REVIEW & OUTLOOK
California Jail Break
Private prisons could help free the Golden State.
Like Marley's ghost, the spirit of Gray Davis continues to hover over California even after his repudiation at the ballot box. For unless something happens soon, taxpayers in that state are going to find themselves on the hook for one of his last favors to a pet special interest: the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.
Three of California's private state prisons will close at the end of this month absent some immediate intervention from Sacramento. That's just fine with the state prison guards union, of course, since it's always been opposed to competition. But at a time when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is scrounging for ways to close a $14 billion gap, he might want to take an interest in the benefits of privatization for public prisons that already cost $5.3 billion a year.
Outside California, most folks have never heard of CCPOA. Inside the corridors of California politics, however, its clout is well understood and backed up with money. Last year, California Common Cause released a report listing the state prison guards union as the top contributor to state legislative campaigns during the 1999-2000 election cycle--above even the powerful California Teachers Association.
In January this year, at a time when the California budget was hemorrhaging money, then-Governor Davis signed off on a new contract for the guards that raised their salaries up to 37% over five years, lifted their retirement benefits and made it easier for them to take sick leave.
You can't accuse the union of being ungrateful: Barely two months later, CCPOA came through with a $251,000 campaign donation. And it's not just the governor, to whom the union gave $3.4 million since 1998. The stink over this contract extends to the entire California political establishment. The state assembly approved this raise unanimously, and in the senate there was only one dissenting vote: the conservative Tom McClintock.
Mr. Davis's willingness to roll back any prison privatization may be inflicting even more lasting damage on state finances. The original Davis budget proposal in 2002 was to close five private prisons, with the claim that it would save taxpayers money. But California's own numbers show that this claim does not stand up.
According to Department of Corrections figures, each year it costs Californians $28,439 to house an inmate in a state prison. Privately run prisons do the job for about $17,000, an $11,000 savings per inmate. In a state with the largest prison population in America, that means hefty savings to the taxpayers.
Advocates of privately run prisons argue that they are not only cheaper but better run and subject to greater accountability than their government counterparts. Maybe that's why Arizona has just agreed to expand its private capacity. But an even better comparison for California is Texas, where the competitive pressures from private prisons have helped keep overall costs down. Though the Texas inmate population is roughly the same as California--145,000 for Texas versus 162,000--the total Texas corrections budget clocks in at $2.5 billion, less than half that of California's.
California prisons are already running at 198% of capacity. Surely instead of closing private prisons, a smart new California governor would contract out for more of them.
