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NewsJanuary 13, 1997

H. Wesley Wilkins thinks a privately run prison is "something that will happen" in Southern Illinois. Patrick Duffy hopes so. "With two proposals from private prison companies, construction and use of such a facility is closer to reality than ever before," said Wilkins, following a meeting of county commissioners, state's attorneys and sheriff's department representatives last week...

H. Wesley Wilkins thinks a privately run prison is "something that will happen" in Southern Illinois.

Patrick Duffy hopes so.

"With two proposals from private prison companies, construction and use of such a facility is closer to reality than ever before," said Wilkins, following a meeting of county commissioners, state's attorneys and sheriff's department representatives last week.

Wilkins, formerly Union County state's attorney, says he thinks the idea is a feasible one.

Duffy, Pulaski County state's attorney, is on record as favoring the private facility concept.

"I hope we get it to work," said Duffy.

Union and Pulaski counties, which have no jail facilities, already have to lodge their prisoners in other facilities.

Other counties involved in discussions are Alexander and Johnson.

The latest proposal was that of Western Corrections Group (WCG).

The WCG proposal was for a 200-bed adult facility that would provide employment to about 60 people. The WCG facility would be built on a five-acre plot near the Interstate 57 exchange at Ullin.

"The land is already available," said Wilkins, "and the city of Ullin would run infrastructure to the site."

The Southern Illinois group will look at two plans before making a decision.

American Corrections Management of Scottsdale, Ariz., previously submitted a plan, which would include adult and juvenile facilities at one of two sites -- Route 146/Interstate 57 near Anna in Union County or in the Goreville area in Johnson County.

A privatized facility at any site would be the first in Illinois.

But privately run prisons and/or jails are one of the nation's newest growth industries.

A "Private Adult Correctional Facility Census" report, prepared by Charles W. Thomas of the University of Florida at Gainesville, reveals that corrections management corporations today operate private facilities housing more than 70,000 prisoners in 20 states. A decade ago, in 1986, only 2,620 inmates were housed in such facilities. There are 17 such management companies, 15 in the United States and two in the United Kingdom.

Thomas' report was completed in March and presented at the Privatization of Correctional Services Conference in Toronto, Canada, in July, sponsored by the Fraser Institute, a research organization based in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Thomas, director of the Private Corrections Project Center for Studies in Criminology and Law at the University of Florida, says private companies can operate facilities at costs 10 to 15 percent less than the government.

One reason for this, said Thomas in his study, is that private companies are not bound by state procurement laws, a fact that can slash construction costs.

As recently as the early 1980s there was not a single adult privatized jail or prison in the United States.

The private sector, however, was playing a role in the management of correctional facilities for juveniles and a non-secure facility for adults such as community corrections facilities and work-release centers.

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In 1983, the Corrections Corporation of America was founded at Nashville, Tenn., and the first state-level contract award was made with CCA in 1984 by Hamilton County, Tenn. A year later, Kentucky-based U.S. Corrections Corp. received a contract in Kentucky.

The first federal-level contract award of any size was made in 1984 by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to CCA for the Houston processing center.

During the 1980s, said Thomas, the private corrections industry moved from being a novel but largely untested idea to being a viable alternative to housing prisoners.

Between 1985 and 1989, the contract capacity of secure adult corrections facilities in the United States and Australia rose from 1,345 to 10,973, an increase of 715 percent. Growth continued, and by the 1990, the contract capacity of private facilities was 15,300. By year-end 1994, the contract capacity had risen to 49,154, a five-year increase of 221 percent.

The growth factor is expected to continue, said Thomas.

The expectations are that the number of secure adult facilities will increase from the 1995 level of 104 to more than 130 this year, and that design capacity of facilities will increase to between 84,500 and 87,500.

"I believe that we have seen little more than the leading edge of a fundamental transformation in the way public policy-makers conceptualize the relationship between government agencies and the delivery of correctional services," said Thomas. "Increasingly, I believe we will see policy-makers encouraging or requiring agencies to allocate more of their efforts to correctional planning and to reduce their involvement as direct service providers."

Two of the largest companies -- Corrections Corporation of America and Wackenhut -- have management contracts in the United Stats, Australia and the United Kingdom .

CCA (Tennessee) and Wackenhut have a market share of private prisons of about 75 percent. The market shares of the six largest companies -- CCA, Wackenhut, U.S. Corrections, Management and Training Corp., Esmor Correctional Services Inc. and the Bobby Ross Group is nearly 90 percent.

CCA has a 51.1 market share of prisoner totals in the United States and 48.1 global market share. The Nashville company has a capacity of facilities under contract in the United States for 29,447 prisoners. Wackenhut, has a U.S. market share of 22.6 and global market share of 24.6. Wackenhut has under contract facilities for 13,029 prisoners.

During 1995, the number of secure adult correctional facilities contracts rose by 15 percent, from 88 to 105. In Australia and the United Kingdom it rose from four to six.

The average capacity of private facilities in the United States is 600, with the largest facility a 1,705-bed prison in Texas managed by Management and Training Corp, and the smallest at 316, by the Bobby Ross Group in Georgia.

Texas is by far the largest user of private facilities, housing more than 23,008 prisoners -- many of them from out of state -- in its 39 private facilities. Florida and Tennessee rank Nos. 2 and 3 in the use of private facilities. Year-end 1995 totals revealed 5,915 prisoners in private institutions in 11 Florida facilities and 5,112 in four Tennessee facilities.

Officials throughout the nation see privately run prisons as a key to dealing with the soaring inmate populations.

The number of inmates in U.S. prisons has grown from 500,000 in 1980 to 1.6 million today. If the 8 percent annual growth trend continues, there will be 3.1 million inmates by 2006.

Expanding inmate populations have placed big financial pressures on state and local governments. Corrections accounts for between $30 billion and $40 billion a year, or about 5 percent of all state budgets.

Faced with choosing between building prisons or schools, states are increasingly turning to private companies to house inmates.

Louisiana, said the report, is saving about $1 million a year in prison costs through contracts with CCA and Wackenhut.

These two companies run identical 1,474-bed institutions. The state runs a third. State officials say Wackenhut spends $24.52 per day per inmate, while CCA spends $25.41. The state spends $25.91.

Governments are more and more cash-strapped, so they are considering alternatives that are going to save taxpayer dollars and continue to provide services, said Susan Hart in the special report. Hart, CCA vice president of communications, agrees that privatized management is a growth industry."

At least eight companies are publicly traded. Some critics are concerned that more and more management companies will emerge as the industry continues to grow.

One judge said he could see a day in the not-too-distant future when, as judges pass sentences, there will be private vendors there, bidding for the prisoners.

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