March 13, 2006

Dear Editor:

In your March 12 editorial "Prison needs more cells," you discuss the debate over replacing an old prison cell house or building a new prison. Your readers and the members of the legislature should consider the benefits of public-private correctional partnerships in meeting the need for modern prison bed capacity and providing the kinds of services that will lead to reduced recidivism.

Several recent studies should be of interest.

• The Allegheny Institute found that Delaware County, Pennsylvania, saved more than $37 million over seven years by using a private operator to build and manage their county prison.
• A study funded by the U.S Department of Justice, focused on the privately managed Taft Correctional Institution, found operating costs 6-10% less than the cost of government operation at comparable facilities.
• Two Vanderbilt University professors found that having at least 20% of a state's prison beds managed by private contractors slows the rate of increase in the state's cost to operate the other 80% by almost 10% over five years.

Public-private correctional partnerships also provide the state with new sources of capital, the potential for innovation in correctional policy, and the opportunity for performance-based contracts, which drive high quality of service and increased levels of accountability to the contracting government agency.

By eliminating overcrowding, the State will be better able to provide treatment, education, and rehabilitation services that can lead to reducing recidivism.

The Association of Private Correctional and Treatment Organizations urges the legislature to consider these advantages as they seek to meet the State's needs.

Sincerely,
 

 
Paul Doucette
Association of Private Correctional and Treatment Organizations
www.apcto.org

Building prison or jail facilities has to rank near the bottom in popularity with the public, in how we want government to spend our tax money. Elected officials know this.

It can be a hard sell to convince them that additional or remodeled incarceration space is truly needed .But it s difficult to argue with cold, hard numbers. One study projected North Dakota s annual rate of growth in the number of prisoners at about 17 percent. There are more than 1,400 inmates in the state system now. Unless the number of crimes drops or judges sentencing patterns change, the need for cells and space for other prison functions will keep on growing.

This growth figure takes into account that the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has to figure out what to do with inmates it has been shipping off to a private prison in Minnesota, but no longer can. The Legislature will face a choice: Build a new state penitentiary or replace the century-old east cell house, which has ceased to be adequate. There is one choice that should not be available to lawmakers next year doing nothing. The cost differential is substantial: An estimated $120 million for a new facility versus somewhere around $31 million for a new east cell house, infirmary, laundry and other facilities.

An interesting idea has been floated: Build a combined state penitentiary and regional jail facility. There are several arguments against doing so, some of them jurisdictional, others involving practical problems in managing different kinds of jail and prison populations. A united front should emerge, involving Gov. John Hoeven (who repeatedly has urged a solution), DOCR officials and the legislators with their hands on the purse strings, to present the case for the most economical solution, which may not be the cheapest solution. The challenge will be for those in charge of making the decision to polish up the crystal ball and try to view the best long-term solution addressing the needs to be presented five, 10 and 20 years into the future, or even later than that.

It s a sad commentary on our society that the likelihood is great the number of those incarcerated will only keep growing every year. Lawmakers who have to find ways to fund state building projects and taxpayers, for that matter would be overjoyed if human nature experienced a miraculous transformation and no one committed any further crimes, so that we wouldn t have to pay to imprison new or repeat offenders.

That isn t going to happen.

But those who unfortunately do offend should be housed in a decent facility, and the work environment of DOCR staff should be modern and relatively comfortable as comfortable as a prison ever can be.

We ll have to grit our teeth and pay for whatever kind of a new building is best.