Phoenix Arizona- This year, Arizonans have shown beyond any doubt that they
prioritize education and that they want state leaders to do the same. But a
Department of Corrections proposal approved by a legislative committee last week
suggests that Republicans’ priorities are still all wrong.
Arizona now plans to purchase the private prison in
Kingman from GEO Group, the company that took the facility over after inmate riotslast
summer. Arizona
plans to pay $137.4 million, refinance the debt at a much lower interest rate,
and then continue to contract with GEO Group to operate the prison.According
to the DOC, paying off the prison will cost taxpayers $77.5 million less if
Arizona holds the debt than if GEO Group continues to. That is a big win for
Arizona taxpayers, who are burdened by a bloated prison system.
But the Kingman plan, proposed by a Republican
administration and approved by a majority-Republican oversight committee,
also poses a serious question: are private prisons actually more expensive
than public prisons?
Until Republican legislators in 2012 outlawed cost
comparisons, data consistently demonstrate that, yes, private prisons are more
expensive than public prisons. In 2010, the Department of Corrections reported
that the daily
per capita cost of prisoners in private prisons was almost 10 percent
higherthan for those in state prisons. It seems like Republican legislators
did not like the truth, so they made up their own. And the chief justification
for spending millions of dollars every year on private prisons has continued to
be that they save Arizona money.
Despite appearing to acknowledge that public prisons are
more cost-effective, however, the Kingman plan is still bad for Arizona tax
payers; and for Arizona’s corrections officers. Because Gov. Ducey intends to use
more than $2 million of the yearly savings—that is, taxpayer money—to subsidize
the salaries of GEO Group’s prison guards.
That bears repeating: Gov. Ducey wants to use public,
taxpayer dollars to increase the salaries of private prison guards—guards
employed by a multi-billion dollar company that made nearly
$140 million in profits last year. Public
corrections officers, meanwhile, have gone without pay raises for nine
years. Democrats tried
to remove the salary subsidies from the Kingman plan, but Republican
legislators were insistent on funneling $2 million of public money to GEO
Group.
The Kingman plan shows the wrong priorities for Arizona.
Maybe that has something to do with the $55,000 that GEO Group gave to Gov.
Ducey’s 2014 campaign. Maybe it doesn’t. But either way, taxpayer money should
not go to line the pockets of large, out-of-state companies.
And Republican leaders in Arizona should get back to
championing the causes Arizonans prioritize. Arizonans
have demanded education, not incarceration. House Democrats have listened,
and share your priorities.
#SchoolsNotPrisons
#EdcuationNotIncarceration
#DemsLead
