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Thirty miles south of Austin on Texas Highway 183, past dozens of dusty, hardscrabble towns that boomed and then busted with the state’s petroleum industry, one town named Lockhart is on the rebound.

The source of newfound prosperity, residents say, is the Lockhart Renaissance and Work Facility, the town’s fourth largest employer. Located on Industrial Boulevard next to a machine shop, cookie factory and clothing maker, the flat-roofed, blue-and- white business looks a lot like an upscale Wal-Mart. Its neat, well-lit parking lot reserves spots for “employee of the Month” and a few CEOs.

A secretary at the front desk invites me to wait in a plush chair in a large, white- tiled lobby while well-dressed men and women -- members of the firm’s 150-person work force -- pass through glass double doors to the building’s interior. Eventually, a businessman named Greg Skeens walks out and introduces himself with a firm handshake.

Dressed in a crisp white shirt and silk tie, Skeens looks like an IBM executive. But he’s not. He’s the warden of this private, minimum-security prison run by Wackenhut Corrections Corp.

Lockhart residents boast that the prison, which holds 500 women and 500 men, has turned the town into an “international hub.” Skeens gives at least one tour a month; his guests have included the home secretary of Great Britain and officials from Japan, Puerto Rico, Canada and the Navajo Tribal Council.

From the lobby, Skeens walks visitors through a series of controlled doors to the men’s side of the prison. The wide central hall is bustling with inmates; a long line extends out the open door of the barber shop. Across the hall, prisoners pore over books in the law library, while in another nearby room, a group of about 20 inmates bow in Muslim midday worship. In large “living areas,” several prisoners watch a silent TV with headphones plugged into “listening tables.”

“It’s just like a small community,” Skeens remarks with a smile. “We have a lot of talented people locked up in the state of Texas.”

For the service of housing each inmate -- most of whom are here for nonviolent offenses -- the state of Texas pays Wackenhut about $27 per day. Out of that, Skeens pays for everything “from housing and hygiene items to salary and utilities to any instructional materials.” Any money left over is profit.

Business is booming for private prison operators like Wackenhut these days. While crime rates have remained fairly steady over the past 20 years, the number of people behind bars in the United States has tripled to 1.63 million, according to the Justice Department. Tougher penalties, especially for drug-related offenses, explain part of this growth. But the prison industry itself has also become a big player; it needs prisoners to keep it growing. The cost of building and operating prisons has jumped from $6.8 billion in 1980 to $30 billion today. Spending on corrections at the state level has increased faster than any category of public spending, and an increasing proportion of this money goes to private companies.

Towns used to sue to keep prisons out. Now -- in competition for jobs, tax revenue, utility connections and, in some cases, per-inmate payments -- they’re fighting to attract them. In Texas last year, several towns stampeded for 12 new state lockups; some offered free country-club memberships to the top officials of any prison that came to town.

In 1995, the Austin-based Bobby Ross Group built a 480-bed, medium-security prison in Karnes City, Texas. The state of Colorado now warehouses more than 470 of its convicts at the Karnes County Corrections Center at a cost of about $41 per day per prisoner. Of that amount, Karnes County government gets 25 cents per day per prisoner -- for a total of about $26,000 last year. “It sounded too good to be true to have a prison built without taxpayer money,” says Karnes County Judge Alfred Pawelek. “The bottom line was we needed jobs. J-O-B-S. We were looking at empty classrooms if we didn’t do something.”

Last year, Romulus, N.Y., with a population of 3,000, voted by a 3-1 margin in favor of hosting a new state prison. The town is now a finalist in a 22-town competition for one of three state prisons to be built at a total cost of $476 million. “The red carpet is out,” town Supervisor Raymond Zajack says. “With the number of prisoners growing, it’s a lucrative business, so to speak.” Towns in Missouri, Washington, Florida and Virginia have also been clamoring for prisons to build in their backyards.

In a climate like this, it’s no surprise that some entrepreneurs have sniffed out the possibility of making a buck. So far, private prisons incarcerate only about 50,000 prisoners -- a small fraction of the total inmate population. But these private prisons have grown at four times the rate of public prisons, and experts predict their numbers will triple by the year 2000, with revenue topping $1 billion. The two largest companies, Wackenhut and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) together own about 75 percent of the global market.

Proponents of private prisons say companies like Wackenhut cut costs by 10 percent to 15 percent. “If I need something and its at Wal-Mart, I can go to Wal-Mart and buy it,” Skeens says. “I have a little more flexibility (than the state).”

Such savings have yet to be proved. The U.S. General Accounting Office reported in August 1996 that “comparisons of operating costs (between public and private institutions) indicated little difference and/or mixed results.” For one thing, private prisons shift significant costs to the state. If an inmate at Wackenhut needs to be hospitalized, Skeens pays for the first 72 hours and the state pays for the rest. Prisoners are screened for mental and physical health before being admitted -- leaving costly prisoners in state lockups.

Nor is there any assurance that private companies will treat inmates adequately, even by the abysmal standards of public prisons. Government oversight of private prisons is lax. While most states require that private prisons be accredited by the American Correctional Association, critics say that ACA standards are minimal at best and that, even so, many private prisons fail to meet them. Most states require on-site, state-employed monitors to ensure contract compliance. Some states also require periodic site visits from independent boards. But these measures have failed to stem the abuse of inmates in private prisons.

In the competition to offer the best prisons at the lowest cost, prison companies sometimes skimp on food, rehabilitative programs or training for guards. One privately run detention center for illegal immigrants in Elizabeth, N.J., exploded in violence in June 1995 after Esmor Correctional Services Inc. hired inexperienced staff, served inmates a substandard diet and shackled detainees in leg irons. The Immigration and Naturalization Service center reopened last month under the management of CCA.

In 1995, allegations of rape and assault at the privately run High Plains Youth Center in Brush, Colo., prodded the state to admit it could not guarantee inmates’ safety at private prisons. Run by the Rebound Corp. in Denver, the 180-bed juvenile facility houses youths from more than two dozen states.

In December 1995, officials from the University of Illinois at Chicago made a surprise visit to the juvenile lockup, where they documented “a consistent and disturbing pattern of violence, sexual abuse, clinical malpractice and administrative incompetence at every level of the program.” One teen-aged boy who had been sexually assaulted by another resident told investigators that when he had pounded on a locked door for help, staff told him to “just go back to bed.” His attacker serially raped the boy for months, while the staff deliberately ignored it, the University of Illinois report found.

According to Jerry Adamek, director of Colorado’s Division of Youth Corrections, the state had started in October 1995 to “negotiate” with Rebound about the unacceptable conditions. To date, the state hasn’t removed a single youth from the facility.

Adamek, a proponent of prison privatization, acknowledged that the state’s level of tolerance for Rebound was a result of its dependence on the company. “We were so desperate for beds even here in Colorado, we lowered some of our own expectations,” Adamek says. “The monitors knew if we went in and were too aggressive with it, we had the possibility of losing the contract provider.”

The Colorado ACLU has sued the Bobby Ross Group, charging delayed access to medical care, overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, inexperienced and undertrained staff, and inadequate programs and services at its private prison in Karnes City.

Bobby Ross -- a former Texas county sheriff -- and his spokespeople refused to respond to the allegations. They also refused to distribute my letter to inmates. They returned the letters -- opened -- and ran me off the property when I appeared in person to request a visit.

Since the prisons are on private property, the Texas Department of Corrections has its hands ties when it comes to protecting prisoners’ First Amendment rights in such cases, according to Glen Castlebury, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Corrections. “There’s no regulation whatsoever of the private prisons (in these matters),” he says. “They’re scot-free to do whatever they please.”

Despite documented abuse and dubious savings, it will be difficult to slow the momentum of private prisons, which have become a political force to be reckoned with. CCA and Wackenhut together gave almost $150,000 in federal and state political contributions during the 1995-96 electoral cycle, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. The companies gave mostly to Republicans, but they also hedged their bets by giving money to pliant Democrats. Having promised to reduce the federal payroll substantially, many Democrats, including Bill Clinton, support prison privatization.

Some of Wall Street’s largest investment houses, including Goldman Sacks & Co. and Smith Barney Inc., are competing to underwrite the bonds for the prisons. [See “Jailhouse Stock.”] Other huge companies also have a stake. American Express, for example, invested approximately $31 million in the $38 million Great Plains Correctional Facility in Hinton, Okla., according to the prison’s warden, Tom Martin. Great Plains is a private prison that houses inmates from North Carolina.

Prison companies also buy lobbying power. Rodney Blonien, a powerful California lobbyist and former corrections official, was paid more than $600,000 by a variety of corrections clients between 1989 and 1994, according to the Los Angeles Times. Wackenhut alone paid him $220,260 during that period, the newspaper reported.

Private prison companies have some powerful allies in the fight for stiffer sentences and more prison spending. For example, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which has grown from 4,000 to 23,000 in the past decade, gave more than $1 million to various California state politicians in 1996. The prison lobby is also supported by the National Rifle Associate. Armed with an agenda of deflecting public fear away from guns and towards people, the NRA successfully lobbies for prison construction and three-strikes-and-you’re-out laws. [See “The NRA Strikes Back.”]

This alliance between private operators and more traditional law-and-order advocates is only natural. David Shichor, professor of criminal justice at California State University-San Bernardino, calls it the “Hilton scheme”: “You want to keep your hotel always full.”

But unlike the NRA, companies like Wackenhut and the Bobby Ross Group have direct power over prisoners’ lives. Marc Mauer, of the Washington D.C.-based Sentencing Project, warns that the profit incentive for private prison companies could lengthen prisoners’ stays. “A critical issue is accountability,” Mauer says. “You can imagine someone coming up for probation. The tendency of a private prison will be not to release them.”

At Lockhart, for example, Wackenhut officials decide when inmates should be disciplined or given “good time” -- both factors considered by parole boards. Inmates can appeal disciplinary actions to a public board, but in making judgments about convicts’ futures, the profiteer stands between the prisoner and the state.

Companies serving the corrections industry need an ample quantity of raw material to ensure long-term growth. Since that raw material is prisoners, the industry will do whatever it can to guarantee a steady supply.

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Kristin Bloomer is a staff writer for the Rutland Daily Herald, Rutland Vermont.

*In These Times, March 17, 1997. pps. 14-19.

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