Does Wickenburg have what CCA wants?

Does CCA have what the children of Wickenburg want? You know that if they can't find a job there, at least they could go live there...the lobbyists these people bring with them will make sure that there's no lack of criminals and  victims in Arizona, if we let them build this anywhere. 


We should be resisting new prisons everywhere. Before we build more we need to find out who we've already got locked up and why (I don't really trust the ADC records...they didn't even know Marcia had a guardian and family). Surely we don't need to be imprisoning this many people. Maybe we can let loose a few dying and wheelchair-bound prisoners, and if a few key prosecutors would reopen some cases and exonerate the innocent, we could free up a few more beds...

Then we need to do something about sentencing - we are far too brutal on people in some parts of this state...Russ Pearce wants us all to be like that. As for me - I want us all to be more safe and well.

I keep forgetting that there's a serious lack of courage in this state - among people in power that is. They're afraid of the terminally ill, drug addicted grandmothers, and women who write bad checks. Oh - and those people who keep dying in the desert trying to reach their families or make a better life  - they're a real scary bunch...


I have to say, I would not to raise my family in a town where mass incarceration was not only the norm, but a desired goal. Folks going down that road just seem to lack vision - they don't have enough creativity or faith in their people to believe that they will have no future if they don't build a prison.  

That's pretty sad. Surely something more beautiful can be built that will attract people who want to be there instead of import human beings who are chained and caged there.

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Prison project still alive 

Wickenburg Sun

January 27, 2010

Janet DelTufo, Assistant Editor

A proposed privately run prison project in Forepaugh remains a possibility, although talks between town officials and the prison operator have been quiet in recent weeks…

http://www.wickenburgsun.com/articles/2010/01/27/news/news01.txt

Wickenburg: Prison Resistance Website

The prison resistance folks in Wickenburg have a website (still in the process, but looks promising) - don't know if it's new or not, but it's the first I noticed it. I guess there's a reason they haven't been in touch. I'm glad they're all getting websites of their own up - I was kind of pushing my abolitionist agenda on them when they were coming here all the time, and I don't think we shared the same primary concerns.

Here's the link:

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from http://wickenburgprison.org/ 

"The Committee of Concerned Citizens Opposed to the Prison has created this site to distribute facts, news, information and opinions about the proposed prison in the Wickenburg area.

The mission statement of the Committee is: Defeat the establishment of the Prison in the Wickenburg/Forepaugh area."

To be - or Not to Be - a Prison Town: Wickenburg

Upcoming Events

December 10: International Human Rights Day.

December 15: Begin 5th Special legislative Session.

December 17: International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (Tucson Memorial).

December 18: Sex Workers Outreach Project Protest at the AZ DOC in Phoenix.

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The remark near the end about how most communities that house prisons don't even know one is there - that's the reason such horrendous abuse goes on in prisons and other state institutions - they're just set out in the country and ignored by the few people who stand to benefit from their presence: the townspeople, many of whom can't honestly claim ignorance once they start working there. 

Those jobs take a toll for a reason - it's not all because the prisoners are so bad. It's the nature of what one has to do - lording the threat of violence over others all day to keep them in a horrible place away from their loved ones. Those are human beings they're talking about storing in their backyard as if it was a toxic waste site...That could be my family member - or even me. I sure hope that if Wickenburg takes on this prison, they do a better job than most towns do. At least they better not plan to pretend it isn't there. That's how people die.

This is where the insidious nature of being a prison town really begins to manifest - when people are deciding what reasons they have for and against it. If they aren't against it already on ethical grounds, they'll be suckered by the pitch they get once CCA comes to town: they have a pretty package all ready to sell. Only solid values and deep roots can withstand the promise of their hard cash in a recession...

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Wickenburg Sun

December 9, 2009

Forepaugh contingent at recent council meeting

By Janet DelTufo, Assistant Editor

At least 40 individuals from the Forepaugh area attended a Town Council meeting earlier this week to express their concerns regarding a proposed prison project in their neighborhood.

Three people were chosen by the group to speak to the council about its opposition during the call to the public portion of the meeting, including Elbert Bicknell, Jane Nash and Frank Smith of Private Corrections Institute, an out-of-state organization that works against the private prison industry.

Bicknell spoke about his concerns regarding overall prison safety, rate of pay private prison guards receive, lack of background checks on private prison employees, drugs coming through town and abuse and violence at the prison.

Nash told the council that she has lived in the Wickenburg area for the past 30 years and through most of those years she has promoted tourism in Wickenburg.

“One point I would like to make is that I think tourism would be adversely affected by a prison in our community,” Nash said. “Every city with a prison becomes known as a prison town.”

Nash also said she wanted to address the problem with resources in the area, such as water and fire protection.

“We implore you to listen to us,” Nash said “This is not a complete representation here this evening, and there are many more people concerned about these problems, and we hope at some point to have a hearing with you folks and the CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) people.”

Smith, who referred to himself as the “outside agitator” from Kansas, said he has been studying private prisons for years and that he comes to communities who ask for his help.

“Rather than being an asset to communities, these prisons end up a serious economic drain,” Smith said. “This prison will hurt the community of Forepaugh and adjoining communities. It won’t hurt Wickenburg so much, but it won’t do much for Wickenburg either.”

Then speaking in favor of the prison project was Alan Abare and Rome Glover of the Wickenburg Economic Development Partnership.

“I work in Wickenburg and live in Congress, and the economic partnership believes it is important to note that it is appropriate for people to have concerns,” Abare said. “Anytime there is a new large employer, especially a prison, there is a concern. We are concerned too, and we don’t want to bring anything into the community that will hurt it.”

Abare said most communities that house prisons don’t even know the prisons are there, and that CCA would be starting its prison guards at $15-$16 an hour.

Mayor Kelly Blunt was not in attendance at the meeting, but Vice Mayor John Cook told the contingent that it would get an opportunity to have a meeting with the council at the Community Center at a later date.

Private Prisons and Resistance in Arizona

People interested in doing something with AZ Prison Watch after the holidays should get in touch with us in the next few weeks. Several for-profit prison operators – including Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's (and one of the world's) largest – are aggressively trying to grab Indigenous and small-town land in Arizona, exploiting fear and profiting from our down times, as incarceration rates rise with unemployment. They also lobby for more money to be spent on immigrant detention, which is where the real fortune is right now.


Where will it be when we’ve deported or naturalized everyone? Who will fill those prison beds then? Our grandchildren will be next in line.

Helping communities make informed decisions about hosting new prisons could be done in any number of ways: from researching or working on a community website, to helping with public meetings and materials, to documenting the sociopolitical terrain and the process of organizing resistance: the story always  needs to be told.

Those of you who are resisting must already know that you can build better things for the future than what you're being offered today as the town's only hope. You're just going to have to work harder for it - it's not going to come courting the way that the prison industry will.  

Here are just some random ideas I had this morning for those fighting the siting of private prisons in their communities right now. The best sources of information are already linked to this site: the guys at Private Corrections Institute, the American Friends Service Committee–Tucson, the Business of Detention, and the Real Cost of Prisons Project. These are just supplemental thoughts:

First, as for the potential wealth in the property being looked at as a site for the prison: Help your neighbors re-envision that land as untouched community space - as a "Field of Dreams". Who do you want to come there? Don't begin with the prison on the horizon and figure out how to make the town fit into it now – prison profiteers can paint that pretty picture for you; they already have, I guess. Put your kids' future on the clear horizon, instead, then re-create the landscape around them based on their hopes and dreams.  

Don't let them settle for less - at least not while we're still dreaming. What do you want to build there that will outlive you, for future generations to draw their livelihoods from, for your grandchildren to play in the shadow of, and perhaps spend their lives working at - or living at, if they turn out to be mentally ill, developmentally disabled, poor, a minority, chemically dependent, or otherwise vulnerable to being criminalized?

It’s tragic that as a whole, we will pay almost any price for the immediate gratification of hurting the “bad guys,” yet we hesitate to make investments in things that will really pay off for our communities in the long run. That’s similar to the thinking of an addict – who we punish in that same way. Look at how budget priorities are being set right now. Where are all the conservatives on that one? It doesn't have to be a prison we leave for younger generations as their default solution to the things we gave up looking for answers to, or that we thought were too much of an up-front investment to make.

I’ve been well-advised in my life not to believe a wealthy, handsome stranger who says he has come to help me if there's a trail of wreckage in his wake. Make visible the already-powerful lobby that more private prison beds reinforce in the state. They will be putting more money into criminalizing people and delivering "justice" through mass incarceration (championing “public safety” and “victims rights”) – we know that always comes from money we wanted to use for education. What legislators are profiting from the industry of incarceration, anyway? And what kind of industry is it? Look at CCA's record all over the country - the world. It speaks for itself. 

There are so many layers of effects that people need to be aware of before they let this prison in. Once being a prison town becomes your identity - there is absolutely no avoiding it - it will not be possible to shake if you (or your children) collectively change your minds. It would be easier for the town to move than to get the prison out of there. It will reflect on you, whether or not you have any oversight or interest in its operation; lack of either will speak volumes for the character of the town. Private prison or state-run has a similar effect: Goodyear will always be associated with what happened to Marcia Powell and the guard who shot himself out there soon afterwards.  

Regardless of who runs that prison, then, in many ways it will still be yours, so everyone should be concerned about what kind of place it will be, as it will affect who you become. Is the prison a "corrections" center, or just a warehouse to be set far enough away that you don’t have to notice that there are children going out there to visit their parents each weekend? Will prisoners or their families be a part of the larger community, rather than being shunned and set apart from the rest of you – seen only as a means to bolster your own economic base? What will that kind of detachment from other human beings teach your own kids?

Will your prison be a place which helps damaged or oppressed people rebuild broken lives and their abilities to be responsible citizens? Or will it be the place ignored in your own backyard where  people will languish indeterminately, the sick and elderly dying of abuse and neglect, the young and vulnerable emerging even more traumatized? We have too many places like that here in Arizona already.  Examine the atrocities of prisons; they take on the names of the communities they're a part of - abuse, prison rape and suicides will forever Google back to the town that hosts it. It cannot be that easily undone.  

You have some difficult conversations to have and decisions to make that will have implications not only for your own community, but for all others where this insidious mantra of fear reigns that blinds us to the human realities of what it means to individuals and communities when we mass incarcerate. Some criminals are pretty malevolent and the public needs to be protected from harm. But not all of the real bad guys are behind bars, nor is everyone behind bars necessarily “bad”, so much as they are poor or addicted and desperate.

Remind your neighbors not to let the hard times harden them to those who are also suffering, and not to assume that embracing the task of imprisoning so many people – among whom are always the innocent - won't affect a community’s character and soul. Mass incarceration is an industry which profits from a growing supply of both victims and criminals (not mutually exclusive categories), and therefore has no investment in treatment alternatives, restorative justice, real crime prevention, or meaningful immigration reform. Just incarceration: it turns the best profit. Having one’s community derive its primary sustenance from the misery of those caught up in that machinery – even if they are someone’s else’s kids - will trouble some people very deeply.

As it should. Even Israel’s high court recently found that allowing prisons to operate for profit would inevitably compromise the human rights of prisoners, and outlawed it. That’s something serious to think about, given how poorly they treat their prisoners. Where do we stand on prisoner’s human rights? 


Most prisoners in America are just "ordinary" people with families, hopes, and a few more amends to make than some of the rest of us. Prisoners and families could really  use some allies in the effort to address sentencing reform, public mental health services, education, and sustainable employment options so we don’t end up needing so many new prisons down the road. For now, though, I guess you have your hands full just trying to protect your own...

I do believe that we have far too much talent and capital in America for your only economic hope to be a prison.  You each have some awesome potential, in both people and property, otherwise you wouldn’t be getting scoped out. Any leaders who think a prison is the answer to this economy are looking for the easy way out, and fundamentally lack vision for a better tomorrow. I would work next on seeing that they get replaced. 

Good luck to all you communities out there making these kinds of decisions right now. Let us know if we can help. We'd even help you build your own private prison watch website - just say the word.

CCA closing in on Wickenburg / Forepaugh

Sorry, folks. Busy couple of days. I have some thoughts on the notion of adding another 5,000 prison beds instead of committing to sentencing reform, community mental health/substance abuse treatment, and other ways to help people be more productive members of their families and communities than prison seems to facilitate. I'll save those addtional thoughts for later, though. This came from the Wickenburg Sun, via a tip from the guys at Private Corrections Institute this am:

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Prison company pursuing project

By Janet DelTufo, Assistant Editor

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) continues to eye property in Forepaugh for a prison project while waiting for the release of an official 5,000-bed RFP (request for proposal) from the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC).

It is unknown exactly when the RFP will be released to potential bidders, although the contract is scheduled to be awarded in June 2010. According to ADC officials, the RFP is currently awaiting approval from the Arizona State Legislature’s Joint Budget Legislative Committee.

House Bill 2010 was signed into law this past September and called for ADC to go out and find 5,000 beds. The beds can be split up and given to more than one bidder if necessary.

If CCA and the Town of Wickenburg find a way to make the Forepaugh property work, which consists of 78-acres of town-owned property and additional privately owned adjacent property, CCA would like to build a correctional facility and begin with about 2,600 beds.

CCA representatives have had meetings with members of the Wickenburg Economic Development Partnership and recently hosted a 21-person tour of their Saguaro Correctional Facility in Eloy. CCA officials will now spend some time in Wickenburg meeting with a number of additional groups.

“We will have discussions with a wide array of individuals in the Wickenburg area, and there will be forums for individuals to ask questions,” said CCA Senior Director Brad Wiggins. “We will have presentations and forums because we want to see if we are a good fit for Wickenburg.”

CCA has a number of sites around the state in mind for this project, but the Forepaugh area remains of interest to the company. Wiggins said CCA regards Wickenburg as a place where a family can find and maintain a strong quality of life.

“We regard Wickenburg as an area where our employees would want to work and raise their children,” Wiggins said. “We think we would have an outstanding workforce to draw from within the local and regional area.”

Wiggins said that CCA is taking a two-front approach to the Wickenburg-Forepaugh project: outreach and due-diligence.

He said CCA was continuing to work with local leadership in the education process, regarding what it means to have a corrections facility in the community. Wiggins said CCA was still working with local leaders in determining how to most effectively get its message out to the community.

“We are in the process of creating a partnership with Wickenburg’s local leaders and showing them the quality of our operations,” Wiggins said. “As this happens, the trust and respect of the community can be gained.”

CCA plans to meet with a number of groups during the second week of December. During this time, it will also be looking into how the Forepaugh property can be made available to the corporation, what is needed as far as infrastructure, and what the overall costs will be to build a correctional facility in Forepaugh.

Corrupting Influence of Private Prisons

We really don't want these people to control the economies of small towns in Arizona - their entire industry is evil. The more they have invested in prisons, the more they invest in padding legislators pockets and passing laws that criminalize more poor people or "non-counting constituents". I don't think a lot of people really get the problems with this dynamic...

This is from Protect Consumer Justice.org

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 Politically connected private prison operators are landing more business

 Wednesday, November 25, 2009

 

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is sending more inmates to out-of-state prisons run by a private company that recently made a $100,000 donation to a ballot campaign committee controlled by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Daily Journal legal publication reports.

Matthew Pordum of the Daily Journal reports CDCR has agreed to send an additional 2,336 inmates to prisons operated by Corrections Corp. of America, in an extension of a contract with the company that is worth more than $54 million a year.  Six months before the CDCR decision, Corrections Corp. of America contributed $100,000 to Budget Reform Now, the committee organized to campaign for six state budget-related measures supported by Schwarzenegger on a special election ballot in May.


A Schwarzenegger spokeswoman told Pordum there was no connection between the donation and the contract extension, saying the governor had nothing to do with the extension.

The Journal story has more details about CCA’s political spending:

“We are politically active and make contributions to Democrats and Republicans alike all over the country, as do all companies of our size and reach,” said Louise Grant, vice president of communications at Corrections Corp.

Corrections Corp. donated $234,500 in 2007-08, and $38,900 so far this year, to several members of the California Legislature and the state Democratic and Republican parties, according to its filings with the Secretary of State.

The firm has also reported spending about $45,000 for each of the last three quarters on lobbyists in California.

The state began sending some inmates to CCA prisons in 2006 in response to Schwarzenegger’s emergency proclamation on prison overcrowding.  If the legislature approves the spending for the extension, California’s contract with CCA would be valued at more than $224 million a year, with state inmates housed at facilities in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma.

The Schwarzenegger administration is not wholly responsible for the decision to send inmates to private prisons. The Legislature approved AB 900 in 2007 giving the state greater authority to transfer felons to private prisons outside the state.

The Florida-based prison prison firm, the Geo Group, also is seeking more California inmates. Geo is a significant campaign spender, giving $50,000 in October 2008 to the Schwarzenegger-backed Proposition 11 redistricting initiative.

Proposed Wickenburg CCA site a hazmat location

Forwarded by the guys at Private Corrections Institute. I'll let the townspeople speak for themselves.

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Thoughts against a local prison

Wickenburg Sun

November 25, 2009

By Janet DelTufo, Assistant Editor

As residents continue writing to The Wickenburg Sun regarding the possibility of a medium-security prison being built in Forepaugh, The Sun explores individual opinions on this controversial issue. Last week The Sun featured the positive opinions of several residents; this week those who are not in favor of the prison project are interviewed.

It was reported recently that a number of Wickenburg officials toured a prison facility in Eloy, which is owned and operated by a corporation that has shown interest in building a correctional facility in Forepaugh. Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison operator in the United States, hosted members from the town’s Economic Development Partnership, Mayor Kelly Blunt, Vice Mayor John Cook, Councilman Scott Stewart and other community leaders at one of its Pinal County facilities.

CCA is hoping to win a bid from the Arizona Department of Corrections to house 5,000 inmates, and is interested in 78-acres of town-owned property located in Forepaugh. CCA officials said they would start with a correctional facility that would house 2,400 medium-security inmates.

Lon Brown, a manager at Benner Nawman, a member of the economic partnership and a property owner west of Forepaugh was one of the people on the tour of the Eloy facility and is against a prison being built in Forepaugh.

“I live between Forepaugh and Aguila, and building a prison would radically change Forepaugh,” Brown said. “I am not against the proposed rail park project, but a prison would lead to an entirely different atmosphere in this area.”

Brown said he has heard that a prison could possibly increase the value of his property.

“But that is not why I moved out here,” Brown said. “I just don’t see a prison adding any quality of western life to those of us in this area.”

Real Estate agent Jim Hartman is also on the economic partnership, and he is also against the idea of building a prison in Forepaugh.

Hartman said he does not think that building a prison would be the highest and best use for that industrial-zoned property.

“That is town-owned property, and it has unique zoning that is very hard to obtain in Maricopa County,” Hartman said. “It should be no secret to any of the residents in that area that this is industrial zoning, but we should be looking at industries such as solar and other clean projects that meet today’s new environmental standards.”

Hartman said the town has just scratched the surface as far as looking into uses for that property, and that the town has a chance to find itself a source of significant cash flow.

“I know that getting new jobs is very important, and from what I hear, the prison starts off at a very nice wage,” Hartman said. “However, a flow from a monthly lease on that acreage would be a good thing.”

Town Magistrate Donna Henry is not on the economic partnership, but does live in the immediate vicinity of the property proposed for the prison.

She said she has lived there for 25 years, and she has many concerns regarding the current environmental conditions at the property.

“One of my biggest problems with this proposal is that there was once a mining project on that property, and there is a cyanide pit there where 55-gallon drums once oozed,” Henry said. “I have never seen any hazmat people there, and I once had a dog that licked his paw after being on the property and then died. So, I have a problem with putting people out there.”

Henry also has concerns about water and sewage, saying the infrastructure in the area -- including that of Arizona Public Service (APS) -- is simply not adequate.

“We lose power about eight times a year,” she said. “The prison might have a back-up generator, but what is going to happen to 3,000 inmates out there without power in the middle of the summer?”

Henry spoke of the number of potential jobs for the area, but said that there is no guarantee that local residents will get those jobs.

“I have a friend in Tonopah and she said when a correctional facility was built there, everyone car-pooled from Phoenix,” Henry said. “There is training and selection process, and you have to be certified to work at a prison.”

Henry said she was also worried that inmate families would end up moving to the area, causing hardship on the system. She said the impact of these families moving to the area would be quite significant.

She said she moved to Forepaugh to be away from everything, and that she likes her night sky and lack of traffic. She said the town can earn money on that property without leasing it to a prison.

“If the town wants to make money, it should have APS build a substation or get some cellular towers out there,” she said. “This would generate revenue, and this is what the town says it wants.”

The CCA PR machine hits Wickenburg

Forwarded by the guys at Private Corrections Institute. I have to say that if Councilman Stewart really researched the CCA, he would have heard a lot of BAD things about them. I suspect all the research he did was read their quarterly stockholders' report...CCA is infamous for their atrocities around the world. How can anyone not know about their real history? Is anyone in Wickenburg resisting this? Becoming dependent on a prison-based economy is a pretty devastating thing to do to one's community - that's the main local option their children will be offered as secure employment? 

This is sad. Don't trust them folks - Vice Mayor Cook doesn't have the whole story, and if he does, he's not sharing it. Hit that link abut for the guys at the private Corrections Institute - they have current articles, lawsuit info, details on all the private prison companies - and CCA is among the biggest, greediest, and ugliest. If anyone tells you differently, they're lying...it's all out there, the research is solid!


Please don't passively allow these people to bury your children's futures in concrete and concertina wire. Those aren't even healthy jobs - they're hard jobs which take a huge psychic toll on officers and their families - and, by extension, on communities. How can it not erode a community's character if it's people are all sucked into the dehumanization and often violent repression of others - "criminal" or not.


We are by far creative enough and have enough capital in this country that all the economic gurus with the state and the region should be able to come up with something better than prisons as an employment base for communities like Wickenburg. Building more prisons surrenders to the notion that mass incarceration will continue to dominate our justice system landscape. It's a cynical, hopeless vision to invest in which gives no one incentive to try to find alternatives - either for a more stable, vibrant economic base, or for dealing with some of the root causes of high incarceration rates - like the criminalization of addiction, poverty, and trauma.


So far the only one who seems to have any sense is Mayor Blunt, but I'm not convinced that he hasn't already been sold - it's just a political game of making the citizens think they decided they not only want but NEED this institution now - that's how they work it. 

We'll be thinking good things for your resistance, Wickenburg...send us an email if you want any help getting CCA out of there! Here's the PCI link to their rap sheet: it's pretty long

 
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Town officials tour prison, evaluate impact on town

http://www.wickenburgsun.com/articles/2009/11/11/news/news03.txt

November 12, 2009

By Janet DelTufo, Assistant Editor

A number of Wickenburg officials last week toured a prison facility in Eloy, which is owned and operated by a corporation interested in building a correctional facility in Forepaugh.

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison operator in the United States, hosted members from the town’s Economic Development Partnership, Mayor Kelly Blunt, Vice Mayor John Cook, Councilman Scott Stewart and other community leaders at one of its Pinal County facilities.

Stewart said he had researched other municipalities where CCA owned facilities and only heard good things about the corporation. After the tour, he said he could not find a single reason why CCA should not come to Forepaugh.

Blunt said he was impressed by the tour and the facility. He said he learned a lot but he would not be making a decision on his own.

“I have not talked to enough people yet,” Blunt said. “I want the people to tell the council what they want, even if we have to put it out for a vote.”

Blunt said he saw benefits to having the prison built in Forepaugh, but he didn’t want it to be a “quick fix” to the local economy. He also said he didn’t want Wickenburg to become known as a “prison town.”

“On the other hand,” Blunt said, “I have asked some of those who have said Forepaugh is too close to us for a prison if it would be too close if the prison were to built in Wittmann … and they can’t answer that question.”

Wittmann and Forepaugh are about the same distance from Wickenburg.

Cook said he was 100 percent behind the project because of how CCA runs the prison, with its tight security and cleanliness, and that it would be located outside of town.

“Building this prison would jump-start our economy for at least a year, and then it would jump-start our housing market after that for a few years,” Cook said. “As far as I can tell, it’s a win-win situation for Wickenburg.”

Prior to the facility tour, members of the Wickenburg entourage met with the City of Eloy’s finance director, Brian Wright, and were told that Eloy has received $8 million in construction sales taxes from CCA’s three correctional facilities located in the city.

Those taxes were received in about 3.5 years, with 33 percent of the money going towards roads.

Wright also said that Eloy receives about $7,000 to $8,100 a month in prison commissary sales tax from the prisons.

At this time, the Town of Wickenburg would not benefit from these taxes, as Forepaugh is located in an unincorporated area of Maricopa County. Forepaugh would need to be annexed into the town limits before the town received any tax benefits.

The economic development partnership was created to stimulate Wickenburg’s economy, and many on the partnership see new jobs as a way in achieving that goal.

CCA officials said they would start the project with about 2,400 beds. CCA operates five facilities in Pinal County and employs about 2,600 people in that county.

It operates nearly 70 prisons, including 40 CCA-owned facilities, and houses 82,000 inmates in 19 states. Hoping to win a bid from the Arizona Department of Corrections to house 5,000 inmates, CCA is looking for a location to build a prison and has an interest in 78 acres of town-owned property located in Forepaugh.

Officials toured CCA’s Saguaro prison facility in Eloy, which has been open since 2007 and houses about 1,900 inmates for the state of Hawaii. It cost about $95 million to build the Saguaro Correctional Center.

Wickenburg and the Real Cost of Prisons

Sorry to be out again so long folks - prolonged illness and some very unusual problems for a week now with my internet connection. Hmm. Quest can't figure it out, and they have no idea how long they might take to do so. Therefore, I'm blogging from the Fair Trade Cafe in downtown Phoenix today.

Just found this article about the CCA and Wickenburg in my box - it came via the guys at Private Corrections Insitute - they specialize in exposing and stopping prison privateers moving in on vulnerable communities like this. Their website is a great resource. So is the site for the Real Cost of Prisons Project: hit the blog, too. These folks have the goods on what prisons really do to places: they corrupt communities. Look at the dialogue already - they dehumanize us all. 

The newspaper article is framed completely to push the prison as an economic advantage, as if they were fronting directly for the CCA - an incredibly evil institution that subsists on the incarceration of masses of people. A close look at Wickenburg politics may reveal some timely contributions to certain people and groups, as is the case at the level of the state legislature, where they're talking about privatizing the whole state system.


It's extremely disturbing, but it's classic politics and prison sales nonsense during down times, and somehow makes sense to ordinary Americans on the surface: let's lock a bunch of poor folks up here -"criminals" - to give other poor people stable jobs. Most Americans just don't comprehend the decay of our prison systems and the seriousness of the criminalization crisis. We lock people away for lifetimes, feeding them as little as possible -with hardly any thought anymore these days of anything but the expense or economic benefits to society of what essentially constitutes subjecting our fellow human beings to enduring torture. We don't even try to do anything called rehabilitation anymore beyond what is necessary for show -we just punish and brutalize people. In fact, when they complain - even when they raise their voices to claim their innocence - we just strip them further of their rights to be protected from the abuses of power that are central to the "successful" operation of such places. 

I  picked up Mona Lynch's book, Sunbelt Justice, finally, by the way. People need to read it - especially if they're considering a prison in their community. It's all about the history of "corrections" in Arizona, if you can call it that, and how our politics around crime and punishment have evolved. I think once folks understand what's going on - once they realize that no one is untouched by men who steal from school children to promote their campaigns of fear on the backs of the poor, minorities, migrants, and deviant women(like myself)- I think they'll start seeing these guys in a more clear light. Of course, Thurgood Marshall thought we would have evolved beyond the death penalty once we were enlightened about how unjust, racist, and classist it is in application. We know all that beyond a shadow of a doubt, now, and still we execute.


Who are we, anyway? 

I think if we fail to answer that question assertively, as a people, we will be defined by those who vote for men like Joe Arpaio and Russ Pearce, and in increasing numbers - as is economical and convenient - we will passively, ignorantly, be criminalized. We have prisons planned fifty years into the future: why can't we plan to give future generations a world that doesn't need to depend on prisons for order and justice - and good jobs, of all things - to begin with? Is it not worth the effort to visualize it or the struggle to bring it into existence? Isn't it even worth trying?


I think it is.



Good luck to the resistance in Wickenburg - let us know if there's anything we can do.

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Prison, rail park may bring jobs to Wickenburg

Arizona: CCA wants a 3,000-bed prison

November 4, 2009

By Janet DelTufo, Assistant Editor

Wickenburg’s Economic Development Partnership is currently negotiating with two large corporations in hopes of bringing both to the Forepaugh area for the purpose of creating new jobs.

The partnership has set its sights on Rail America (the Arizona/California Railroad), which would build an intermodal industrial/rail park, and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which would build a private prison.

Comprised of representatives from private businesses, the purpose of the partnership is to find and attract economic development for the Town of Wickenburg.

The partnership is not unanimous in its thinking regarding the direction of the group, and it is somewhat split on the idea of a prison in Forepaugh.

However, partnership chairman and former mayor Ron Badowski said the creation of jobs is what Wickenburg needs now and for its future.

“Visitors and tourists are not going to pull the town out of the financial problems it is facing at this time,” Badowski said. “We need growth, and we need jobs. Both of the projects would provide jobs, and the prison could provide jobs nearly immediately.”

Both projects will require help from the town, but not funding though local taxpayers. The partnership has applied for a $3.5 million grant, which would need to be accepted by the town and then turned over to the rail project.

The grant money is needed to build two roads from U.S. Highway 60 to the railroad tracks and to build a rail spur from the tracks to a warehouse area.

Badowski said the railroad project will take a number of years before it reaches its full potential. It would be built on 1,450 acres, and a number of entities would be established, such as a water and sewer district and a port authority.

Badowski again asked members of the public to contact their state representatives and request that the federal government award the $3.5 million Tiger Discretionary Grant (incident No. 090917-000086) to the Town of Wickenburg.

The prison, a 3,000 bed medium security prison, could be open as soon as 2011. Badowski said CCA would like to arrange a lease agreement with the town on 78 acres of town-owned property located about a third of a mile north of U.S. Highway 60. That property is 15 miles from the traffic light at Tegner Street and Wickenburg Way.

Badowski said CCA would like a no-payment type of lease, which would mean the town would not receive any rent monies. Badowski said that is not an unreasonable request.

“I don’t really see a problem with this, because so far the town has not made $1 on that property,” Badowski said. “This project would generate jobs, generate sales tax, revive the housing market and generate $500,000 in real estate taxes to the school district.”

Badowski said that not everyone in the Forepaugh area has been polled, but a number of property owners have provided positive responses regarding the projects.

“Some people are very happy,” Badowski said. “They expect their property values to increase and some see a potential commercial benefit as well.”

A number of partnership members, several Wickenburg Town Council members, and a number of other community leaders are expected to take a tour of CCA’s prison in Eloy later this week.

If a deal is eventually struck for the prison, it is not yet known which state will contract with CCA to house inmates.