Oklahoma DOC Happy to Contract with Private Prisons

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August 24, 2016

By Paul Joseph, Paragon News Director –

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections, the DOC, is happy with their contracts with private prisons.

A DOC spokesman says there’s cause to worry that the DOC will end their contract with Sayre’s North Fork Correctional Facility, a prison owned by a private prison operator.

The spokesman made his remarks in response to a recent national story that effective immediately, the United States Justice Department will reduce and “ultimately end” the use of privately operated prisons.

The story, carried by the Washington Post, went on to say that contracts with private prison operators are not being renewed or they are being scaled back dramatically.

Alex Gerszewski, the DOC’s public information spokesperson says there’s no cause for alarm in Western Oklahoma. The DOC won’t be eliminating North Fork’s contract.

According to the national story, private prisons are not as safe nor as well-run as government correctional facilities. That was the conclusion by the Justice Department after an extensive review process.  The department maintains that private prisons don’t provide the same level of correctional services, programs and resources nor do they save substantially on costs.

The North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayre has been a private prison and, for years, housed prisoners from other states through a contract by North Fork’s owner, CCA, Corrections Corporation of America.  The contract has been between CCA and other, individual states and CCA workers and management additionally ran the prison.  Only recently has Oklahoma entered into a contract with CCA and it’s the Oklahoma DOC that’s running the Sayre facility, not CCA.  The DOC leased the facility to save money to house an exploding number of state prisoners that the state was having difficulty finding enough room.

Gerszewski says Oklahoma DOC is happy with the new CCA relationship and, he says, that’s good news for Sayre and Western Oklahoma.

Gerszewski says the DOC will begin its third correctional officer training academy at North Fork Correctional Center beginning Monday as the DOC is looking to fill 28 correctional officers positions at North Fork.

He says hiring officials are asking interested individuals to fill out application information online on the DOC’s website at: https://www.ok.gov/doc/ and the job listings and qualifications are under the North Fork Correctional Center Career Opportunities tab on the DOC’s homepage.

The Justice Department’s recent announcement of eliminating private prisons only impacts the 195-thousand inmates in federal prisons, a small portion of America’s 2.2 million incarcerated adult prisoners.

Still, advocates for prison reform believe the Justice Department’s new policy could be the beginning of the end for private prisons.

Gerszewski remains unfazed. He says with so many inmates in Oklahoma needing housing in prisons, a discussion of scaling back on the opportunity that private prisons provides hasn’t happened and probable won’t.  Using North Fork, at this point, is vital.

Following the recent Washington Post story, the stocks of two of the largest private prison operators including CCA, fell dramatically.

Last year, Corrections Corporation of America reported $1.8 billion in revenue and 14,000 employees.

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