The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

If the number of criminals behind private bars seems big, it is: New Mexico has the highest rate of private prison use in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Indeed, the prison near the Rabbit Ear Mountains in Clayton, just shy of the border with Oklahoma and Texas in northeastern New Mexico, caps a major shift in state policy over the past three decades of housing an increasing number of criminals in privately run prisons.

Since 1980, the year a deadly prison riot made awful headlines for the state, the number of inmates has increased 440 percent. Including Clayton, the number of prisons has gone from one to 11, a figure that doesn't include Camino Nuevo, a privately operated prison that has opened and closed since then.

And questions about whether privatizing was the best choice have mounted.

As the state's inmate population grew, so did lawmakers' interest in private prisons, seen by proponents as a way to save money and outsource some of the state's toughest jobs.

Ten years ago, the state had only two privately run prisons — the New Mexico Women's Correctional Facility in Grants, open since 1989, and the Hobbs prison, which opened in 1998.

Now, when Clayton opens, it will have five, spread out around the state.

The change in inmate-management policy didn't happen overnight, and hasn't happened without controversy. It also couldn't have happened without two New Mexico governors, most notably former Gov. Gary Johnson, who kicked off the privatization push, and Gov. Bill Richardson, who has kept the trend alive.

It was under Johnson's watch that the 1,200-bed lockup in Hobbs opened in 1998. A year later came the 600-bed Santa Rosa prison. Both are run by The GEO Group, formerly Wackenhut.

Those weren't good times; both facilities suffered deadly confrontations. Three inmates were killed in Hobbs and a prison guard was murdered in a riot in Santa Rosa in less than a year. Before that, an inmate in Santa Rosa died after he was beaten with a laundry bag full of rocks.

New Mexico hadn't seen so much prison violence since the 1980 riot at the state penitentiary, where 33 people died.

No new state prisons?

When Richardson ran for office in 2002, he pledged there would be no new state prisons built on his watch.

"The governor said he would not build new state prisons, and he has not done so," spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said in a statement to The New Mexican.

"All of the capital money that would have been used for new state prisons has instead been invested in new schools, modernizing highways and updating infrastructure in communities across the state."

Still, since he's been governor, 240 beds have been added to the Guadalupe County Correctional Facility near Santa Rosa, run by The GEO Group. The Camino Nuevo Correctional Center in Albuquerque, operated by the Corrections Corporation of America, opened in 2006. In 2007 came the 234-bed, minimum-security Springer Correctional Center, which is run by the state. And then came Clayton.

The town of Clayton is paying to build the facility, which will house 625 inmates, nearly all of them state prisoners.

The town is using $63 million in revenue bonds to finance the project. Clayton officials have welcomed the prison — and its jobs — as a major source of economic activity in the outpost of about 2,500.

Critics, however, say the lockup is essentially a state prison.

"I guess it's a debate in semantics, but it's holding state prisoners," said Sen. John Arthur Smith, a Deming Democrat and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

"I guess the governor gets a certain amount of satisfaction in saying the state didn't build it, but from a functional point of view, the state might as well have built it," he said.

Gallegos said that's not the case.

"Of course it's not a state prison. The town of Clayton and GEO can house county or federal inmates," he said. "Beds were available for medium-security inmates, and the Corrections Department chose to take advantage of the new facility for some of its inmates."

Of the 625 beds, 600 will be used for state prisoners.

Others suggest Richardson chose to support the Clayton project to curry favor in the heavily Republican Union County.

"We could have added a wing or pods to other facilities that could have been expanded," said Senate Minority Whip Leonard Lee Rawson, R-Las Cruces. Adding on to places such as Santa Rosa or Hobbs would have been cheaper and quicker than building a new prison, he added.

"But the governor decided he wanted to build in Clayton for political purposes. We can say it's good economic development, but I don't think it was the best choice for the public," he said.

The Governor's Office denied that, saying Richardson "already had great relationships with Democrats and Republicans in Clayton."

And, Corrections Department Secretary Joe Williams said, building the Clayton prison was "absolutely the right decision."

"When we signed those agreements, we were operating at well over 100 percent capacity," he said. "We were busting at the seams when we did that."

In the past two years, however, the state's prison population has dropped 6.6 percent, a recent report found.

Williams said even though population projections are now much lower than they were when talk of Clayton first surfaced, the state still needs the facility, particularly because it will provide beds for medium-custody, or level 3, inmates.

"That's where we need the bed space, and that's what Clayton will provide us," he said.

Inmates from a variety of facilities will be moved to Clayton, which is expected to be full within 60 days of opening.

Questions about Clayton

As it gets ready to open, there are other questions about the cost of building the new prison.

A review done for the Legislative Finance Committee in 2007 found that the prison's actual cost will be much higher than the construction costs, which at the time of the report were estimated to be $61 million.

Over twenty years, the state will pay $132 million in construction and finance charges, but will not own the building, according to the report.

As part of the $95.33 per diem the state will pay to house inmates in the new prison, $27.81 will go to pay construction costs.

The high cost of building private prisons has left some lawmakers concerned about whether the state can afford to keep so many inmates there.

Williams said a big part of the reason the building cost was so high was because construction costs have gone way up.

"You look at the cost of a gallon of gas and then you look at the cost of a new prison bed, and everything is going to have its increases and it is inflationary," he said.

Williams also pointed out that the cost of labor has gone up since prisons were built 10 years ago in Hobbs and Santa Rosa.

Other lawmakers have a philosophical opposition to the opening of the Clayton prison, and to private prisons in general, saying it's the job of the government, not corporations, to house prisoners.

"I don't believe it's the right way, I don't think they should be for profit," said Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen. Sanchez said prisons are the state's responsibility.

"Hopefully Clayton will be the last one," he said.

An inmate drought?

It's unclear, however, when the state will need another new prison.

The state was expected to run out of bed space in August of 2011 for males and in March of 2012 for females, but that's no longer the case.

The most recent projections show the state is expected to run out of space in 2017 for men and in 2015 for women. The department warns, however, that those projections are subject to change.

"Our projections totally changed from last year to this year where we were on a spike up, and now we're growing but at a much smaller pace," Williams said.

While it has dropped off recently, the population is expected to grow by about 1.4 percent in the coming years.

"We're in a great state as far as corrections go for the first time in many, many years, I think," he said. "I think we're in a position a lot of states wish they were. We have room and capacity to grow."

So why is the prison population — long on the increase — now decreasing?

A recent report by the New Mexico Sentencing Commission shows the state's prison population has dropped for several reasons.

The study, released last week, said one reason is a Corrections Department policy that is increasingly imposing sanctions other than prison for technical parole violations such as missing a counseling session.

The study also said a 2006 state law that allows the department to let nonviolent inmates earn time off during the first 60 days of their stay is leading to some inmates getting out of prison sooner. Previously, inmates had to wait to start earning time.

It also said felony drug courts were playing a role. The state now has 31, and the report says that although the courts are not a diversion option for prison, they may indirectly keep offenders from being rearrested and going to prison. The courts provide treatment, mandatory drug testing and judicial oversight, among other things.

But if the projections are now lower than they have been, that might be a good thing for the Corrections Department.

When it did its report, the LFC found the department wasn't ready for projected growth.

"The department lacks active long-term planning to accommodate inmate growth, leading to a disjointed approach to acquiring bed space that proves costly," according to the report. The committee asked the department to put together a 10-year plan, which it has.

But, Williams said, the plan was outdated almost as soon as it was written.

"I didn't like 10-year plans because things are ever-changing in the department, projections, forecasts," he said. "It's hard enough to predict year to year or two years."

Williams also pointed out that there are advantages to having some space available in the state's prisons. The state now has enough room — and the cash — to refurbish some cells at the state penitentiary and Western New Mexico Correctional Facility, work that has been a long time coming, he said.

In addition, Williams said the state is considering implementing recent recommendations of a prison reform task force appointed by Richardson.

"The plan is hopefully this prison reform might change the way we do business forever," he said. "If we are diverting people into drug courts and mental health courts and our re-entry initiatives are successful, it could be a while before we see a new prison."

Contact Kate Nash at 986-3036 or knash@sfnewmexican.com. Read her blog, Green Chile Chatter, at www.sfnewmexican.com.

New Clayton prison at a glance

Name: Northeast New Mexico Correctional Facility

Cost to build: $63 million, paid by the town of Clayton using revenue bonds. Clayton will own the building.

Cost per inmate per night: $95.33, the most expensive privately run prison in the state.

Capacity: 625 beds, 600 of which will be used by the state Department of Corrections.

Square footage: 228,000 square feet; sits on more than 60 acres of land owned by the town of Clayton.

Jobs created: Expected to employ 191 people. Jobs include correctional officers, clerical work, food service, education and business management. Correctional officers will start at $12.26 an hour.

High-tech feature: The prison is built with gas ports in the ceiling, which would be used to help in a disturbance.

Expected opening date: Aug. 1

Sources: The GEO Group, Inc., the state Corrections Department

More on this site:
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/SantaFeNorthernNM/prisonclayton--ready-
Stories:

* Prison firms donate thousands to Richardson
* Who is in prison?
* State figures show private prisons cheaper to run, but N.M. pays more than others.