Throwing Away the Key

Boom Times for Private Prisons

By Richard Martin, 10-29-07

El Dorado County is nearly bankrupt, and one reason is the chronically overcrowded county jail, which is so understaffed that the inmate-officer ratio is 89-1 – a situation has led to “near-riot” events, Sheriff Terry Maketa tells the Colorado Springs Independent. That would seem to be a recipe for a private prison operator – but the business of corporate corrections in Colorado has proven to be a mixed bag at best.

Since the riot at the privately run Crowley County jail in 2004, and the State Auditor’s report two years ago that found unacceptable health care and staffing levels, not much has changed in Colorado’s five private lock-ups. Not only are private prisons in the state poorly run, in general, but they don’t really save money, according to a 2002 report from the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition. Updated statistics from last year show that the state will throw 29,000 people in jail by 2011, a 41% increase over the current inmate population.

How’s it going to meet that demand for cells? By contracting out more prisons to private firms, naturally. Both Corrections Corp. of America and The Geo Group, two of America’s largest private-prison companies, have submitted bids to build two or three more facilities in Colorado, with the first due to open by next February – a deadline unlikely to be met. Geo “has been struggling to build a pre-release prison in Pueblo for three years, but has yet to start construction due to recurring zoning issues,” according to Ann Imse of the Rocky Mountain News.

The most famous and yet least-known prison in the state is the federal “Supermax” prison 100 miles south of Denver. Officially called the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum, and home to the Unabomber, abortion-doctor slayer Eric Rudolph, and convicted al Qaeda terrorists, Supermax was referred to by a former warden as “a clean version of hell” in a 60 Minutes report that aired Oct. 14.

In other business news:

-- Since a Canadian company began purchasing land in southwest Colorado to mine molybdenum, local officials have launched inquiries into how a second-generation mining boom might affect the area. The Rico Board of Trustees hopes to “start a dialogue” with United Bolero Development Corporation/Bolero Resources Corporation, which announced this month that it plans to purchase surface and mining mineral rights east of the small town, according to the Telluride Watch.

-- Westminster resident David Boone was fired in 2004 by private security contractor MVM, which works for the Dept. of Defense in Iraq providing protection for U.S. officials. Now Boone has filed a lawsuit in Adams County, reports Westword, claiming that he was let go because he refused to go along with an “after-action report” that lied about a 2004 firefight with insurgent snipers in Baghdad.

-- Doing damage control after the loss of more than a dozen fund managers in the last year, Janus CEO Gary Black went on the offensive last week, telling Wall Street analysts that the Denver-based portfolio manager has shifted its approach to build investment teams rather than focusing on star fund managers. “The company said last week Janus Fund manager David Corkins has resigned,” reports the Rocky, “and revealed in August that Janus Twenty skipper Scott Schoelzel is leaving at the end of the year.”

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