Cooper: Keep private prisons in order

The operation by CoreCivic of Trousdale Turner Correctional Center in Hartsville, Tenn., was given low marks in a recent state comptroller's audit.
The operation by CoreCivic of Trousdale Turner Correctional Center in Hartsville, Tenn., was given low marks in a recent state comptroller's audit.

If a vendor doesn't provide good service when it supplies your business, you naturally will look elsewhere.

The state of Tennessee is not there yet, but it is evident from a recently released state audit that prison operator CoreCivic is not even providing adequate service at the troubled Trousdale Turner Correctional Center in Hartsville.

The problems in the audit were so scathing that state lawmakers delayed until December reauthorizing the Tennessee Department of Correction.

Following the release of the audit, fingers were quickly pointed.

Democrats wanted to throw away the baby with the bathwater and not reauthorize the $1 billion Department of Correction. Some members of the legislature's Government Operations Committee said the department hadn't been tough enough on CoreCivic, previously called Corrections Corporation of America.

Lawmakers in both parties questioned whether a prison should be operated by a private, for-profit company.

"This is proof of what I've been saying for years," Rep. Jeremy Faison, R-Cosby, told the USA Today Network-Tennessee. "There's a problem with a for-profit prison."

The medium-security Trousdale Center itself was hammered in the audit for not being compliant with state contract requirements, for not following Department of Correction policies, for gang problems, for ongoing unstaffed positions and for supplying inconsistent data.

A federal lawsuit filed earlier this year alleged staff shortages at the facility led to insufficient care for some 60 inmates who have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes.

A previous NBC News report quoted a former employee who said he and other workers never had a single day of on-the-job training.

Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Tony Parker and CoreCivic officials did not dispute the majority of the audit findings, and Parker acknowledged the findings were serious.

"Yes," he said, lack of adequate staffing "could jeopardize the security and safety of the facility."

"When staffing levels are not adequate," said John Dunn, a spokesman for the state comptroller's office, "it threatens the safety of the facility, its staff and its inmates."

Staffing, the audit states, citing a March 2017 article published by the American Correctional Intelligence Network, is "arguably the most crucial element to safety inside our prisons."

Just two years old, Trousdale is the state's newest and largest privately run prison. Currently, CoreCivic has a five-year, $276 million contract to run the facility.

The political reality in the state, though, is that the Department of Correction will be reauthorized next month and that the private company - which also operates Silverdale Detention Facilities in Chattanooga - will not be dumped as a provider.

With that said, the state, through the Department of Correction, must do a better job at monitoring the situation at Trousdale while not overlooking its contracts at other privately run prisons.

After all, when an auditor says the state comptroller couldn't trust the veracity of documents provided after auditors' visit to the prison, we all - as in taxpayers - have a problem.

It's the same uncertainty many in the state had - and have - with Gov. Bill Haslam's proposals to outsource services at public colleges and universities and at state parks and other recreation facilities.

Because of the bloat and bureaucracy of government, it should be a no-brainer that a private firm could operate such facilities cheaper and more efficiently. But that isn't always the case.

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga officials announced recently, for instance, that the school was turning down the optional offer to contract with the state's chosen private operator because it could operate its facilities cheaper than the private company.

Corrections Corporation of America was founded in Nashville in 1983 and first took over the operations of a Tennessee facility the next year for the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County. It changed its name to CoreCivic in October 2016.

Today, it is the nation's fifth largest corrections system, manages more than 70 facilities in 20 states - including eight in the Volunteer State - and oversees nearly 70,000 inmates.

Despite that history, a state employees organization was ready to end the state's association with private prison companies after the recent audit was released.

"In light of these findings," Randy Stamps, executive director of the Tennessee State Employee Association, said in a news release, "we believe it is time to move on from this and all private prison contracts and operate all Tennessee state prison facilities with state employees who have proven their ability to effectively maintain and operate safe and secure prisons."

Of course that glosses over the fact the most recent - and previous - audits also have cited problems with state-run facilities.

Nevertheless, Tennessee residents deserve to know the state is spending their taxes wisely - and especially if the state has chosen to outsource the work, as with CoreCivic. About Trousdale, we hope the right remedies have been put in place and that never again will an audit find so many problems. If they do, the drumbeat to end for-profit prisons will become louder than a prison riot.

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