WITNESS
Frank Smith has been a Field Organizer with the Florida-based Private Corrections Institute since 2004. From 1990 to 1999, he served on the Political Action Committee and Board of Directors of the Alaska State Employees Association, and he has been Vice-President of the American Federation of State, Municipal and County Employees Alaska Retiree Chapter from 1999 to the present. From 1988 to 1990, he directed community and institutional programs for the Mat-Su Council on the Prevention of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse at pre-trial, medium and minimum security prisons at Sutton and Palmer in Alaska.
Mr. Smith is the author of "Incarceration of Native Americans and Private Prisons" in Capitalist Punishment, Prison Privatization and Human Rights. He received a B.A. in Psychology from San Francisco State University in 1973, completed all the coursework for a M.S. in Industrial/Organization Psychology at California State University at San Francisco and was A.B.D. at Saybrook Institute.
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STATEMENT
…Public employees tend to receive 30% to 100% more than private employees, and the benefit packages of the former are far better. I have found private prison guards in Texas making as little as $6.45 an hour. In Kentucky, CCA guards were making $7.61 hourly. …In high-wage California, guards at Eagle Mountain were being paid $8. As a consequence of this, industry employee turnover was last reported at 52% yearly, compared to 16% in the public sector. When public sector jobs are paid wages closer to these scales, they also result in similar turnover. The state of Oklahoma retention figures are close to those in the privates for this reason. As a consequence, that state operates prisons that are chronically understaffed with employees lacking proper training.
…In a situation where alertness is critical, metaphorically speaking we have Homer Simpsons guarding the nuclear power plant. …Training hours are not only much less than in government institutions, but a higher proportion of it is at the elementary level, because of the turnover factor. Trainers employed by different operators have also told me that fundamental training, such as universal competency in CPR, had not been accomplished per state contracts. Techniques used to deescalate dangerous situations were allegedly taught only in part: Instruction in verbal control was not given, and management requested that takedown techniques were all that was to be taught.…
Because the corporations try to pay the lowest possible wages that will allow them to recruit staff, the privates generally locate in economically depressed areas. This means that inmates are held far from home, increasing their anxiety levels. It also means that it is next to impossible to recruit professional staff.
Excerpted from a written statement submitted to the Commission
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