The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Hofmann said the new prison contract was not directly related to the massive reorganization of prisons here in Vermont, but instead because the state has been challenged over the last half-dozen years with offenders who are difficult to relocate.

Vermont may pull some of its offenders currently at prisons in Oklahoma, Tennessee and Arizona and move them to the new Alabama facility, Hofmann added. Once the transition is complete, about 10 percent of the state's out-of-state prisoners will be in Alabama and most of the remaining 90 percent at another facility in Kentucky.

Hofmann said it is cheaper for the state to send offenders to facilities in other states. It costs about $140 a day to house an offender in a Vermont prison, he explained, as opposed to the $50 a day bid that was placed by LCS Corrections.

"There is no final count yet, but we are looking to move about 40 offenders from West Tennessee and 20 from Oklahoma," Hofmann said.

In its brochure touting the Alabama prison, LCS Corrections describes itself as a "privately owned and operated correctional company" with contracts with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, United States Marshals Services and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

A Web site or phone number for the company could not be located Wednesday.

The company operates several large, for-profit prisons in the south, including Louisiana and Texas. But Perry County Correctional Center appears to be its newest facility, with construction completed in April 2006.

A September 2006 story in the Birmingham News newspaper about the prison notes that officials spent $20 million to build it under the assumption that the state of Alabama would contract to house some of its prisoners.

However, according to the newspaper article, the state rejected LCS Corrections' offer and went with a lower bidder. Instead the company got a contract with the federal government to house immigrants in the United States who are here illegally.

Members of the Vermont Legislature's Corrections Oversight Committee, a body that includes Democrats and Republicans from the House and the Senate, expressed interest Wednesday in closely watching this transition of out-of-state prisoners.

Sen. Richard Sears, D-Bennington, the committee chair, said his main concern was the atmosphere in these out-of-state prisons and if Vermont offenders would be changed for the worse by the experience of staying there.

Sears said some Vermont prisoners who spent time at a Virginia prison came back to the state with racist beliefs and violent tendencies. He remembered meeting with one Bellows Falls man who returned to Vermont from an out-of-state prison covered in "White Power" tattoos. That man later went back to prison for raping a woman, Sears said.

"He went from being a nonviolent offender to becoming a rapist," Sears said. "It was like night and day the difference between offenders who went to Kentucky and those who went to Virginia."

Hofmann also gave lawmakers an update Wednesday on the reorganization of Vermont's prisons, which is aimed at reducing the overall costs of the state-run system.

Details include:

# The St. Albans prison is now under reconstruction and is on track to reopen as a women's facility in January 2009

# A new exterior fence is being placed at the Windsor facility and that location is on schedule to become a male-only work camp in March 2009

# Waterbury's Dale facility is in the process of shutting down as some staff relocate and move on into other parts of the corrections system

Hofmann also had a piece of bad news for lawmakers: Vermont's prison population is on the rise again after dipping in the last year.

Since July 1, there are 100 more people incarcerated than before, he said, but the total number is still about 100 below the state's highest population level reached 18 months ago.
http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081113/NEWS01/811130373/1002/NEWS01&template=printart