Increase in inmates opens door to private prisons

FLORENCE, ARIZ — . -- Mark Childress knows prisons -- from the inside.

Though only 36 years old, he's done stretches in 10 state lockups, including some of the toughest around. And now California has locked him up again -- this time in Arizona.

Childress is a part of a first wave of about 700 male convicts that California has shipped to privately owned and operated prisons in Arizona, Tennessee and Mississippi. "I feel good, like I could do another 10 years," he said, half-jokingly.

The nation's big private prison companies like it too. Having long lusted after a share of California's 173,000-inmate population, they now foresee a steady stream of business.

Depending on the outcome of legal challenges, California could be "one of the longtime drivers of growth for the private prison industry," industry analyst Kevin Campbell said.

Until December, the state had not put a medium- or maximum-security prisoner in a private lockup since 1852, when it replaced a private prison ship in San Francisco Bay with California's first public prison, San Quentin.

Private companies say they can build secure prisons faster and cheaper than state governments and are not saddled with the high salaries and pension costs paid by public agencies.

Critics counter that states that use private prisons get what they pay for: Guards are poorly paid and trained, and private prisons experience more escapes and more disciplinary problems than state-run institutions, they contend. And the state is sending away its better-behaved prisoners, they say, making California prisons even more dangerous.

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance, part of the Justice Department, said in a 2001 study that limited research showed that "privately operated prisons function as well as publicly operated prisons." Management problems usually are caused by poorly drafted contracts and poor oversight of private operators by states, the study said.

The public-private dilemma is hitting California head-on -- with corporate America battling the prison guard establishment.

The search to find more room for California prisoners -- and pressure from federal judges -- led to a $7.4-billion plan proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and approved by lawmakers in April. It gave the private prison companies the opening they've long sought.