Justice Department’s End of Private Prison Use Affects Eden and Big Spring

This week, the Justice Department announced its plans to end the use of private prisons after officials determined the facilities are less safe and effective at providing correctional services.

This call will affect the Big Spring Correctional Center in Howard County and the Eden Detention Center in Concho County.

Yesterday, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced the decision in a memo that instructed officials to either decline to renew the contracts for private prison operators when they expire, or to substantially reduce the contracts’ scope.

Yates said reducing, and ultimately ending, the use of privately operated prisons is the goal.

“They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and, as noted in a recent report by the Department’s Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same level of safety and security,” wrote Yates.

Yates said private companies accommodated the Bureau of Prisons when the federal inmate population grew, but it’s time for a change.

Overall, the agency’s inspector general’s office concluded in a recent report that prisons run by private companies have greater problems with contraband, inmate discipline and other issues than those run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

In recent years, disturbances in several federal contract prisons resulted in extensive property damage, bodily injury, and the death of a correctional officer, noted the office in its review.

According to The Texas Tribune, three incidents in West Texas were among those prompting the DOJ’s move.

There were two riots in 2009 at the Reeves County Detention Center, and in 2011, inmates attacked staff at the Big Spring Correctional Center.

Also, in 2012, after a guard was killed in a riot in the Adams County Correctional Center in Mississippi, 20 people were injured.

"The disturbance involved approximately 250 inmates who, according to contemporaneous media reports, were angry about low-quality food and medical care, as well as about Correctional Officers the inmates believed were disrespectful," the report stated.

On July 29, 2016, a group of inmates at the Eden Detention Center refused to leave the recreation yard and return to their housing units.

Personnel, in full riot gear, entered the prison at approximately 10:10 p.m. A San Angelo LIVE! reader told us her brother, an inmate at the facility, said the inmates were being treated inhumanely. This treatment apparently began when a new warden took place in July 2015.

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GEO Group Inc. operates two compounds at the Reeves County Detention Complex and the Big Spring Correctional Center in Howard County, and Corrections Corporation of America operates the Eden Detention Center in Concho County.

The Texas facilities house close to 10,000 federal inmates out of about 22,000 in 13 privately run locations nationwide, said The Texas Tribune.

In response, CCA spokesman Jonathan Burns told The Texas Tribune, “The Inspector General’s report used to buttress this decision has significant flaws. The report’s authors freely admit that they were unable to evaluate all of the factors that contributed to the underlying data. And they failed to account for the impact of elements such as population demographics or the scope and efficacy of efforts to mitigate contraband.”

Burns added the findings simply don’t match up to the “numerous” independent studies that show CCA’s facilities to be “equal or better with regard to safety and quality, or the excellent feedback” received by partners “at all levels of government.”

Officials from the Management and Training Corporation, which operates Big Spring Correctional Center, told The Texas Tribune the DOJ’s decision will cost taxpayers.

“If the DOJ’s decision to end the use of contract prisons were based solely on declining inmate populations, there may be some justification, but to base this decision on cost, safety and security, and programming is wrong,” said Issa Arnita, spokesman. “The facts don’t support the allegations…”

Despite the decision, the GEO Group Inc. said it will continue to work with the Bureau of Prisons.

At this point, it's unclear if the BOP will take over the private facilities or relocate inmates when the contracts expire.