Federal Prison Director Defects to Private Prison Company

Originally found here.

By James Ridgeway

Fri Jun. 3, 2011 6:12 PM PDT

Less than a month after retiring from his post as Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), Harley G. Lappin has been hired to a top positon at the nation's largest private, for-profit prison contractor, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). In a move that has gone virtually unnoticed by the press except on the business pages, Lappin, who had run the BOP since 2003, has been named CCA's Executive VP and Chief Corrections Officer. According to a company press release, his responsibilities will include "the oversight of facility operations, health services, inmate rehabilitation programs, [and] purchasing."

Lappin announced his retirement in March, a few days before making public his arrest, the previous month, on DUI charges in Maryland. In a memo apologizing to BOP employees, Lappin admitted to a "lapse in my judgment...giving rise to potential embarrassment to the agency," but he refused to acknowledge a direct link between his arrest and his retirement. The announcement of his appointment to a leadership position at CCA came just over three weeks after his effective retirement date of May 7.

Taking advantage of two concurrent 30-year trends--toward mass incarceration and toward privatization of government services--CCA has grown to a $1.6 billion company that operates 66 facilities in 20 states, with approximately 90,000 beds. It has become notorious for its poor treatment of prisoners, and for numerous preventable injuries and deaths in its prisons and immigrant detention centers. About 40 percent of CCA's business comes from the federal government, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as the Bureau of Prisons. As BOP director, Lappin would have overseen government contracts with CCA worth tens of millions of dollars. CCA spends approximately $1 million annually on lobbying on the federal level alone.

A press release from the invaluable Private Corrections Working Group notes that Lappin's quick trip through the government-to-industry revolving door is hardly unique in the Bureau of Prisons' history: "Lappin joins another former BOP director already employed with CCA, J. Michael Quinlan, who was hired by the company in 1993. He retired as director of the BOP in 1992, several months after settling a lawsuit that accused him of sexually harassing a male BOP employee. While settling the suit, Quinlan denied allegations that he made sexual advances to the employee in a hotel room."

In addition, there's the case of the recently appointed head of the U.S. Marshals Service, Stacia Hylton, who until 2010 was the Federal Detention Trustee. In between serving in these two high-ranking government positions, Hylton worked as a consultant for the GEO Group, the nation's second largest private prison contractor. During Hylton's tenure, the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee gave several contracts to GEO; and the U.S. Marshals Service, like ICE and the BOP, houses federal detainees in privately owned prisons, including some run by GEO.

"Federal ethics rules do not prohibit former high-ranking employees such as Lappin and Hylton from working for private companies, even when those companies contract with the same federal agencies where those former officials were employed," the Private Corrections Working Group points out. "An Executive Order issued by President Obama restricts appointees from taking official actions that directly and substantially affect immediate former clients and employers; however, that ethics rule was not applied to Hylton and it has been waived for over two dozen other federal officials, according to a report by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics."

al-Obeidi Immigration Publicity Stunt Highlights Inequalities in the System

I want to start out by saying that what happened to al-Obeidi was a very, very despicable thing. I think that she definitely needs asylum from Libya. I am glad she made it out alive.

That said when I was reading this story I could not help but think of the double standard at play here. How many immigrants get a private plane to our country? Why is she coming "to continue her studies" when other immigrants can not do the same due to the failure of the Dream Act being voted into law? The cynical side of me can not help but wonder about how quickly she managed to get permission to enter our country when it takes south americans usually many, many years more. To me this seems like a Washington publicity stunt in which al-Obeidi is being used as a photo-op by the powers that be while our broken immigration system continues to function badly as it always has in recent times. Just imagine though how wonderful it would be for every immigrant if the system could function this quickly when they tried to get temporary citizenship.

New Series On CCA Spending Questions How CCA Can Not Afford To Fairly Compensate Staff

The United States have developed a new weapon that destroys people but it leaves buildings standing. It's called the stock market." —Jay Leno

This blog has been contacted by Corrections Corporation of America staff members who are upset that they have had to go several years without a raise. With this in mind we have decided to start a new blog series on The 270 View website aimed at showing just how uninterested we feel CCA is in compensating its own prison workers for the work they do.

From what we are told CCA has used the poor national economy as an excuse to not give raises to CCA employees for two to three years now. The idea that CCA could not give raises to any employees is really odd since CCA continues to post profits and not losses.

At the facilities Stewart Detention Center many of the workers drive very far distances to get to the facility. I would imagine that this is true at most of its facilities since a great many of them are located in very small rural areas with a tiny labor pool. With gas approaching $4.00 a gallon and other cost of living indicators going up one could probably very effectively argue that these workers are actually now making much less of an hourly wage than when CCA put this pay freeze in place.

Today we will examine CCA's stock repurchasing plan. A copy of CCA's press release on this can be found here. In short what it says is that today CCA has decided to spend $350 million instead of $250 million to buy back CCA stock. So lets do some math here. On CCA's website it claims 17,000 workers here. Now these numbers are rather large (But not even close to the enormous number of tax dollars being funneled at CCA) but we will still try and work with them for are faithful blog reading public. If I figured right $350,000,000 divided by 17,000 workers equals a spending of $20,588 dollars per CCA employee. I'm not sure what the typical worker makes at CCA but I'm sure that some of them make barely that amount themselves. It is also worth noting that if CCA had just left the plan at the original rate of $250 million then CCA could of spent that extra $100 million it had lying around on employees (At a rate of $5,882 per employee).

CCA might argue that by doing this they are actually helping employees stock be more valuable. But honestly do you think they would prefer this over a raise? After all the companies shareholders would just hold a worthless share of stock if it was not for the employees hard work (As well as those really profitable inmates and detainees that it holds within it's prison walls).

The fact that CCA spends mostly tax payer supplied money made through state, local and national detention/prison contracts at a furious pace is also really ironic when the company continues to sputter like a drunken pirates parrot that somehow the taxpayers are getting a good value for there tax dollars here. Now I am aware that CCA does have other revenue streams too like the over charging of inmate phone calls and high priced inmate commissaries, but the reality is that most of it's funding comes from over charging taxpayers. I mean really how else does it have $350 million dollars lying around?

In this blogs opinion Corrections Corporation of America has found a great way to rob the taxpayers piggy bank but apparently feels that the getaway driver (the workers) are not entitled to a cut of the spoils.

Keep in mind that all opinions expressed here are just that. Please cross check anything you read before forming your own opinion.