It costs about $49 a day to keep a Colorado convict in a privately operated prison, versus $77 a day in a higher-security state-run institution.
It’s a good arrangement for the taxpayer – but only if the operation of private facilities is up to state standards. We know now, from a Legislative Audit Committee report, that hasn’t always been the case.
It’s critical that the shortcomings be addressed promptly.
While we’re glad to see the Department of Corrections taking steps to that end, it’s disconcerting that the DOC failed to keep a sufficiently tight rein in the first place. For-profit private prisons house 2,800 Colorado inmates plus others from out-of-state. Also, some high-security Colorado inmates are in a private prison in Mississippi. The DOC pays the private prisons about $53 million a year.
Among the items cited in the June 13 report:
DOC officials aren’t assigning the number of staffers authorized by the legislature to its private-prisons monitoring unit.
State spokeswoman Alison Morgan said that the audit didn’t reflect many remedial actions the department already has taken. Of 12.5 positions authorized for its monitoring staff, “only 10 of those positions have actually been funded” because of budget cuts, Morgan said. Also, some monitoring staffers were diverted to the Crowley County Correctional Facility after a July 2004 riot there.
Both Corrections Corp. of America and GRW are getting their clinics licensed, Morgan said.
Additionally, deductions will be made from the per diem rate that is paid to contractors if too many food substitutions are made, she said.
Private prisons are an important safety valve at a time when the state has no funds to build more prisons. At an average $72,000 per cell, more than $200 million would be needed to build space for the state’s 2,800 privately housed prisoners.
But the DOC should ensure that the private contractors live up to their contracts. And the audit committee ought to keep watch to make certain that happens.
