[T]he Michigan Legislature gave final approval this week to a bill that will allow Vermont inmates with high-risk security classifications to be housed at a facility owned by the GEO Group.
This month, the Vermont Department of Corrections finalized a contract with the Florida-based private prison company that will involve moving Vermont’s out-of-state prisoners to a facility in Lake County, Michigan.
A Michigan law presented a hurdle for the plan. Under state statute, the private facility was barred from accepting any out-of-state prisoners that meet the standards of Michigan’s highest security level — a rating that reflects prisoners’ behavior in prison.
The Michigan Senate removed that provision by a vote of 23-14 Wednesday, paving the way for the GEO Group’s facility to house prisoners of all security classifications.
Fewer than five of Vermont’s out-of-state inmates are classified at the top level for security risks, according to Andy Pallito, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Corrections.
Pallito said by email that the state had planned to move those inmates back to Vermont, but now, with the change in Michigan’s law, the state will not have to do that.
Vermont’s out-of-state prison population has been on a steady decline for years — last week, it dipped to 298, the lowest level since 1999. Pallito expects that the downward trend will continue, and hopes that the program can be closed by the end of the GEO contract, which could last between two and four years.
In recent years, Vermont inmates have gone to two different facilities — one in Kentucky and another in Arizona — based on different security needs under a contract with the Corrections Corporation of America for out-of-state services.
The new GEO facility is secure for prisoners of all ratings, Pallito said.
The pending arrival of Vermont prisoners in northern Michigan has drawn some political fire in the Michigan state capital.
Rep. Jon Bumstead, a Republican who represents Lake County, sponsored the bill. He said that his primary goal in removing the security classification was to pave the way to bring long-term jobs to the rural county.
“We have a beautiful facility sitting there empty,” Bumstead said by phone Friday. “Any job we can get in that county is a plus.”
The facility itself, located near the small town of Baldwin, has been there for almost two decades. First built in the late 1990s by the Wackenhut Corrections Co., which has since become the GEO Group, the prison was constructed to house Michigan’s youth offenders. The GEO group expanded the prison from 500 to 1,700 beds in the late 2000s.
Nicknamed a “punk prison” by then-Gov. John Engler, the private facility ran for several years before it was shuttered amid budget and other concerns in 2005.
Since then, the facility has largely remained empty, save for a few months in 2011 when it housed inmates from California, according to Bumstead.
That has been a big deal in Lake County, according to County Commissioner Dan Sloan, where the major industry is tourism, drawn by the state and national forests that comprise half the county’s area. He said, the county is plagued by chronic high poverty and unemployment rates.
Sloan and Bumstead said that they have heard estimates that the arrival of Vermont inmates could bring approximately 150 jobs to the county. GEO Group is also setting up contracts with other states. The company recently secured a deal with Washington to house some of that state’s inmates.
County residents have not raised concerns about public safety around the correctional facility, Sloan said, and the sheriff’s department has been supportive of the plan. In Lake County, Vermont’s contract with GEO is hailed largely as an opportunity for economic development, Sloan said.
Meanwhile, Bumstead shrugged off the concerns of some of his legislative colleagues about the facility, and reiterated the need for new industry in Lake County.
“All I care about is giving some people a paycheck,” Bumstead said.
For other Michigan lawmakers, however, the reopening of GEO’s Lake County prison raises larger questions about the state’s role in privatized correctional systems.
The bill narrowly passed the House on a vote of 57-53, and Senate lawmakers tried to introduce several amendments that would have altered the bill.
Sen. Steve Bieda, a Democrat, introduced an amendment that would have specified that no Michigan prisoners would go to private correctional facilities. The amendment was one vote shy of approval.
Bieda said by phone Friday that his concerns go beyond the involvement of Michigan’s correctional system in private facilities. His opposition to the bill, in part, came down to an issue about “what we want our state to be known for.”
“I just feel this is a dangerous path to go down,” Bieda said.
Bieda has concerns about for-profit prison companies and the implications for criminal justice. He questioned whether a private company puts primary emphasis on inmate rehabilitation, and said that he believes incarceration should not be handled by a private entity.
“It’s a philosophical concern about what government should and should not do,” Bieda said.
Peter Martel, an associate with the American Friends Service Committee’s Michigan Criminal Justice Program, said that the group has been tracking the developments with Michigan’s policies on private correctional facilities.
“I have problems with the fundamentals of a privatized prison because whenever it’s a for-profit corporation, their bottom line and their goal is very, very different than the goal that we have in criminal justice,” Martel said.
Martel said that the group does not have plans to extend advocacy work to out-of-state prisoners at the Lake County facility yet, but will be keeping track of any complaints they receive from GEO inmates.
