting my meds, I've got diabetes and they're not checking my blood sugar, we have pregnant women, no pre-natal care, no ultra-sounds, absolutely no medical care whatsoever.' And we just saw horror story after horror story after horror story." Cutting costs means reductions in staffing levels, as well as services. Terry Kupers is a psychiatrist who has observed reductions in prisoner mental health care first hand. Kupers has visited private and government-run prisons and has evaluated the psychiatric care provided. (To Actuality 50) "As soon as a private company comes in, what they do is they end the psychiatrists' resident hours, that is they don't have a psychiatrist available in the facility, but rather they put someone on call. The next thing I notice is that the person who is on call rarely comes to the facility. So what's left is the nurse, who's usually not a psychiatric nurse, and someone with a psychiatric emergency and has no psychiatrist to consult with. And I've seen this over and over again. Now, the private company that supplies the mental health services has saved a lot of money. But what's true is that the prisoners have gotten a whole lot less quality mental health care." Less care, less staffing can be dangerous, even lethal for prisoners. Ten inmates died recently in upstate New York. Their medical care was provided by the for-profit corporation Prison Health Services. A state investigation into their deaths revealed the same problems--medical staffs trimmed to the bone, doctors underqualified or out of reach, prescription drugs withheld, and employee misconduct unpunished. Despite this questionable track record, Prison Health Services keeps winning new contracts and is now the country's largest for-profit health care provider. Government ethics expert Bruce Cain says when government services are delegated to the private sector, it's difficult to hold anyone accountable for problems that may arise later. (To Actuality 51) "When you've delegated out to a bunch of private firms--no one is ultimately accountable. It's 'oh well, they didn't so well. We'll go find another firm.' The delegation severs the line of accountability that allows the public to say 'well, you made a decision that caused things to go awry and we're going to kick you out of office.' You can't do that as easily if these things are delegated to private groups." (To Host Reintro, followed by singing Nashville picketer for a few seconds) While prison privatization growth has been steady, opposition has been slow to build. In late 1999, Grassroots Leadership, a community activist group, started a national campaign against private prisons. It has organized a coaltion of labor unions, churches, students, and activist groups united against private prisons. For many years, Grassroots Leadership and union groups have set up a picket line outside CCA's annual shareholders' meeting in Nashville. (Segue to picket line sounds for a few seconds, then to Actuality 52) "It doesn't work, it's not moral, it violates our sense of ethics, it's time to get rid of private prisons." Si Kahn is Grassroots Leadership's executive director. (To Actuality 53) "Grassroots Leadership is a very small organization. And here we are, taking on a multi-billion dollar industry. But I believe that we will win. People of conscience, people of faith will say no to private prisons. I am so heartened that 48 Roman Catholic bishops have signed a pastoral statement that says 'this is immoral, this is contrary to our teachings, this cannot be allowed to exist.' The Presbyterian Church USA adopted a resolution that says 'this is contrary to our religious beliefs.' Not only are private prisons not working, costing us money-- but they are compromising our souls--we are diminished by our participation in a system that imprisons human beings for profit." These days, pockets of community opposition have begun to emerge, whenever a private prison project is being proposed in a town or small city. (To sounds of Pueblo public hearing "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?") At this public hearing in Pueblo, Colorado, the city council was considering a proposal by the Geo Group, formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections. (To Actuality 54) "My name is Terry Stewart. I live at 105 36th, Lane, an eighth of a mile from the proposed prison site. In the 25 days since the announcement was made, we the citizens have gathered over 475 signatures, not only from residents of the county, but from residents of the city of Pueblo. I guess the first thing that comes to my mind is --what's the rush? Why is this now on the fast track?" Terry Stewart and Steve Wilson own farms just across the road from the proposed prison site. (Run farm ambience/pig and bird sounds underneath) A CCA prison in nearby Olney Springs was recently shut down following a prison riot. This makes Steve Wilson nervous about a new private prison so close to his home. (To Actuality 55) "It's not what we look forward to. Of course I got my daughter next to me, my folks right next to me, then my wife and all the grandkids--they're all concerned and you gotta try to calm their nerves and tell them things will be okay. It's just disrupted a whole lot. My folks are real elderly. City folks gotta understand --If something isn't right, you can just sell your house and buy another house. Farm--you don't just go sell a farm-- there's too much invested of your life in the area where you live like this. To just sell it and leave--it's just heartbreaking to think about." (To Sacramento rally music "Get up, stand up/stand up for your rights/get up, stand up/don't give up the fight") Steve Wilson is just one of many people now questioning the need to build more prisons. (Segue to Sacramento rally sounds for a few seconds) At this rally in Sacramento, California, hundreds of students and teachers gathered at the state capitol to protest cuts in education. California state assemblymember Jackie Goldberg spoke at the rally and said that the growing corrections budget is taking away too much money from the schools. (To Actuality 56) "Why are we spending 25 to 50 thousand dollars a year to put someone in jail and 7 thousand to educate them? My god, rather than sending you to jail if you screw up, we should send you to Harvard for the 35 thousand dollars --you'd do a whole lot better." (Segue to chanting "Education not incarceration ....") Spending on state prisons has now reached an all time high of $40 billion dollars a year, more than four times greater than ten years ago. With the recent economic recession, almost every state has had to make cuts in corrections spending. Rehabilitation, once a dirty word, is back in vogue, along with drug treatment and early release programs. Dan Wilhelm is director with the Vera Institute of Justice, an organization that promotes corrections reform. (To Actuality 57) "I'd say about half the states have done something over the last legislative session or two--probably closer to thirty states or so--to pass some sort of statutory measure to ameliorate the harshness of criminal penalties. And that really does run the gamut from repealing mandatory minimums to creating what people call the front end-- better alternatives to incarceration-- beefing up probation, instead of having just one solution, which is to send an offender to the most expensive resource in the system, which is a hard prison bed." Fewer prison beds mean less demand and less profits for private prisons. Following the bad publicity from the Youngstown scandal and CCA's near bankruptcy, the number of private prisons started declining in 2001. Just as things were looking bleak for the private prison industry, the federal government came to its rescue. (To Bush excerpt on terrorism) The war on terror has meant a crack-down on immigrants and new opportunities for private prisons. The federal prison system is now overflowing with foreign detainees--immigrants overstaying their visas or committing crimes. Private prisons are more than willing to build new immigrant detention facilities. (To Actuality 58) "Probably the biggest growth area for private prisons right now is the federal government." Private prison spokesperson Scott Marquardt. (To Actuality 59) "President Bush has indicated he's not willing to build any more federal prisons and is expecting to use private facilities, private beds to take up the increasing demand." (To Actuality 60) "The head of Cornell Corporation in a stockholders conference call had made the statement that 9/11 was good for business and that there was over 100,000 undocumented aliens in the United States of Middle Eastern descent." Lance Corcoran, executive director of CCPOA, the California Correction Officers union. (To Actuality 61) "And he was literally rubbing his hands together, hoping to get a portion of that market share. I think that is absolutely deplorable. And it really shows what their motivation is. It's not about public safety, it's not about public service. It's about money and what can be made. They're much like a hotel or a cruise ship--long as they keep those beds full, they're happy." (To Middle Eastern music for a few seconds) The war on terror has created new opportunities for private sector involvement in Iraq's prison system as well. Private contractors were part of the interrogation team at Abu Graib. They were also part of the Justice Department's team to help reconstruct Iraq's prison system. Prior to the Abu Graib scandal, there was talk of new supermax prisons in Iraq being managed by private prison companies. (Segue to Si Kahn "Come on friends, let's go down/Let's go down, let's go down/Come on friends, let's go down/Down on the picket line ...." ) Closer to home, Grassroots Leadership and its allies are continuing their fight against the spread of private prisons. Its recent campaign on college campuses forced the catering corporation Sodhexo to end its investment partnership with CCA. In 2000, students staged marches, sit-ins, and food boycotts at several universities--a year later, Sodhexo withdrew from CCA. Research analyst Kevin Pranis helped spearhead the campaign. (To Actuality 62) "I think that the campaign was tremendously successful in terms of involving students around the country in really lifting up the debate around private prisons, but also the larger question of why so many people are in prison. Over 100 campuses participated in various ways in the Sodhexo campaign. There was a lot of media attention as well. I think it was a great consciousness raising tool." (Segue to Nashville picket line sounds "We don't need no private prisons/taking our money, money for profit ....") While the Sodhexo campaign represents a small victory for Grassroots Leadership, the private prison industry is far from dead. (To Actuality 63) "It's clear right now that the industry is back after going through its worst period." Research analyst Kevin Pranis. (To Actuality 64) "The states have begun expanding private prisons and I think the industry got together and became more effective, figured out how to more effectively market itself after a lot of stumbling. You're seeing them coming back in a big way. The truth is--as long as you have 2 million in prison, you won't get rid of private prisons. There's too many reasons for them to be there." Criminal justice analyst Judy Greene agrees that prison privatization is likely to continue, as long as the prison population remains large. (To Actuality 65) "They're not going to go away. We have many states that are very dependent on them, still grappling with overcrowding problems or they've privatized a third, upwards of a half of their population in states like New Mexico or Oklahoma. Private prisons have grown and prospered under the political will of legislators or governors who see themselves benefitting from privatization. Until those folks decide that they are better served politically and financially by having public prisons, you know we're going to live with this industry." (To music/Si Kahn "Will you wait for me while I do my time/Will you wait for me, for ninety and nine) Outro credits--"Crime Pays: A Look at Who's Getting Rich from the Prison Boom" was produced and narrated by JoAnn Mar. Funding for this program was provided by the Generoso Pope Foundation. Original music written and performed by Si Kahn. Thanks also to Grassroots Leadership for its assistance in making this program possible.