December 6, 1998

WALKER TO PUSH BILL ALLOWING PRIVATE PRISONS IN WI

Corrections Chair To Introduce Bill to Allow Construction and Operation

The Chair of the Assembly Committee on Corrections and the Courts will introduce legislation to allow private firms to build and operate an accredited prison in Wisconsin under the supervision of the Department of Corrections (DOC). State Representative Scott Walker (R-Wauwatosa) will introduce the legislation at the start of the next session.

"We are sending thousands of inmates to public and private facilities in other states," says Walker. "It only makes sense that we allow a private firm to build and operate an accredited facility in our own state. The jobs and taxes that come from a prison should stay in our own state."

Current law allows the state DOC to contract with a private prison to hold Wisconsin inmates in all 49 other states, but not in Wisconsin. As of December 4, 1998, 3,145 inmates are held in contract beds outside of the system. Of that total, 1,099 are at a private prison in Whiteville, Tennessee. Overcrowding is the major reason for sending inmates to out-of-state facilities: the total inmate population is 17,814 in a system with an operating capacity of just 10,643 (without contract beds).

"With more than three-quarters of the prison population in for assaultive offenses, we need a place to keep these violent criminals," Walker says. "Overcrowding puts our correctional officers at risk and we cannot release these inmates back into the community."

Last Wednesday, the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee approved funding for an additional 457 out-of-state contract beds. The budget request from the DOC calls for 4,500 more contract beds in the 1999/2000 state budget.

"A private firm can get a prison up and running within 14 months," says Walker. "Instead of the two to three years it takes to cut through government red tape, we can get inmates into a prison within a year."

Walker has been working with DOC Secretary Michael Sullivan on language to include in the bill. He wants to provide the state with authority to supervise and inspect private prisons in the state.

The average daily cost per inmate in Wisconsin is $53.51. The cost at county jails in Texas is $39.96, at private prisons in Tennessee and Oklahoma is $42 and at a federal prison in Minnesota is $42.