Hypocrites and Profiteers: AZ Regent Dennis DeConcini finally leaving CCA?

DeConcini No Longer on Private Prison Company Board of Directors

Posted by Mari Herreras
Mon, May 12, 2014 at 11:14 AM

Tucson Weekly

After two years of putting pressure on Dennis DeConcini to resign from private prison firm Corrections Corporation of America's board of directors, the American Friends Service Committee and other organizations behind the effort announced this morning that the former senator may have resigned.

According to an AFSC press release, CCA filed a notification with the Securities Exchange Commission on April 3, "indicating that DeConcini is not on the company’s slate of nominees for Board of Directors for the coming year. The Board meets this Thursday, May 15th."

At the beginning of the resignation campaign, DeConcini was a member of the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) and his law firm represented the Tucson Unified School District during the district's most contentious matters of late—the state's dismantling of the district's Mexican-American studies program and the district's ongoing 40-plus year desegregation case.

In our March 29, 2012 story on the resignation campaign, DeConcini didn't seem interested in resigning or safety concerns brought up in an AFSC report:

"I've been involved in prison reform a long time, and as I explained to the coalition group ... government has failed to provide humane and constitutional standards for prisoners," DeConcini said, adding that private prisons are needed to help states with strapped resources, similar to how the federal government uses contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Last month, the Tucson office of the American Friends Service Committee issued a report on financial and security issues surrounding private prisons in Arizona (See "No Disclosure," Feb. 23), including CCA. The report also mentions the fact that private prisons do not have to operate transparently and comply with public-records requests.

DeConcini said he hasn't read the report, but he knew that CCA reps reviewed it. "I've been told we have much information that disputes (the report)—not that atrocities have not occurred. When they do, (people) are held responsible."

Regarding transparency issues, DeConcini said: "I'm concerned only that CCA, as any corporation, complies with all of the laws that are required. I'm satisfied from my review that they do. ... We are not a public entity."
From today's AFSC press release:

The private prison industry is one of the driving forces behind the criminalization of migrants in this country. With its voracious appetite for profits, the private prison industry maximizes its profits by increasing the number of detainees while lowering costs, i.e., spending on detention—cheaper food, less highly skilled staff, fewer services.

The private prison industry heavily lobbies federal and state decision-makers. A 2012 Associated Press investigation found that the three major private prison corporations spent roughly $45 million over the past decade to influence state and federal government. This money buys them not only contracts, but influence over policy at the state and national levels. CCA was closely linked to the passage of anti-immigrant legislation SB 1070 in Arizona.

In addition, the for-profit prison industry operates a “revolving door” between the public and private sectors, hiring former legislators as lobbyists (or, in the case of DeConcini, board members) and placing its lobbyists (current or former) in positions of power in state and federal government.

Until the launch of the FUERZA! campaign, DeConcini’s involvement with the private prison industry was relatively unknown. Since then, his name has frequently been linked with news coverage and discussion of the private prison industry.

The FUERZA! Coalition used a range of creative tactics to expose Senator DeConcini’s role in the industry behind criminalizing migrant families. Community members attended meetings of the Board of Regents, drawing attention to the heavy influence of the private prison sector on Arizona’s system of public universities. They utilized traditional and social media, public protests, and even a flashmob.

FUERZA! members and parents attended a meeting of the Tucson Unified School District and called upon them to investigate the potential conflict caused by the DeConcini, Yetwin & Lacy law firm representing TUSD for over twenty years. Since funds for incarceration directly compete with funds for k-12 education from both the state and federal government, schools essentially have to “compete” with private prison companies for public dollars.

The NAACP of Maricopa County filed an ethics complaint against the former Senator alleging a conflict of interest between his profiteering on incarceration and his representation of the interests of Arizona’s students as a member of ABOR.

Over 1,000 community members and neighbors of Senator DeConcini mailed postcards asking him to resign.

Senator DeConcini’s stepping down from the CCA Board remains a largely symbolic win, since he retains 17,105 shares valued at approximately $545,000, ensuring he continues to profit from the incarceration of family members from our community.

Yet the message to elected officials and other community leaders is clear: affiliation with the for-profit prison and immigrant detention industry is deeply unpopular with the public and will not go unchallenged. This is particularly salient point for DeConcini, a Democrat who claims a track record on support for human rights and immigration reform. The community was particularly outraged to see a politician who would testify in congress against SB1070 one day and cash in on dividends generated by immigrant detention the next.

DeConcini became the posterchild for politicians cashing in on this destructive industry. By highlighting his hypocrisy, FUERZA! exposed the crass profiteering on human misery that is the business model of not just CCA, but a host of other corporations, large and small. It revealed a local connection to a global industry, allowing immigrants and the community at large to connect the dots and see how their lives are directly impacted by the political and economic decisions being made and influenced by these companies and their political supporters.

Red Rock Ready: AZ prisoners soon to fill CCA prison in Eloy.

Interesting how deftly AZ DOC director Chuck Ryan managed to duck responsibility for these private prison contracts by saying he's just implementing policy - the AZ Legs wouldn't have ordered him to privatize anything if he told them it would be a bad idea, and I sure never heard him put up a fight. 

I also find it interesting that there's no mention of filling Red Rock with sex offenders, which is what he told me he was planning when I met with him just a couple of weeks ago. That isn't still some kind of secret from the Eloy community, I hope - though its an easy and relatively inexpensive population for private companies to manage. 

Given the absurd minimum mandatory sentences in Arizona, unless we do something drastically different then regardless of who we send to Red Rock, I'm sure this place will keep that prison full another 20 years, sad to say.

Dianne Post of the Maricopa County NAACP met with Director Ryan and his staff and I earlier this month to discuss why the violence is so out of control in his prisons and what he intends to do about it, by the way. I'll have more on that in another week or so; right now I'm just enjoying my family. 

So, blessings to all out there for a better year. Tell your legislators now that we want an end to minimum mandatories and privatization, some kind of meaningful oversight of the AZ DOC, and accountability for these private prisons so they have that in their heads when the next session opens in January. They are all at 1700 W Washington St. Phoenix 85007 or find them here. 

Arizona House of Representatives 2013

Arizona faces growing cost of private prisons

State begins to place inmates in new facility

By Craig Harris The Republic | azcentral.com  

Sun Dec 29, 2013 12:39 AM

 

The Red Rock Correctional Center, Arizona’s newest private prison, will begin housing inmates next month, with taxpayers guaranteeing its owner a profit to help alleviate overcrowding in the state penitentiary system.
State Corrections Director Charles Ryan hopes to house up to 1,000 inmates there by the end of next year — twice the number originally planned in the first year. The facility along East Arica Road and Arizona 87 just outside Eloy has the capacity for 1,596 inmates.

The complex about 65 miles south of Phoenix was built in 2006 by Corrections Corporation of America to house inmates for the state of California. After CCA won an open-bid contract last year to house Arizona inmates, it moved its California prisoners to other CCA sites around the country.

According to Ryan, state-owned facilities have roughly 5,000 inmates sleeping in temporary beds because of overcrowding. Arizona, as of Friday, housed 41,157 inmates, about one-sixth of them in private facilities.

“The department was in need of beds,” Ryan said. “The solution was a private-prison operator.”

Corrections officials forecast the state prison population will surpass 43,000 in fiscal 2016, despite four recent years of relatively little growth or declines in the population.

The Corrections Department is wary of building its own new prisons to accommodate the growth, citing costs that could exceed $100 million. Instead, it is expanding its use of private prisons.

If the contract lasts 20 years as expected, the long-term cost of the CCA contract is likely to exceed $400 million.

CCA wins contract

The Corrections Corporation of America beat four other private-prison companies in August 2012 to win the contract.

CCA is guaranteed a 90 percent occupancy rate at Red Rock, meaning the state will transfer inmates out of state-operated facilities and into the private prison until the minimum occupancy is met.

The guarantee requires a minimum of 450 inmates by the end of the first year, and 900 by the end of the second, but Ryan wants to accelerate the transfer of up to 1,000 inmates in 2014. There also is room to expand to the facility’s capacity.

Arizona will pay CCA $65.43 a day per inmate. Once the contract is fully implemented, the 90 percent occupancy guarantee will result in the company being paid at least $58,887 a day for 900 inmates — nearly $21.5 million a year. The contract is for an initial term of 10 years, with two five-year renewal options upon mutual agreement. Should the contract run 20 years, CCA could make at least $430 million. Ownership of the facility would transfer to the state after 20 years.

The Arizona Republic reviewed Corrections documents and CCA financial records and calculated the company’s operating margin on the Red Rock contract. The operating margin measures how much of each dollar of revenue from the state Red Rock will keep after ordinary expenses.

The Nashville-based company, which is publicly held, said in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing that its average total daily expenses per inmate at facilities it owns and manages was $45.89 during the first nine months of 2013. Based on that figure, Arizona’s daily payment will provide $19.54 in daily operating income per inmate, as compared with $22.23 in daily income per inmate the company typically makes in other facilities it owns and operates.

That equates to an operating margin of about 30 percent on the Red Rock contract. The company, which operates 69 facilities in 20 states and the District of Columbia, averages just more than a 29 percent operating margin at all facilities it manages or owns, according to a recent company filing.

The state is requiring CCA to make numerous improvements, such as building a new softball field, enhancing dining facilities and adding parking at Red Rock. The company, in an SEC filing, said it expects to incur approximately $20.5 million in capital-improvement expenses — less than what it will make in an entire year with Arizona’s occupancy guarantee.

“We are being compensated for a service we provide,” said Steven Owen, a CCA spokesman. “It’s a very specialized service.... We are providing cost savings at the end of the day to taxpayers and relieving unsafe overcrowding.”

Corrections Corporation of America trades on the New York Stock Exchange. For the first nine months of this year, it recorded $1.26 billion in revenue and posted $253.3 million in profit — more than double the earnings recorded for the same time in 2012.

High occupancy

Critics say promising such a high inmate-occupancy rate at Red Rock guarantees CCA a healthy bottom line at taxpayer expense. The occupancy guarantee at Red Rock, however, is the lowest among the state’s three private-prison operators, with other sites having occupancy guarantees of 95 to 100 percent, according to Corrections Department records. The other private operators are the GEO Group Inc. and Management & Training Corp.

Ryan said occupancy-rate guarantees are a way for the state to secure a fixed cost to house inmates, and it keeps contractors from raising rates because of demand. The guarantees also are needed, he said, to attract private-prison operators who must recover their costs to build facilities. The state saves money upfront by not having to build new prisons despite a growing inmate population, he said. The state also assumes ownership of the facilities at the end of the contract.

“We are not closing state prison beds to ensure a private-bed operator a guaranteed occupancy rate,” Ryan said.

But Shar Habibi, research and policy director for a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group called In the Public Interest, said Arizona taxpayers are on the hook if the CCA beds and other private facilities go unused.

“If you don’t fill those beds, you are still paying for them,” said Habibi, whose group monitors private-prison contracts around the country.

CCA spokesman Owen called In the Public Interest’s claims against private-prison companies “sensationalized.” He said occupancy guarantees are commonly used by state governments to control costs.

“We look at what we can do to provide the most cost-effective solutions,” Owen said.

But Justin Jones, former Oklahoma Department of Corrections director who has worked with Habibi and is an opponent of private prisons, said correctional facilities should be used to reduce recidivism — not become a “profit machine” for private businesses.

Lower costs

Arizona began looking at private prisons in the late 1980s, Ryan said, when a group of lawmakers and Corrections officials visited Louisiana and compared the operational cost between state-run and private facilities.

Ryan, at the time an upper manager at DOC, was asked to go on the trip and assess staffing levels and operations. He said he concluded that the private prison had lower operating costs because it did not have a correctional officer at all of the security posts.

He said his opinion was not solicited at the time about whether Arizona should have private prisons. He sidesteps the question today.

“Private prisons are part of the public policy of the state of Arizona as determined by the Legislature and the executive branch,” Ryan said. “I am here to support the public policy, and that public policy has served the Department of Corrections and the state of Arizona particularly well during difficult budgetary times.... To me, it’s not a philosophical issue. It’s a business decision.”

Arizona’s first contract prison opened in Marana in October 1994, 10 months after a “truth in sentencing” law went into effect that dramatically increased prison sentences and the state’s inmate population, which at the time was just less than 19,000 inmates. Arizona’s prison population is now more than double that.

And since fiscal 1995, the number of in-state private-prison inmates has grown from 273 to 6,489. Arizona also contracted to house inmates with out-of-state private prisons from fiscal 2004 to 2010.

Whether CCA or other private-prison operators save the state money is debatable.

A Corrections Department study found it was less expensive in 2008, 2009 and 2010 to house inmates in state-run medium-security facilities compared with similar in-state private facilities.

That still may be the case, but it is difficult to determine because the state no longer factors inmate costs the same way.

In fiscal 2013, which ended June 30, the non-adjusted average daily cost per inmate at a medium-security prison was $64.52, compared with the private-prison cost of $58.82.

However the state’s number includes inmates who have significant medical or mental-health issues. The private prisons house only healthy inmates.

When an adjustment is made for the medical costs, the balance tips significantly in the state’s favor.
The adjusted 2010 daily cost of housing a medium-security inmate in a state-run facility was $48.42, compared with the private-prison cost of $53.02.

Ryan acknowledged that private-prison inmates are “a healthier, less-expensive population” to house.
The Legislature in 2012 repealed the law that required the Corrections Department to conduct a state and private cost comparison, which had occurred since fiscal 1995.

Deaths in CCA Custody: Michael Patrick McNaughton, 55: murdered.

Michael Patrick McNaughton, 55, was beaten to death last weekend in a federal lock-up run by Corrections Corporation of America in Florence, AZ. Headlines widely reported it as a "fight", but all that the text of those articles said was that officers witnessed this man being assaulted by his cellie. CCA was quick to deny that there was any sign of problems between the two, so I don't know why they said it was a "fight" in their press releases, too. They must have had indication that the two men weren't getting along to characterize it that way - or else they're trying to blame the victim for his own death by suggesting he willingly participated in it. This is the only article I've seen that flat out calls it an assault.

In any case, condolences to this victim's family. I hope you hire an attorney to do an indepedent investigation of how this happened - you really need one who understand laws specific to suing prisons, so here are some I know who have litigated wrongful deaths and injuries of prisoners in Arizona, often on contingency:

List of Attorneys who have litigated the AZ DOC

If there's anything I might be able to do to help you through the aftermath of losing  a loved one in prison, too, please let me know. My name is Peggy Plews; my contact info is 480-580-6807 / arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com. I'm not a professional anything - I'm just an artist and activist. But I've heard from a lot of families in your shoes over the past few years, and will do what I can to support you. Just don't count on the Feds or CCA to tell you the truth - do your own investigation, requesting records from the hospital, 911 operators and paramedics, as well as from CCA.

Good luck and take care. 

---------------

Victim, suspect in fatal prison assault ID'd

November 17, 2013 3:47 pm  •  Veronica M. Cruz Arizona Daily Star

Authorities have identified the victim and suspect involved in a fatal assault at a Florence prison Saturday.
Corrections officers at the Corrections Corporation of America, a private prison, saw 43-year-old Roberto Venegas-Fernandez assault his cell mate, 55-year-old Michael Patrick McNaughton during an inspection Saturday morning, according to a news release from the Pinal County Sheriff's Office.

Corrections officers entered the cell and subdued Venegas-Fernandez, the release said.

McNaughton was pronounced dead at the scene.

Both men, who are from the San Diego area, were transported to the prison from a Southern California facility Friday night and neither men expressed any concern about being housed together, the release said.
The men were being held in the Florence prison pending their transfer to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

AZ DOC needs new director, not new prisons...

 

ASPC-PHOENIX/AZ State Hospital

September 2013

---------------from the blog of the AFSC inTucson: Cell-out Arizona-----------------

AZ Dept. of Corrections Wants 1,500 MORE Private Prison Beds

The Tucson CITIZEN
by cell-out-arizona on Oct. 03, 2013

In its initial FY15 budget request to the Governor, the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) asked for legislative approval to contract out another 1,500 medium-security prison beds to a private, for-profit corporation.

This is in addition to the 2,000 private prison beds that are just beginning to come online. That contract was awarded to Corrections Corporation of America for its Red Rock Facility.

ADC is also in the process of bidding out construction of 500 maximum security beds, despite the fact that during FY 2013, ADC had an operational surplus of 322 maximum beds and projected no change in operational capacity for FY2014. This project will cost a minimum of $50 million in construction costs, to say nothing of operating costs.

And, wasn’t the state prison population going down?

Yes, it was. Arizona’s  prison population peaked in 2009 at 40,766 inmates. During the subsequent two years, that population declined by an average of 25.5 inmates per month, to a total of 40,154 on October 31, 2011. For Fiscal Year 2012 it essentially flatlined, and this was predicted to continue through 2013.
But mysteriously, the Department of Corrections recently reported that the population increased in 2013 by 800 prisoners.

What is behind this unexpected increase in prison population?

	Admissions	Releases	Length of Stay
FY2012	18,070	18,374	22.8 months
FY 2013	18,677	17,868	23.53 months
CHANGE	Increase: 607	Reduction: 506	Increase: 0.73 months

In short, there were more admissions, fewer releases, and longer lengths of stay in 2013. It’s not just that more people went to prison in 2013, it’s that fewer people got out.

Under Arizona’s ‘truth in sentencing’ law, prisoners may receive “earned release credits,” allowing them to be released after they have served 85% of their sentence. The Department of Corrections (DOC) has the sole discretion in the award of these credits, and there are many exemptions and opportunities for credits to be withheld.

For example, credits may be forfeited if a prisoner “fails to comply with Department rules, resulting in being reclassified to a higher risk status.” Classification is an entirely administrative matter, with no outside review, based in some cases on the number of tickets awarded for major and minor infractions.

This is a particular concern for prisoners with mental illnesses or developmental disabilities, who are literally incapable of controlling their behavior. These prisoners get tickets for misbehavior and ultimately are classified as “high risk,” landing on yards where they are no longer eligible for educational, work, or treatment programs.

The policy also allows for forfeiture of credits for inmates who fail to “demonstrate a continual willingness to volunteer for or successfully participate in work, education, treatment, or training programs.” This is a highly subjective assessment, often made by guards at the unit level. There have been cases of guards awarding tickets or writing up prisoners in retaliation for perceived personal slights or because they “don’t like his attitude.”

In 2004, the first year of the program, 296 inmates were released. In 2008, a year after eligibility was expanded to second time drug offenders, 879 were released, leading to an estimated savings of $1,039,040. After the program was expanded to include all non-violent offenders, enrollment saw a modest increase, which then leveled off:

Year	Participants	Cost Savings
2010	1,055	$1,341,062
2011	1,122	$1,126,250
2012	1,122	$1,038,224

The Department of Corrections reported that in December of 2012, it held 9,642 non-violent offenders who were US citizens and therefore eligible for the program. So, in 2012, less than 12% of potentially eligible prisoners were referred to the Transition program.

Is it possible that the Arizona Department of Corrections is deliberately keeping people longer in order to secure its budget allocation?

As we have reported here at Cell-Out Arizona, the Department of Corrections has a history of using “fuzzy math.” In 2010, ADC changed the way it reported the number of “violent” inmates in custody. As a result, ADC claimed that the percentage of violent prisoners had gone up, which conveniently bolstered its request for more high security beds. It’s not unreasonable to suggest that ADC would use similar shenanigans to ensure its substantial share of the General Fund (11%).

Finally, any good business-person knows never to base your future predictions on one year’s statistics. Why assume that just because the population rose modestly in 2013, it will continue to do so?

AFSC submitted a public records request to the Department of Corrections for the data they used to compute their population projection numbers. In addition to ADC population statistics from the past three years, they also sent statistics from the Maricopa County Jail. Maricopa County sentences more people to prison than any other jurisdiction, so it stands to reason that the number of people accused of a felony crime awaiting trial in the jail would be a predictor of the future prison population.

What ADC did not take into account are the numerous reforms taking place in Maricopa County and elsewhere, specifically designed to reduce the prison population. Drug and Mental Health Courts, diversion programs, and other alternatives to incarceration can have a huge impact—as has been demonstrated in many other states over the past few years.

Arizona’s probation reforms, prompted by legislation in 2008, were largely credited with the dramatic reduction seen in prison populations in 2010 and 2011. Counties were revoking fewer people on probation and parole, choosing intermediate sanctions over sending them back to prison.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery recently touted these and other programs in an Op-ed to the Arizona Republic. He writes:

“Arizona has also led the way in diversion programs for drug offenders. Since April 2011, the county has offered diversion to over 6,000 drug offenders, consistent with Arizona law requiring treatment for first- and second-time drug offenses. Last year, other county attorneys and I supported legislation giving us the discretion to offer diversion to drug-possession offenders with a prior drug conviction.

More recently, Maricopa County’s criminal justice agencies began exploring ways to minimize jail time for low-risk inmates who will receive probation and providing rehabilitative services to inmates with a high recidivism risk. These efforts are geared to produce savings to taxpayers without jeopardizing public safety. Clearly, Maricopa County and Arizona have led when it comes to reforming the criminal justice system and will continue to do so.”

These and other programs hold the promise to reduce prison populations in Arizona, save taxpayers millions, and improve public safety. Arizona—once again exemplifying the definition of insanity—is racing in the opposite direction, flushing millions of dollars annually down the private prison toilet.

ICE to investigate CCA Eloy Detention Center over suicides.

They'll investigate, alright, but they aren't about to give CCA the boot. Let's just shut down ICE - and all these houses of detention, while we're at it. It would save a lot of anguish, families, and lives.

 

----------------

Suicides at CCA-run ICE Detention Center Spark Investigation

PRISON LEGAL NEWS
October 2, 2013
by Derek Gilna

Human rights organizations monitoring complaints regarding conditions of confinement for prisoners held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities were likely not surprised when they received news that two detainees had committed suicide at the Eloy Detention Center outside Phoenix, Arizona. The April 2013 deaths of Jorge Garcia-Mejia, 40, and Elsa Guadalupe-Gonzalez, 24, both Guatemalan nationals, three days apart at the Corrections Corporation of America-operated facility, focused attention on for-profit companies housing immigration detainees.

According to Alessandra Soler, executive director of the ACLU of Arizona, "Suicides are a red flag. They usually signify a much larger problem. Sometimes it's because of ineffective mental health treatment, but often times it's caused by poor staffing issues."

Prison Legal News has reported extensively on human rights abuses in private immigration detention facilities, as well as the fact that private prison firms lobby on immigration-related issues and have been implicated in Arizona's enactment of a harsh anti-immigrant law, SB 1070. [See, e.g., PLN, July 2013, p.1; Nov. 2010, p.1]. Around half of the approximately 34,000 immigration detainees held in ICE custody at any given time are housed in privately-operated prisons.

Unfortunately, the rapid expansion of the immigration detainee population, including asylum-seekers and other detainees who are not criminally charged, has not been accompanied by a commensurate increase in the number of mental health professionals or resources available at detention facilities.

Garcia-Mejia hung himself at the Eloy Detention Center on April 30, 2013, while Guadalupe-Gonzalez committed suicide on April 28, also by hanging.

Silky Shah with Detention Watch Network, which has often criticized the federal government's use of for-profit prison contractors like CCA, stated, "Clearly, these two individuals, sadly, weren't getting the care they needed."

The problem is not confined to the 1,596-bed Eloy prison and also extends to medical care in addition to mental health services. According to the federal government, 131 prisoners died in federal immigration custody from October 2003 to December 2012 as a result of strokes, cardiac arrest and asphyxia, including ten who died at Eloy. One of those deaths was that of another Guatemalan detainee who died after undergoing treatment for diabetes complications caused by untreated hyperglycemia. Many detainees have complained of substandard medical care at ICE facilities.

The ACLU sued the Department of Homeland Security in 2008, alleging a refusal on the part of that agency to produce thousands of public documents setting forth details related to the deaths of ICE detainees, and the policies and procedures that contributed to those deaths, which ICE had failed to adequately disclose. [See: PLN, Nov. 2009, p.26; Sept. 2008, p.30].

When private prison companies seek government contracts, they usually tout their ability to cut costs. Unfortunately, however, the brunt of those cost savings is often borne by the detainees. One of the ways that private prisons reduce costs is by cutting staff – and not just in the medical or mental health areas. Further, they are not forthcoming about immigration detainee deaths; notably, as private companies they do not have to comply with the Freedom of Information Act as federal agencies must. [See: PLN, Feb. 2009, p.10].

ICE spokesperson Amber Cargile said ICE would perform an audit of the Eloy facility's policies and practices related to suicide prevention. "ICE Health Service Corps is conducting a thorough assessment of these incidents. The agency is also assessing Corrections Corporation of America's staffing model to ensure it provides appropriate supervision and monitoring of detainees at the facility," she stated.

That assessment comes too late, according to Victoria Lopez, an ACLU attorney in Arizona, who said, "We have been calling for a number of years now that ICE take a look at their contracts in Arizona including CCA. One of the criticisms, for many years now, about the way that ICE manages these detention centers is that there isn't adequate oversight and inspection. It's either ICE doing the inspections themselves or they contract with private auditors. There's no independent oversight of these conditions in these detention centers."

Until there is greater oversight, more preventable deaths of immigration detainees at for-profit facilities are likely to occur.

Sources: www.ice.gov, www.azcentral.com, Associated Press

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Prison Legal News is only $30/year for prisoners - it's well worth it, so send it to your loved one if you can.

Lock-up quotas and private prisons: sweet deals!

Is it any wonder? These are the kinds of "sound fiscal" decisions AZ Republicans make with prison profiteers, while they try to tell the rest of us it's a good idea and will save money for the state to privatize everything. Really, it's not only immoral, it's a rip-off of the taxpayers as well - we all pay for this kind of thing in more ways than one. 

-------from PR WATCH------

Lockup Quotas Help For-Profit Prison Companies Keep Profits High and Prisons Full

by Brendan Fischer — 

Center for Media and Democracy: PR WATCH

September 20, 2013 - 9:26am

For-profit prison companies like Corrections Corporation of American and GEO Group are no strangers to controversy. Their business model rests on incarceration, and their profits soared throughout the 1990s and 2000s as harsh sentencing laws, the War on Drugs, and tough immigration enforcement led to a dramatic rise in detention and incarceration.

But with crime rates dropping for more than a decade and a new push for sentencing reform and cost-effective alternatives to incarceration, for-profit prison operators have found a new way to keep beds full and profits high. They call them "bed guarantees."

Majority of For-Profit Prison Contracts Include "Lockup Quotas"

A new report from In the Public Interest, a resource center on privatization and public contracting, documented for the first time that some 65 percent of contracts between for-profit prisons and state or local governments include bed guarantees or "lockup quotas." These contractual clauses require that a state keeps prisons full, usually at ninety percent, but in some cases up to a one hundred percent occupancy requirement.

If judges and law enforcement are not pushing enough people into for-profit prisons to meet the quota, taxpayers are on the hook for any unused beds.

“Private prisons have gamed the system and tied the hands of policymakers across the country to an alarming degree,” says report author Shar Habibi, In the Public Interest Research and Policy Director.

The lockup quotas range between 70 percent in a California facility to 100 percent in an Arizona facility, with most contracts requiring a 90 percent occupancy. In Ohio, a 20-year deal with CCA to privately operate the Lake Erie Correctional Institution includes a 90 percent quota; cost-cutting measures in the facility have also led to significant growth in violence, gang activity, and drug use.

Given the longstanding, cozy relationships between for-profit prison companies and legislators -- developed by way of significant campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures, and participation in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) -- questions have long been raised about their role in promoting policies that put more people behind bars and create more demand for prisons. Although these companies have denied lobbying for tough on crime laws, lockup quotas can have a similar impact.

"To keep their private business model successful, [for-profit prison companies] look to the children of tomorrow as the next harvest for their shareholders," says Justin Jones, former head of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. "Society deserves better."

Lockup Quotas "Morally Reprehensible"

Bed guarantee clauses can encourage tough enforcement and sentencing policies, or, at a minimum, can help deter criminal justice reforms that reduce sentences and focus on rehabilitation rather than incarceration. And reform in this area is long overdue.

America has become the world's leader in incarceration, with around half of all prisoners in state facilities there for nonviolent crimes, and half of inmates in federal prisons serving time for drug-related offenses. And the impact of mass incarceration has been disproportionately borne by communities of color. For example, people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites, but have much higher rate of arrests; just 14 percent of regular drug users are black, but they represent 37 percent of those arrested for drug offenses.

But the social costs of mass incarceration have little relevance for CCA or GEO shareholders or Wall Street investors.

"These lockup quotas are morally reprehensible," said Reverend Michael McBride with PICO National Network. “We have a moral charge to rehabilitate incarcerated persons, not to provide an incentive for filling up cells."

Private Contractors Paid for Services They Don't Perform

"Corrections should not be a turnkey for profit machine, and that’s what we turn them into with lockup guarantees," said Jones, the former head of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

In Colorado, even though crime has dropped by a third in the past decade, a lockup quota covering three for-profit prisons has forced taxpayers to keep CCA's prisons full, even as state facilities remain empty; the state has wasted at least $2 million in taxpayer money by using CCA's prisons instead of its own.

“Where else can private contractors get paid for services they do not perform?” asks Alex Friedman, Managing Editor of Prison Legal News.

In Arizona, where three for-profit prison contracts have a 100 percent quota, reports show that the company’s per-day charge for each prisoner has increased an average of 13.9 percent over the course of the contracts.

"When entering a contract to operate a prison, a private company should be required to take on some risk," ITPI's report concludes. "Private prison beds were intended to be a safety valve to address demand that exceeded public capacity. It was never intended that taxpayers would be the safety valve to ensure private prison companies' profits."

New CCA and GEO Group Rap Sheets on SourceWatch

CCA and GEO are the largest for-profit prison operators in the United States. Almost all of their profits are generated by government contracts and therefore come directly from taxpayers. Yet their facilities are failing to deliver, with increased costs, higher levels of recidivism and egregious levels of violence and even death.
The Center for Media and Democracy has created extensive corporate rap sheets on Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group on its wiki resource Sourcewatch.org. The profiles document:

• Allegations of prisoner abuse, civil rights violations, violence, riots, and escapes;

• Accusations of sexual abuse and juvenile mistreatment;

• How cost-cutting strategies have resulted in lower wages and benefits for workers, high employee turnover, insufficient training, and under-staffing, resulting in poor oversight and poor security conditions;

• The high incidence of sexual harassment, employment discrimination, or other labor violations by for-profit prison companies;

• How the companies have evaded taxes and fleeced taxpayers;

• How immigrant detention is a new profit center for these for-profit prison providers.

In addition, the profiles connect the dots between CCA, GEO Group, and organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which pushed legislation to privatize prisons, and at the same time spearheaded the effort to advance harsh sentencing bills to put more people in prison for more time. ALEC was a key proponent of "three-strikes-you're-out" and "truth-in-sentencing" bills, which became law in a majority of states during the 1990s and early 2000s and helped balloon prison populations. GEO Group was an ALEC member for many years and CCA led the Criminal Justice Task Force in the late 1990s.

"Crime control" became a campaign strategy for winning elections in the 1990s -- particularly after the racially-charged "Willie Horton" ad in the 1988 presidential campaign -- and private prisons were presented as a possible solution. At a 1994 ALEC conference, for example, CCA's Robert Britton and Crime Strike's Steve Twist were part of a presentation titled "Campaign School on Crime" designed "to provide legislators with an agenda and plan to advance meaningful crime control this fall and during the coming legislative session." Also part of the "Campaign School" training were Republican pollster Frank Luntz and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist (who in more recent years has become a supporter of criminal justice reform).

"This fall, candidates who campaign on crime, frame the issue effectively, present a credible, tough-on-crime agenda, and debunk the myths and misinformation of their opponents will find an electorate ready to take back the streets from criminals and their apologists," the agenda item read.

Using "crime control" as a political strategy helped lead to America's mass incarceration boom, and high profit margins for CCA and GEO Group -- which these companies are now trying to maintain with lockup quotas.

Read more at the Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group profiles on our sister site Sourcewatch.org.

Prosecutors and Private Prison Profits: Mark Brnovich for AZ AG?

Beau Hodai has done some excellent work exposing the mechanisms of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), as well as the politics of private prisons in Arizona. Check him out at DBA Press most days. I hate to think that anyone could be a worse Attorney General than Tom Horne, but this guy sounds like really bad news (just look at who loves him: they want that disbarred idiot, Andrew Thomas, to run for Governor, too - though if you click on thaticon, it goes to a bankruptcy lawyer, haha!). 

Jan brewer loves him too - that should be a warning to us all. Check this out:

Now take a look at how he did all these great things as the Gaming Director....

--------------from PR WATCH----------------

A Case Study on CCA’s Web of Influence in Arizona: Mark Brnovich

by Beau Hodai [1] — September 23, 2013 - 7:56am

Topics: Corporations [2]

Projects: Outsourcing America Exposed [3]

Share this [4]

  Earlier this year, DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy launched an investigation of the influence of the private prison industry on state policies. The review of public records this summer revealed a surprising connection between Arizona Department of Gaming Director Mark Brnovich and the Corrections Corporation of America [5]. In the midst of this story being written, Brnovich announced he would be leaving his post in state gaming regulation, which paves the way for him to seek the post of state Attorney General.

A former Corrections Corporation of America “senior director of business development” and lobbyist is planning to run for the office of Arizona's top law enforcement officer, Attorney General.

On September 3, Arizona Department of Gaming Director Mark Brnovich sent a letter to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, declaring his intention to resign his post, effective September 20. Although Brnovich has yet to file any formal campaign/committee registration documents with the Office of the Arizona Secretary of State Division of Elections, the Capitol Times reported on September 4, that Brnovich had reserved the website address, "mark4ag.com," on August 23.

Brnovich, a Republican, would likely be challenging incumbent Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne in the 2014 Republican primary election for the office. Over the past year, Horne has been the subject of both federal and Maricopa County investigations into alleged campaign law violations, in that Horne allegedly coordinated with an independent expenditure committee in the creation of negative ads targeted at his Democrat opponent during the 2010 election.

(Maricopa County is the home of Arizona’s urban center, the Phoenix metropolitan area.)
Brnovich has credentials for the office of Attorney General, having previously served as an assistant Arizona Attorney General under former Arizona Governor Jane Dee Hull, and having previously served as a deputy Maricopa County Attorney from August of 1991 to May of 1998.

What is less well known are his ties to Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a for-profit prison corporation that is very influential in Arizona and that has benefited financially from its close ties to the government.

The CCA Man

According to statements of financial disclosure filed with the Office of the Arizona Secretary of State Division of Elections by Brnovich’s wife, former Maricopa County Superior Court Commissioner and current Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Susan Brnovich, Mark Brnovich served as a “senior director of business development” for CCA during the course of 2005, 2006 and 2007. CCA was not Brnovich's sole source of employment during at least part of this time. He also worked as a federal prosecutor while working for or on behalf of CCA during part of this time, according to the financial disclosure forms of his wife.

Statements of financial disclosure filed by Susan Brnovich, per her employment with the courts, are only available with the Office of the Arizona Secretary of State Division of Elections dating back to 2005. There are no publicly-available records of Mark Brnovich's financial interests or employment prior to this point.
Biographical data submitted to the Arizona Legislature pursuant to Mark Brnovich's March 31, 2009, appointment as the director of the Arizona Department of Gaming (ADG) states that Mark Brnovich began his employment with CCA in 2005. Similarly, lobbyist records maintained by the Office of the Utah Lieutenant Governor show that Mark Brnovich was a registered lobbyist for CCA in that state during 2005 and 2006. (Utah lobby reports filed for Brnovich during 2006 and 2007 pertain to Brnovich lobby activity on behalf of CCA during 2005 and 2006).

It is also worth noting that, while statements of financial disclosure filed by Susan Brnovich do not reflect any continued financial interest in CCA beyond 2007, Mark Brnovich -- in neither his capacity as director of the Arizona Department of Gaming, or as chairman of the Arizona Commission on Privatization and Efficiency (to which he was appointed by Governor Jan Brewer in January of 2010) -- has been required to file any statement of financial disclosure, as Arizona law does not require agency or commission heads to file such disclosures.

Neither Mark Brnovich or CCA Senior Director of Public Affairs Steve Owen responded to multiple inquiries relating to either the nature or duration of Brnovich’s employment with CCA.

Mark Brnovich worked as a CCA “senior director of business development” commencing in 2005, also appears to have coincided with the year in which Brnovich was also employed as the “director of the Center for Constitutional Government” at the influential Arizona group, the Goldwater Institute (for more on the Goldwater Institute, see [6]).

Additionally, records indicate that Mark Brnovich served as a Maricopa County judge tempore throughout his entire tenure as “senior director of business development’” for CCA.

The two worlds of Brnovich’s public service/public policy development and for-profit prison corporation employment seem to have merged fully in 2007, a year in which Brnovich worked both on behalf/for CCA and for the federal government.

According to a lobbyist registration amendment filed with the Office of the Arizona Secretary of State Division of Elections, Mark Brnovich was registered as an authorized lobbyist for CCA on February 7, 2007. According to this lobbyist registration form, Brnovich's travel, dining, lodging and out-of-pocket expenses were compensated for on behalf of CCA. According to a lobbyist registration amendment filed with the Office of the Arizona Secretary of State Division of Elections, Mark Brnovich was removed as an authorized CCA lobbyist on December 21, 2007.

These authorized lobbyist registration/amendment forms pertaining to Mark Brnovich were filed by CCA designated lobbyist, and president/CEO of Policy Development Group (PDG), Ron Ober. At the time of Mark Brnovich's appointment as chairman of the Arizona Commission on Privatization and Efficiency by Governor Brewer in January 2010, longtime PDG CCA lobbyist Paul Senseman was employed in the Office of the Governor as communications director. During this period, Senseman's wife, Kathy Senseman, remained with PDG, lobbying on behalf of CCA.

Furthermore, it is interesting to note that CCA lobbyist expenditure reports disclose an apparent meeting between Paul Senseman and Brad Regens on February 2, 2007. Regens was, at the time of this meeting, director of fiscal policy in the Arizona House of Representatives. On November 27, 2007, CCA publicly announced the hiring of Regens as “senior director, state customer relations” (subsequently, Regens has become CCA “vice president, state partnership relations”). Regens, as is reflected by the December 21, 2007, CCA authorized lobbyist registration amendment notification filed by PDG president/CEO Ober, replaced Brnovich in his capacity as a CCA Arizona authorized lobbyist as Brnovich cycled out of the corporation. (For more on CCA's influence in Arizona during this period, see DBA Press [7].)

As required by Arizona Revised Statutes (ARS) 41-1232 (c) (the section of Arizona law that compels the filing of these lobbyist registration and amendment forms), “each principal [the entity employing lobbyists, in this case CCA] shall amend its registration statement within five business days of any change in the information required by subsection A.”

ARS 41-1232 (a) requires that lobbyist principals report -- following the reporting schedule (and five business day requirement) promulgated by subsection C -- a number of different criteria relating to lobbyists they employ. Among these criteria are: “a description of the expenses for which each lobbyist is to be reimbursed by the principal,” “duration of engagement of any lobbyist,” and “the name and business address of each lobbyist for compensation or authorized lobbyist employed by, retained by or representing the principal.”

In a nutshell, this means that any authorized lobbyist personnel change for a principal must be reported in the form of an authorized lobbyist registration/amendment submitted to the Office of the Arizona Secretary of State Division of Elections within five business days of the authorized lobbyist personnel change. In some states, lobbyist reporting laws allow principals or their lobbyists to file such reports of personnel changes quarterly or annually. This is not the case in Arizona. As such, if these CCA lobbyist registration/amendment forms were filed accurately and in accordance with Arizona law, Mark Brnovich was a registered lobbyist in the state of Arizona from within five business days of February 7, 2007, to somewhere within five business days of December 21, 2007.

CCA Senior Director of Public Affairs Steve Owen did not respond to a request for comment on whether the 2007 CCA lobbyist registration/amendment forms [which were provided to Owen] were accurate and filed in accordance with Arizona law.

Furthermore, corporate records on file with the Arizona Corporation Commission show that Mark Brnovich became a director of Foster Angels of Arizona Working Together, Inc. (Foster Angels, a non-profit corporation) on May 1, 2007. According to Arizona Corporation Commission records, information pertaining to Brnovich's role as director of Foster Angels was last updated on November 14, 2007. This information, as purportedly updated in November of 2007, gives Brnovich's address as 3131 E. Camelback Road, Phoenix (the source of this information, as reflected in Arizona Corporation Commission records, is the Foster Angels 2007 annual report, filed October 22, 2007). 3131 E. Camelback Road is the address of CCA's Phoenix corporate office [Note: this is a CCA "satellite" corporate office; CCA is a Maryland corporation headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee.]

The Assistant U.S. Attorney

The reason for stressing the minutiae of Mark Brnovich’s lobby activity/employment on behalf of CCA over the course of 2007 is this: according to a statement of financial disclosure filed by Susan Brnovich on January 24, 2008, Mark Brnovich had two sources of personal compensation over the course of calendar year 2007. Those two sources of compensation were: Corrections Corporation of America and the United States Attorney's Office.

Indeed, according to federal court records, Mark Brnovich, as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona, was assigned as a prosecutor on eleven federal criminal cases (involving the prosecution of ten individuals) in the U.S. District Court of Arizona, from September though November of 2007.

In connection with these cases, four individuals served substantial pre-trial detention time (from between several months to a year and a half) in the custody of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), or in the custody of a “designated representative” thereof.

It is not known if such a “designated representative” in these specific cases was CCA, but two of CCA’s facilities in Arizona primarily serve the federal court system: the Central Arizona Detention Center (2,304 beds) and the Florence Correctional Center (1,824 beds), both of which are located in Pinal County -- which neighbors Maricopa County and Phoenix, home to the Sandra Day O'Connor U.S. Courthouse, to the north; and Pima County and Tucson, home to the Evo A. DeConcini U.S. Courthouse, to the south. In 2007, CCA had a combined total of 4,128 detention and correctional “beds” under contract with the USMS. Arizona was the epicenter of CCA's involvement with USMS in 2007. Of the total 6,885 CCA beds under contract with USMS during that year, only 2,757 were located outside of the state of Arizona -- and of that number, 910 beds contracted with USMS were located in CCA's Torrance County Detention Facility, in Estancia, New Mexico, leaving the remaining USMS beds were scattered through three facilities in Leavenworth, Kansas (767 beds), Laredo, Texas (480 beds), and Mason, Tennessee (600 beds).

These four cases also resulted in a total combined 343 months (roughly 28.6 years, or approximately 10,290 days) of prison sentences to be served in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) by defendants convicted and sentenced through prosecutions of which Brnovich was a part, while apparently still employed by or on behalf of CCA. Brnovich commenced these prosecutions while still apparently working for or on behalf of CCA, but none of these defendants were sentenced until 2008. During the time of Brnovich’s apparent career overlap between CCA and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2007, CCA held contracts for the incarceration of BOP prisoners in the California City Correctional Facility (2,304 beds in California City, California), the McRae Correctional Facility (1,524 beds in McRae, Georgia), the Cibola County Correctional Center (1,129 beds in Milan, New Mexico), the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center (2,016 beds in Youngstown, Ohio), and the Eden Detention Center (1,293 beds in Eden, Texas).

It is not known if any of these four prisoners were accommodated in any of these 8,266 CCA BOP beds,the vast majority of which were in the southwestern United States. What is know is that in 2007, CCA's per prisoner per diem rate with BOP likely ranged from between $50 to $90. These four Brnovich prosecutions resulted in approximately 10,290 days of sentenced BOP prison time and up to $514,500 to $926,100 in potential revenue for CCA, not including possible CCA revenue reaped through pre-trial detention of these defendants via contracts with USMS.

[Note: actual CCA BOP per diem rates for 2007 are not known. Furthermore, according to CCA SEC filings, per diem rates fluctuate between facilities based upon “actual or minimum guaranteed occupancy levels” specific to each contract. (For more "lockup quotas," see the new report by In the Public Interest: "Criminal--How Lockup Quotas and 'Low Crime Taxes' Guarantee Profits for Prison Corporations [8]") The above-given range is a conservative estimate based on known current and past CCA per diem rates with a variety of governmental clients. For example, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Federal Detention Trustee, the average per diem rate paid to a private contractor under a direct contract with USMS in 2007 was $86.20, but the state of Arizona currently contracts medium security beds with CCA at a per diem rate of $65.43 (these beds go online in 2014 at CCA’s Red Rock Correctional Center, also located in Pinal County). Adjusting for per diem rate fluctuations as well as rate reductions in cost through contractual occupancy, a range of $50 to $90 per prisoner per diem is a fair, conservative estimate.

Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to zero in on a more accurate per diem rate for CCA BOP contracts (or any other federal contracts with any private prison contractor) due to the fact that contracts between private prison contractors and federal agencies obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests are consistently redacted to remove any information relating to per diem rates, or other payments, to the contractor. These redactions are applied to financial or other data pertaining to public-private partnerships under FOIA’s “trade secret” exemption (5 United States Code, sec. 552 (b) 4). As such, while public tax dollars finance this industry (and other public-private partnership industries), it is next to impossible to determine the true cost/efficacy of such federal partnerships, absent the leaking of documents through the actions of whistleblowers.]

This is, however, a hell of a price tag to put on a possible conflict of interest.

This is not to suggest that boosting the corporation’s bottom line through these prosecutions was either CCA’s or Brnovich’s intention.

However, CCA is dependent on federal detention and incarceration contracts for prisoners. As stated in CCA's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) annual report for 2007:

“We depend on a limited number of governmental customers for a significant portion of our revenues. We currently derive, and expect to continue to derive, a significant portion of our revenues from a limited number of governmental agencies. The loss of, or a significant decrease in, business from the BOP, ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement], USMS, or various state agencies could seriously harm our financial condition and results of operations.” (emphasis in original)

CCA added that its three main contracts, with BOP, ICE, and USMS, “accounted for 40% of our total revenues for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2007 ($594.8 million). The USMS accounted for 14% of our total revenues for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2007 ($210.4 million), the BOP accounted for 13% of our total revenues for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2007 ($189.9 million), and ICE accounted for 13% of our total revenues for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2007 ($194.5 million). We expect to continue to depend upon the federal agencies and a relatively small group of other governmental customers for a significant percentage of our revenues.”

Neither Brnovich or CCA Senior Director of Public Affairs Steve Owen responded to multiple inquiries relating to either the nature or duration of Brnovich's employment with CCA.

According to Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA) General Counsel's Office Management Analyst Lucy Hurley, Assistant U.S. Attorneys are not required to file any financial disclosure other than a statement disclosing conflicts of interest, should any exist, with each individual case they are assigned.
According to Hurley, these disclosures are known as EOUSA Forms GC01. The office’s Public Affairs Officer Cosme Lopez initially stated that his office would be more than willing to aid in locating disclosure material, if any, pertaining to former Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Brnovich, but subsequently Public Affairs Officer Debra Massey stated, on September 12, that no question relating to Brnovich (including such rudimentary questions such as those pertaining to Brnovich's dates of employment as an assistant U.S. attorney general), or any other matter, would be answered without the submission of a formal FOIA request, which DBA/CMD did but for which the federal government has not responded.

Brnovich also did not respond himself to repeated inquiries regarding potential conflicts of interest during this period.

Nevertheless, it is clear -- whether Brnovich disclosed this as a potential conflict of interest or not -- that he prosecuted these eleven federal criminal cases in the U.S. District Court of Arizona at a time when he was a registered lobbyist for CCA in the state of Arizona, and during a year when he had been employed by the for-profit prison corporation as a ”senior director of business development.”

Redskins and Greenbacks

Another interesting fact emerges from Brnovich’s period of employment with CCA:

From January of 2004 to July of 2007, a team of in-house CCA lobbyists expended a total of $9,620,000 in lobbying a number of federal agencies -- most notably the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The sole specific lobbying issue identified by this group of CCA representatives on any of the lobbying disclosure forms filed with the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives (House Clerk) or the U.S. Senate Office of Public Records during this period of time was the “privatization of BIA detention facilities.” The only other lobbying purpose stated by this group of CCA lobbyists during this time was “legislation and regulatory activities related to the private prison industry.”

This group of CCA lobbyists, only one of several teams of CCA federal lobbyists during this time period, consisted entirely of CCA executives and directors. This executive CCA lobby group was composed, at various times from 2004 through 2007 of: then-CCA Senior Vice President of Customer Relations Damon Hininger (Hininger became president and chief executive officer of CCA in 2009); CCA Senior Director of Federal Government Relations Jeremy Wiley; then-CCA Managing Director of Federal Partnership Relations Bart Verhulst; then-CCA Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer Ken Bouldin; CCA Senior Vice President J. Michael Quinlan (a former BOP director); and then-CCA Executive Vice President and General Counsel Gustavus A. Puryear, IV.

All these men were either Brnovich's employers or colleagues during his time with CCA.

Puryear was nominated as a federal judge in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee by President George W. Bush on June 13 of 2007. This nomination occurred while Puryear was still acting as a CCA executive vice president and general counsel. As a matter of fact, according to SEC records, Puryear purchased 31,100 shares of CCA stock through his employee stock options a little more than two months following his nomination, increasing his total CCA stock holdings at this time to more than 65,000 shares. Due to public outcry, Puryear's nomination was not confirmed. The public campaign [9] against the confirmation of Puryear was organized largely by former CCA prisoner and current Prison Legal News Managing Editor Alex Friedmann. In response, CCA, through its corporate blog, "thecca360.com," published a graphic account of Friedmann's criminal history in an effort to discredit him and derail opposition to the Puryear nomination. After the failed nomination, Puryear departed from CCA in 2010 (he had been employed by CCA since 2001).

From July through December of 2007, this group of CCA lobbyists expended an additional $1,320,000 in lobby activities that included the explicit purpose of lobbying on the issue of the privatization of BIA detention facilities. During the second half of 2007, this CCA executive lobby group also commenced lobbying activities against the Private Prison Information Act of 2007 (“PPIA 2007”), this bill would have brought private prison corporations under contract with federal agencies under the purview of the Freedom of Information Act. CCA vehemently opposed PPIA 2007, as well as PPIA 2009 and PPIA 2011. For more on CCA's opposition to PPIA, see FAIR's analysis [10]), as well as the Public Safety Act (PSA), which would have banned federal use of private prisons/detention centers.

This group of CCA executives/lobbyists added the i “code” for immigration policy to their list of general lobby activity for the first time in 2007, though no specific bill was identified during that year. This is not to say that this was the genesis of CCA's interest in immigrant detention. This was simply the first time this issue code had been used by this set of lobbyists. Lobby reports filed by the CCA executive lobbyist group from 2008 to 2010 and beyond show a distinct shift of focus from BIA detention facility privatization to activity more centered on matters relating to ICE immigrant detention.

According to lobby disclosure records filed with both the House Clerk and Senate Office of Public Records, the CCA executive lobby group did expend an additional $2,010,000 on lobby activity from 2008 through 2009 that included the lobbying of BIA on “issues related to the private prison industry,” although this activity does not appear to have been the primary focus of lobby efforts as it was during 2004 through 2007. The sole explicitly-stated issues identified by the CCA executive lobby group during 2008 and 2009 pertained to PPIA, PSA, the Prison Safe Communications Act, and several appropriations bills relating to ICE immigrant detention. According to federal lobby records, the CCA executive lobby group ceased all BIA lobby activity after the fourth quarter of 2009.

Interestingly, the quarterly average of lobbying expenditures reported by the CCA executive lobby group dropped markedly with the outset of this shift in focus from the privatization of BIA detention centers to matters of immigrant detention and other legislation. To illustrate: from 2004 through 2007 (the sole explicitly-stated purpose from January 2004 through July o2007 being the privatization of BIA detention facilities) this group of CCA lobbyists reported an average expenditure of $672,500 per quarter. [By comparison, lobby expenditures reported by this CCA executive lobby group dropped to $251,250 per quarter during 2008 and 2009 -- a time when their BIA lobby efforts had clearly slackened.

[It is noteworthy that BIA-centered lobby activity peaked from July through December of 2005 with $2,260,000 in reported expenditures. While other general private prison industry-related legislative/regulatory affairs are alluded to in lobby reports filed by this group from 2004 through mid-2007, the weight of lobby activity directed toward BIA can be gauged by the 2006 mid year report. While all other reports filed by this group of CCA lobbyists from 2004 through 2007 (reports from this period were filed in half year increments, rather than quarterly) range from $1,120,000 to more than $2 million, the 2006 mid-year report disclosed a lobby expenditure of only $880,000. By way of rationalizing this drastic lobby expenditure drop, consider this: this report was the sole report filed by this group of CCA lobbyists from 2004 through 2007 that did not list lobbying activity directed specifically at BIA]

So why would the federal lobby expenditures of this group of CCA executives drop off so drastically as they change their focus to the much larger and more lucrative field of immigrant detention? One consideration to bear in mind is this: this is only one group of CCA federal lobbyists -- over the years CCA has employed multiple firms lobbying on issues related to immigrant detention, so this may not have been the priority focus of the executive lobby group.

Another consideration is this: at various times over the course of 2009 and 2010 CCA, Geo Group [11], and Management Training Corporation were part of the American Legislative Exchange Council [12] (ALEC). It was at the December 2009 ALEC meeting that then-Arizona Senator and ALEC leader Russell Pearce introduced a piece of immigration legislation to the ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force (PS&E), a task force which CCA previously chaired and which it had been active member for almost two decades. This “model bill,” once adopted by corporate lobbyists and legislators through ALEC (through an unanimous vote, in which CCA claims it took part), became known as the “No Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants Act,” otherwise known as “SB 1070,” upon its introduction to the Arizona State Legislature, a month and a half later, in mid-January of 2010.

This bill -- which effectively would essentially compel every municipal, county and state law enforcement officer to perform the duties of immigration enforcement officers under certain circumstances -- was promoted to state lawmakers nationwide through ALEC, which was funded in part by private prison companies and other national corporations like Koch Industries, the National Rifle Association, and the American Bail Coalition.CCA and the other private prison companies also funded ALEC’s PS&E task force, which distributed the bill.

As such, it could be argued that a substantial portion of CCA's business growth model may have shifted to the state level around the period of 2009 and 2010, as state immigrant detention policies began to get traction. For more on this, see DBA Press [7].

Parts of SB 1070 have been struck down [13] by the courts. Notably, one of the roles of the Attorney General is to defend state legislation like SB 1070 in state and federal court challenges.

So, in broad strokes, what are we looking at here? From all these numbers, a clear pattern emerges: from 2004 through 2007, CCA executives expended almost $11 million lobbying, primarily for their sole explicitly-stated lobbying purpose: the privatization of Bureau of Indian Affairs detention centers. These years overlap with the known years of Mark Brnovich’s employment with or on behalf of CCA (2005 through 2007). These facts may provide an interesting insight into the possible nature of Brnovich's employment with or on behalf of CCA.

Brnovich is an attorney who specializes in tribal law and tribal government. During Brnovich's work as an assistant attorney general under then-Arizona Governor Jane Dee Hull over the course of 1998 through 2002. (Brnovich stated in materials provided to the Arizona Senate that he worked as an assistant attorney general through 2003. The Hull administration ended in January 2003) Through that work, Brnovich developed ties within Arizona tribal governments, as well as experience with tribal law and state-tribal relationships. This is attested to in Brnovich's own words to the Arizona Senate Committee on Commerce and Economic Development during the confirmation hearing on his appointment as director of the Arizona Department of Gaming, May 19, 2009:

“My resume and biography summarize my experience in matters involving Indian gaming, and I believe I am well qualified and well suited for this position. For example, I represented the Department of Gaming from 1998 through 2003, which was a very critical period. These were the pivotal years in which we negotiated the current [tribal] gaming compacts under which we operate. Additionally, that was a time period in which the state of Arizona and the indigenous tribes strengthened their cooperative relationships. Immediately prior to my appointment, I was an assistant United States attorney here in the District of Arizona, where I focused primarily on gambling and casino-related crimes. During this period I have successfully worked with federal, state and tribal regulators, and police agencies to prosecute criminal activity and coordinate crime prevention programs.”

Indeed, of the ten individuals Brnovich prosecuted during his period of apparent overlap between employment by/on behalf of CCA, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, all but one of these individuals were accused of either crimes committed against casinos operated by Indian tribes on Indian lands (pertaining to thefts/embezzlements perpetrated against casinos owned and located within the Salt River Indian Community and the Gila River Indian Community, in or near the Phoenix metropolitan area), or against Indian individuals committed in “Indian Country” (specifically, Navajo male accused of deliberately wounding another Navajo male with a .22 caliber rifle on the Navajo Reservation in northern Arizona).

It is not known if the BIA itself was involved in any of the arrests, investigations, or in the detention of any of the defendants in Brnovich's 2007 federal prosecutions, but it is clear that Brnovich, through the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona, had his fingers deep in Indian Country at a time when he was -- in the least, since he had also been employed as a "senior director of business development" for CCA during the same year -- a registered lobbyist for a corporation that had a clear and documented desire for profits derived from the incarceration of Indians.

Just as Arizona was the focal point of CCA's involvement with the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) in 2007, and as Arizona was the epicenter of state-based immigration enforcement via “model legislation” from CCA-funded ALEC in 2009 and 2010, Arizona is an excellent starting point for any for-profit prison corporation looking to incarcerate Indians. The state contains nearly 240,000 members of 22 tribes, living on nearly 15 million acres of tribal land. Perhaps most notably, the bulk of the Navajo Nation (consisting of the Navajo Reservation and Navajo Nation off-reservation trust land) is contained within Arizona.

This combined Navajo land, which spreads out from northern Arizona into northwestern New Mexico and southeast Utah (a state in which Brnovich was also registered as a CCA lobbyist), is the largest and most heavily populated piece of Indian Country within the borders of the United States, with 173,667 total residents, according to 2010 Census Bureau data. By comparison, the Navajo Reservation's population dwarfs the nation's second most populous reservation, the Osage Reservation in Oklahoma, total population 47,472. All told, five of the top ten most populous Indian reservations in the United States fall within the political boundaries of Arizona.

The Native American populations of Arizona's reservations are policed by a mixture of tribal officers, BIA Division of Law Enforcement, the U.S. Department of Justice (Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Attorney's Office), and -- to the degree where tribal gaming operations are concerned -- by the Arizona Department of Gaming and the National Indian Gaming Commission.

According to BIA spokeswoman Nedra Darling, CCA previously held contracts for the management of BIA detention facilities in North Dakota and Wyoming, although these facilities are no longer managed by CCA. BIA was not able to provide dates for these contracts. According to Darling, the only current tribal CCA contract on record with BIA (though it is not clear what role BIA plays in this contract) is for the detention of Pascua Yaqi (a reservation located in Pima County, Arizona) tribal members at the Central Arizona Detention Center in Florence, Arizona. Available records indicate that this contract was likely  initiated in 1996.

Neither Brnovich or CCA Senior Director of Public Affairs Steve Owen responded to multiple inquiries relating to either the nature or duration of Brnovich's employment with CCA. Brnovich did not respond to multiple inquiries relating to any role his tribal governmental/criminal justice expertise may have played in his employment with CCA.

A Weak Attempt at Deflection

DBA/CMD attempted several times over the course of September 12, 13 and 16 to obtain comments/information regarding several facets of Brnovich’s employment with CCA and the U.S. Attorney’s Office by contacting Brnovich directly. Over the course of these dates, detailed sets of questions were submitted directly to both Brnovich and his assistant, Kylie Ketchum, through their Arizona Department of Gaming email addresses. Furthermore, DBA/CMD attempted to reach Brnovich by phone at his ADG office on both September 12 and 13. In both instances, DBA/CMD spoke with Ketchum, who advised DBA/CMD that she would forward requests for comment/contact on to Brnovich. Although Brnovich never responded to any of these attempts at contact, on September 16, DBA/CMD was contacted byArizona Department of Gaming (ADG) Assistant Director Rick Medina. In an email Medina stated:

“I received the attached email that you sent to the Arizona Department of Gaming. During his time as a public employee, Mr. Brnovich has never received any compensation from Corrections Corporation of America … The other questions in your email go beyond the scope of gaming regulatory issues, therefore this agency has no information regarding those topics.”

When asked to elaborate on his statement that Brnovich “has never received compensation” from CCA while serving as a “public employee” -- given the fact that Medina’s scope of knowledge and ability to answer questions is limited only to the world of ADG -- Medina offered the following during a phone interview:

“People that work for the Department of Gaming are very carefully screened about their background investigations that are ongoing, even when folks are here, to confirm that they are -- I don't know how much you know about the gaming industry, but it’s a very highly regulated industry. Nobody works as a regulator, or even as an employee of a casino, without being confirmed as being appropriate to work in this industry. And one of the things that you can rest assured is that people operating here at the Department of Gaming have been checked out and cleared for this type of regulatory work -- and that would certainly preclude any type of conflicts of interest. . . .”

But what of Brnovich's employment record prior to his 2010 appointment to ADG? With regard to any potential conflicts of interest stemming from Brnovich’s employment by both the U.S. Attorney's Office and CCA during 2007, Medina stated “I really don't have any personal information on that,” and referred further inquiry to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and CCA.

When asked if ADG had looked into that period of Brnovich’s life (in 2007, where the apparent U.S. Attorney's Office and CCA overlap occurred) while conducting their screening process, Medina stated: “look, I can tell you everybody here is very carefully screened to make sure that they [can] be regulators, but as far as any details about his previous jobs or anything that he did with the federal government, those folks would be in a better position to answer those types of questions.”

As previously noted, the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona has refused to answer any questions relating to Brnovich’s employment, or disclosure of conflicts of interest, without a formal FOIA request. Such a request has been filed with both the Arizona U.S. Attorney's Office and the Executive Office of the United States Attorney. These requests have not been answered.

Neither Brnovich or CCA Senior Director of Public Affairs Steve Owen responded to multiple inquiries relating to either the nature or duration of Brnovich’s employment with CCA.

What was the rigorous screening process that Brnovich was subject to following his nomination as ADG director in late March of 2010?

DBA/CMD submitted a public records request to ADG for copies of any and all records pertaining to background checks conducted regarding Mark Brnovich. In response, Medina delivered (on September 18) a grand total of three pages of documents: a letter from then-Arizona Senate President Bob Burns to Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennet, announcing the Senate's approval and confirmation of Brnovich's appointment (dated May 26, 2009); a congratulatory letter from Governor Brewer (an ALEC alum whose closest advisors include former CCA reps) to Brnovich notifying Brnovich of the Senate’s confirmation of his post (dated May 28, 2009); and a loyalty oath signed by Brnovich (dated April 20, 2009).

In the loyalty oath, he pledged that as Director of the Arizona Department of Gaming he would support and defend “against all enemies, foreign and domestic” the constitutions and laws of both Arizona and the United States. Brnovich also agreed that, should he commit, aid or advocate “the commission of any act to overthrow by force, violence or terrorism [...] the government of this state or any of its political subdivisions,” he would be discharged from office without compensation, or future compensation -- including any benefits. As stout as this oath of office may be, at no point in the oath was Brnovich asked to address any past potential conflicts of interests.

Beyond these ADG records, a confirmation hearing on Brnovich's ADG nomination was held before Arizona Senate Committee on Commerce and Economic Development (CCED) on May 19, 2009. As part of this confirmation process, Brnovich provided the committee with biographical data, which consisted of a two-page resume. According to the office of Arizona Senate Resources, this is the sole piece of documentation pertaining to the Brnovich ADG nomination on file with the Senate. That document disclosed both his past employment with CCA (dates given as “2005-2007”) and the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona (dates given as “2007-2009”).

During this confirmation hearing for the state’s gaming regulation office -- which lasted exactly two minutes and fifty-seven seconds (including Brnovich's statement, questions, unanimous vote for confirmation, and congratulations) -- Senators had the opportunity to ask Brnovich questions pertaining to his suitability for the position, employment history and any potential past or present conflicts of interest. Only one question, posed by then-CCED Chair Sen. Barbara Leff, was asked of Brnovich during the hearing.

Leff: “The only question—I’ve been saying ‘Brnovich’ all this time. It’s ’Brnovich’?”

Brnovich: “’Brnovich’, ‘Brnovich.’”

Leff: “Well, which is correct?”

Brnovich: “Well, my wife says ‘Brnovich,’ my sister says ’Bronovich,’ I say ‘Brnovich,’ so... [laughter in the committee room shared by all...] Tomato, tomahto...”

Leff: [still laughing] “Okay, okay, thank you.”

On September 18, DBA/CMD submitted a public records request to the Office of Arizona Governor Brewer seeking any and all records pertaining to Brnovich’s appointments to, or assessments for suitability, as ABG Director and COPE Chairman. The governor’s office has not yet responded to this request.

***

Source Materials:

CCA 2007 annual report and CCA executive lobby group reports 2004 through 2009:
-- CCA Securities and Exchange Commission 2007 form 10-K (annual report [14]).
-- 2004 mid year [15].
-- 2004 year end [15].
-- 2005 mid year [16].
-- 2005 year end [17].
-- 2006 mid year [18].
-- 2006 year end [19].
-- 2007 mid year [20].
-- 2007 year end [21].
-- 2008 Q1 [22].
-- 2008 Q2 [23].
-- 2008 Q3 [24].
-- 2008 Q3 Amended [25].
-- 2008 Q4 [26].
-- 2009 Q1 [27].
--2009 Q2.
-- 2009 Q3 [28].
-- 2009 Q4 [29].
Brnovich 2007 federal prosecutions:
-- 2:06-cr-00717-DGC-1 USA v. Kabaklic et al (Ismar Kabaklic) [30].
-- 2:06-cr-00717-DGC-2 USA v. Kabaklic et al (Adnan Alisic) [31].
-- 2:06-cr-00717-DGC-3 USA v. Kabaklic et al (Bakir Mujkic) [32].
-- 2:06-cr-00717-DGC-4 USA v. Kabaklic et al (Danijel Mujkic) [33].
-- 2:06-cr-01114-MHM All Defendants USA v. Williams (Shayla Williams) [34].
-- 2:07-mj-06265-DKD All Defendants USA v. Veit (Randall James Veit, first case) [35].
-- 3:07-cr-01177-GMS All Defendants USA v. Comb (Rayaundal Comb) [36].
-- 2:07-cr-01220-NVW All Defendants USA v. Santillano (Shirley Cota Santillano) [37].
-- 2:07-cr-01211-DKD All Defendants USA v. Veit (Randall James Veit, second case) [38].
-- 2:07-cr-01221-JAT-1 USA v. Beal et al (Jason Carter Beal) [39].
-- 2:07-cr-01221-JAT-2 USA v. Beal et al (Fernando Lechuga) [40].
Brnovich disclosures and records relating to Brnovich employment history:
-- Susan Brnovich statements of financial disclosure, 2005 through 2012 [41].
-- CCA 2007 Arizona lobbyist registration/amendment forms pertaining to Mark Brnovich [42].
-- Foster Angels of Arizona Serving Together, Inc. 2007 annual report [43].
-- Rick Medina September 16, 2013 interview audio [44].
-- Arizona Department of Gaming Brnovich background materials provided pursuant to public records request (request filed immediately following September 16 interview) [45].
-- Brnovich resume on file with Arizona Senate per May, 2009 confirmation hearing [46].
-- Brnovich Senate confirmation hearing audio [47] [from [48].]

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Beau Hodai is the author of CMD's in-depth study Dissent or Terror: How the Nation's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street. [49] Find more of his investigations DBA Press [50].

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