Arizona, Illegal Alians & Money

SUBHEAD: Arizona Governor Brewer is entangled with those who could profit from jailing more illegal aliens. Image above: Still from video of show. By Rachel Maddow on 12 August 2010 for MSNBC.com - (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show#38700092) If you have been watching any tv lately, if you have been following google trends at all, you are probably aware that there's a big manhunt going on across the country tonight. officials are searching for an escaped prisoner and his fiancee/cousin who apparently helped him escape from a prison in Arizona. I t's the sort of Bonnie and Clyde, but without the great acting, getaway that has led to a cross-country police search, and it has captivated a lot of people in the process. have you heard about this actually starting, though? Have you heard about how this whole story that has sort of captivated the country, this nationwide manhunt, these escaped prisoners, have you heard how the prison break that started it all actually happened? it was three guys in prison in kingman, Arizona. And here's how they broke out of that prison. they walked through an unlocked door at their cell block, the door was unlocked, it was supposed to have an alarm on it, but the alarm either wasn't there or it didn't work. the alarm didn't go off. Then the prisoners walked over to the perimeter fence of the prison, the fiancee/cousin of one of the prisoners had driven her car up to the fence. her car was plainly visible ? To the security cameras around the prison, but no one who worked at the prison seemed to notice when she drove right up next to that perimeter fence. She then threw some wire cutters over the fence to the three prisoners who were standing inside, the prisoners used the wire cutters to cut through the fence. that did set off an alarm, but no one who worked at the prison appeared to notice that alarm. let alone react to it. The alarm just went off and staff just ignored it. so the dudes walked through the fence they just cut, they got in the car, and they drove off. no one at the prison noticed the hole in the fence or the alarm going off or the car that drove up to the fence that was visible on the security cameras or that the three prisoners were missing until 9:00 p.m. that night, five hours after these three prisoners were last seen by prison staff. After the prison realized that it had had three of its prisoners escape, they waited more than an hour before telling the local sheriff, who, i don't know, maybe might have been some help in apprehending the prisoners. they waited more than 2 1/2 hours before notifying the state corrections department. at this point, two of the escaped prisoners have been captured, but one of them along with his fiancee/cousin/ getaway driver/ wire cutter thrower is still at large. The head of the department of corrections in arizona said of this incident, "We have great concerns that there was laxness on the part of the security staff." okay, first of all, yeah, you think? second of all, it's kind of amazing to hear that admission. that is essentially an admission of guilt in a case like this coming from the head of the state department of corrections, right? Actually, when you look at the details, turns out it's not that amazing. because you should consider that the prison that these three guys just essentially walked out of is not run by the state. arizona has 15 prisons, 10 of them are run by the state. Ten of them are run by the department of corrections, by the government, if you will, but five of them are for-profit private enterprises. they are run by private prison companies, including this one in kingman, where this prison break last month happened. what they describe ? As a minimum to medium security prison, about 12 miles outside of kingman, Arizona. It's run by a company called MTC, Management and Training Corporation. MTC brags on being the third largest private prison company in the country. MTC, like many private prison companies, has a bit of a checkered past. in the late 1990s, the company, which is based in Utah, brought on an executive named Lane McCotter. Mr. McCotter took the job at MTC after having resigned, quite recently, as the top prison official for the state of Utah. He resigned in the wake of a particularly brutal scandal involving a mentally ill man dying in custody after he was strapped into a restraint chair for 16 hours. Now NTC at that time, management and training corporation at that time, particular had its own extensive track record of poor treatment of inmates. But regardless, soon after Mr. McCotter started his new gig at MTC, he was hand picked by John Ashcroft's Justice Department to go to Iraq, to go over to Iraq in the months after the u.s. invaded that country. why send a private prison executive into a war zone? Well, according to "the New York Times," quote, it was Mr. McCotter who first identified Abu Ghraib as the best site for America's main prison and who helped to rebuild the prison and train Iraqi guards. See, there's the private prison guy with the circle around him, the MTC guy, he's at Abu Ghraib there giving a tour to deputy defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz. after setting up the Abu Ghraib prison for American use, Lane McCotter left Iraq just before the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal broke. Meanwhile, the for-profit prison companies here at home were working their magic, including in Arizona. in September 2007, two convicted murderers broke out of a private prison in Arizona using ladders that they'd stole orphan a maintenance building. In 1997, a convicted murderer and a sex offender broke out another Arizona private prison. One year earlier in 1996, three other prisoners broke out another private prison. After this incredible record of achievement, after all of these prison escapes from private prisons, how did the state of Arizona decide to proceed with the issue of prison privatization? Even as prison privatization declines around the country, even as state budget cuts make it so that many states are closing facilities or reducing their sentencing guidelines, so that fewer people are in prison altogether, how did the state of Arizona decide to proceed? Last year Arizona state officials moved legislation to try to privatize the whole state prison system. Arizona planned to "seek bids from private companies for nine of the state's ten prison complexes." It was the first effort by a state to put its entire prison system under private control. Great news for the private prison companies, right? Great news in particular for Corrections Corporation of America, which is the single largest private prison company in the country. CCA already runs six detention the facilities in Arizona. They hold prisoners from other states at their facilities in Arizona. They also hold the federal contract to hold federal detainees in the state. So you know what would be awesome for a company like that? you know what would be awesome? What would be really awesome for the shareholders and everybody? If the state of Arizona started producing a whole lot more federal detainees. People detained on federal issues, federal issues like, I don't know, say, immigration violations. Imagine the boon to the private for-profit prison company that has the contract to house federal detainees in Arizona, if Arizona came up with a whacky plan to arrest a lot more people for suspected immigration violations. Imagine how awesome a law like sb- 1070 would be for an industry like the for-profit private prison industry in Arizona. Sure, it's an industry with an incredibly awful record in Arizona, but there is money to be made here, and it turns out that that industry, particularly Corrections Corporation of America, which stands to benefit the most, that industry and that company in Arizona, they're really well conducted. The CBS affiliate in Phoenix, KPHO did some investigating on this subject. This is what they turned up. Our CBS 5 investigation found two of governor Brewer's top advisers have connections to CCA. deputy chief of staff, Paul Senseman was a lobbyist for the company. His life is still a registered lobbyist for cCCA. Brewer policy adviser Chuck Coughlin also represents CCA. Did Paul Senseman or Chuck Coughlin have any input with you on signing SB- 1070 into law?

"Okay, we're done."

Were you aware they were lobbyists for corrections corporate of America? Governor, don't you think you should have disclosed that? The governor did not answer those questions. After initially dodging those questions, governor Brewer's office eventually got back to the CBS affiliate, telling them this. " Paul Senseman does not advise the governor on these issues." Corrections Corporation of America released a statement saying, "We did not lobby at any time anyone in Arizona on the immigration law." Then again, why would you need to lobby when two of the governor's top people are your lobbyists, your former lobbyists, and/or are married to your lobbyist? Joining us now is the investigative reporter who broke this story, Morgan Lowe from CBS affiliate KPHO in Phoenix, Arizona. Morgan, thanks very much for joining us tonight. "Rachel, it's a pleasure to be here." "Governor Brewer's office says that she did not talk about SB- 1070 with one of the advisers that you mentioned in your piece, who has links to this private prison company that stands to benefit from the legislation. What have you been able to find out, if anything, about the other adviser that your investigation turned up? That other adviser's name is Chuck Coughlin, and he is really tied into the Brewer administration. He's one of her policy advisers, as we said. He's also a campaign chairman. We've learned that he did consult with the governor on whether to sign SB- 1070 into law. We don't know what he proposed to her, what he said to her. We do know that this was a discussion that they had. High Ground, his company, is one of the most popular, sought-after political consulting companies in the state of Arizona. and they have contracts with all kinds of legislators and lawmakers here in Arizona. So very well connected and he did talk to the governor about whether to sign SB- 1070. Now, obviously, since SB- 1070 highas been signed, there's been a lot of further legal action limiting some of the potential impact of that legislation. But in terms of the, there being a potential financial boon for sort of impact would the full implementation of SB- 1070 have had on them? Well, that's a hard question to answer, and if you talk to the people at corrections corporation of america or if you hear from Chuck Coughlin, they'll say that corrections corporation of america has thouno plans to house any people caught in Arizona by local governments, illegal immigrants, that is. But Maricopa County, Phoenix police department, we don't deport illegal immigrants. When someone's picked up on the side of the road or for a crime, they're taken to the jail. At that point, their immigration status is determined. If they're an illegal immigrant, they're reported to immigration and customs enforcement. Then their taken to one of these private prisons, Corrections Corporation of America. So you'd have to do the math, but if you increased the number of people who are picked up, illegal immigrants, increase the number that are sent over to I.C.E., you're likely going to increase the number that companies like Corrections Corporation of America are going to be housing. Right now, I think they're charging I.C.E. here in Arizona about $11 million a month to have about a 5% vacancy rate that they keep for big busts or that kind of thing. So obviously that number would go up and they would have to make extra accommodations to handle more illegal immigrants. And given that the, as you explained, that the arrangement already is that people picked up on immigration violations already go to CCA,CCA can fairly say, we're not pushing or lobbying to have these inmates, these detainees brought to us. The fact remains that they just -- that they just will be. Morgan, last year when Arizona pushed to privatize, potentially, essentially its entire prison system, that made national headlines. No state had ever tried to do that before. What kind of influence does the private prison industry have on the legislature in Arizona? We've spent a lot of time looking into that in the last couple of weeks. I mean, who would have thought that the private prison industry would have any kind of influence anywhere, but as you mentioned in your piece going in, they have facilities all over the state of Arizona. What we found is they contribute money to state lawmakers, to the governor, to some of our other key lawmakers.They engage the most powerful lobbying groups here in Arizona. These are lobbying groups made up of former state lawmakers, former high-ranking public officials here, people who are close to the governor and other legislatures, pay them a lot of money. Those lobbyists give money to these legislators. In addition, in Arizona, we have a mind-set among a couple of key legislators that privatizing the prison industry is a good thing. As you mentioned, they tried to privatize the entire system last year. the governor did veto that after the state corrections director sent her a letter saying, look, we can't imagine having death row inmates in private prison systems, and having death row inmates being taken care of by the lowest common bidder. They don't think that's a great idea. Our state attorney general said he didn't think that was a good idea. But that bill went down. There are other bills that have moved forward. We've got a, what is it, a request for proposal out on the table right now for 5,000 additional beds for private prisons to come in here and take up. That would double the number of inmates we currently have in the private prison system here in Arizona. There are two sides in this debate here in Arizona, and they're sort of locking heads right now. This escape from Kingman certainly putting a new shine or a new view on the issue. It's remarkable that, I guess, it's remarkable that even running death row for profit at this point has to be proposed before people realize that it is a bridge too far. I have one last question for you, Morgan, and you mentioned the state attorney general. I know that he's actually been quite outspoken on this issue. Do you feel like, either with this escape in Kingman or with any of these other issues, that the public has a recognizable position on this issue? Is it becoming a campaign issue at all, political issue for the state? Well, looking at it from the outside, it's clear that it is becoming a campaign issue.You have a governor with close ties to the private prison industry. Her opponent, the attorney general, has been very outspoken against this. He's calling for the state to stop putting any dangerous inmates in these private prison systems, that account for all the dangerous inmates, and then re-evaluate whether we should move forward with this 5,000-bed request for proposal. It's hard to tell right now whether the population here in Arizona thinks that private prisons are a key, you know, issue for this election coming up. But I'll tell you we'll find out in the next two months. Morgan Lowe with KPHO in Arizona, thanks for your reporting and thanks for sharing with us, Morgan. I rreally appreciate it. My pleasure. .