per year on for-profit
beds.[2]

All five of the prison corporations under
consideration have spotty records of poor management, violence and
disturbances, chronic understaffing of facilities, safety lapses, and
other problems. Perhaps most notable is Management and Training
Corporation (MTC), which manages the Kingman state prison where three
prisoners escaped in 2010, leading authorities on a two-week,
multi-state manhunt culminating in the murder of a couple vacationing in
New Mexico. Investigations after the incident revealed that the alarms
in the facility had been malfunctioning for over a year, but were never
fixed.[3]

After the escapes from Kingman, the Arizona
Department of Corrections conducted security audits of its other private
prisons. At the three GEO prisons – Florence West, Phoenix West and the
Central Arizona Correctional Facility – inspectors found such issues as
inmates having access to a control panel that could open emergency
exits; anState of California (which houses prisoners in
CCA’s Red Rock, La Palma, and Florence Correctional Center in Arizona)
slammed CCA in 2010 for serious security flaws and improper treatment of
inmates. Inspectors found faulty alarms and malfunctioning security
cameras, prisoners evading metal detectors, and discovered that CCA was
not checking the arrest records of employees or screening out those with
gang affiliations.[7]

Emerald’s only facility in Arizona is
an immigrant detention center in San Luis. LaSalle currently operates
prisons only in Texas and Louisiana. Both companies have had issues in
other states where they operate. For a full accounting of the problems
in all five corporations’ prisons, please see the attached “Rap Sheets,”
drawn from published news accounts.

In their efforts to
reduce operational costs, private prison managers often focus
cost-containment strategies on personnel and training, the two most
expensive aspects of incarceration. Privately