Washblog

[Front paged: Noemie Maxwell. Update by NM 7/31/08: Washington State has begun bringing home people from out-of-state private prisons. Josh was among the first returnees. New prison construction made the returns possible. Nicole's advocacy helped educate policymakers and others -- and may have hastened the process. Two recent interviews, with the current Secretary of WA Dept. of Corrections and with a prior Secretary, provide perspective on how this agency has resisted the privatization of the prison system in this state: Conversation with Chase Riveland, head of Washington Corrections when the tough-on-crime wave hit and Conversation with Eldon Vail, Secretary Washington Department of Corrections. The state legislature has begun acting on research it commissioned in 2005 that shows we can reduce our incarceration rate and build fewer prisons -- for comparable crime-reduction benefits. ]

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During 2006, our 1,600-bed Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton, Minnesota housed a daily average of approximately 1,500 inmates as a result of new contract awards in mid-2004 and subsequent increasing demand for beds from the states of Minnesota and Washington ... and Idaho, compared with a daily average of approximately 867 inmates during 2005. As a result, total revenue increased by $13.9 million at this facility during 2006 compared with the prior year." US Securities and Exchange Commission Form 10-K, for Corrections Corp of America, fiscal year ending 12/31/06.  Also see NASDAQ Summary quote for CCA, which shows a $3.2 billion market share.

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Joshua Scott.... he is my best friend, my soul mate, my everything, the one person I can count on to always listen and never judge me, the man who is the head of my family. To my children Josh is Dad, the man who teaches them how they will relate to people in the future, who helps them with homework, their mentor, their provider of guidance. To Washington State he is inmate number 788119, and to Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) he is a unit of profit.

Washington Department of Corrections currently contracts with CCA, a private for-profit prison.  In a time where we are seeing crime decrease in Washington there is also a strange epidemic of the prison population increasing (1). Every person who is locked up means more profit for companies like CCA. It's profitable for them to promote a misconception that they are securing our safety. Investors love the perception that this gives: lock up more people and we are safer. But there is a social cost to separating families through imprisonment. Children are separated from parents at critical times. (2,3,4) Family ties are disrupted and sometimes completely broken. Men and women are left with no one to go home to when they are released from prison. People are more likely to commit crime when they feel that they have nothing to straighten themselves up for.  We remove people temporarily from mainstream society, but we are also increasing social instability by disrupting families while providing little to no treatment for the situations that got people on the path of crime in the first place.

Dads have been sent to out-of-state prisons due to the overcrowding of our state prisons. Families are being tortured by having their loved one's transferred away to places that are so far visits are virtually impossible. The Department of Corrections has stated that they will be starting to transfer these men back to Washington in July 2008, but children are still left wondering when they will see Daddy again, and feeling like they have been abandoned.

[Front paged: NM. The author of this article is Nicole Brummitt, who has been very effective in bringing this matter to the attention of the public and the state legislature.]

Everywhere you look you see us, you just don't know it. We are the families of a man or woman who is in prison. Our children are the ones we are fighting to protect with House Bill 2688, which would prevent the transfers of incarcerated parents of young children to out-of-state prisons (see recent Washblog story).

We go into a prison every weekend to see Dad and to start the healing process for our hurting family. Many people look at a prison as an awful place to go, but we look at it as the only place where we can be a complete family. These children are learning while they are visiting with their Dad that they cannot make the wrong decisions without having to pay for them, that they will be loved no matter what, and that family is more important than anything. Then, with little or no warning Dad gets transferred to a private prison that is in a different state.