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New prison plans could mean fewer jobs

(Published December 7, 1998)

By REBECCA CHARRY

Staff Writer

The change in the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ request for proposals that threw a wrench into the contentious debate over plans to build a private prison in Ward 8 may also substantially reduce the number of jobs for local residents should the prison be built.

"There may be an unavoidable reduction in the... job opportunities for Ward 8 residents if the revised project requires fewer employees than our original proposal," wrote John Ray, attorney for Corrections Corporation of America in a Nov. 27 letter to the D.C. Zoning Commission.

The revised proposal calls for a 1,000-bed facility rather than the 2,200-bed facility originally proposed. CCA officials had estimated that about 250 jobs would be available to D.C. residents as guards, nurses and teachers. The company also had pledged Ward 8 residents would be given hiring priority.

CCA, the nation’s largest private operator of prisons, now has until March 18 to reformulate its plans and figure out how many Ward 8 residents it can hire. Although CCA officials originally asked the zoning commission to postpone its Dec. 10 hearing on the proposed Ward 8 prison site until Feb. 25, the commission unanimously decided to postpone until March 18.

"There are a number of things pending that should come to fruition before the commission decides on this issue," said spokesman Ken Karkeet, noting that CCA does not yet have control of the land it is asking the commission to zone for a prison. "There’s also a new mayor and a new political climate."

Mayor-elect Anthony A. Williams has declared his opposition to locating a private prison in Ward 8. Nashville-based CCA currently houses more than 1,000 D.C. inmates at a troubled private prison in Youngstown, Ohio, and runs a treatment facility in the District for prisoners.

Meanwhile, CCA officials are working on a new proposal for a facility to house 350 male youth offenders, 300 females and 350 minimum-security males at the Ward 8 site, adjacent to the Maryland state line at the District’s southernmost point. The young male inmates and female prisoners would be of "various security levels," according to BOP documents.

If CCA wins the contract, officials will have to work fast to make the Dec. 31, 1999, deadline set by Congress for housing half of the District’s inmates in private facilities. According to CCA attorney Ray, the new request for proposals reduces construction time by about five months.

While Ray indicated that CCA might not be able to offer as many jobs to Ward 8 residents under the new proposal, he said the company’s officials "anticipate no change in the nature of the other public benefits proffered in our original application."

The Federal Bureau of Prisons is expected to issue a new request for proposals Dec. 12 for a 1,200-bed facility to house low-security male prisoners. Proximity to the District will no longer be a factor in the contract award.

Now that the request for proposals has been changed, CCA officials will have to make their presentation all over again, Karkeet said. The zoning commission heard more than 10 hours of public testimony from CCA officials, opponents and supporters of the prison at hearings Nov. 16 and 19.

It is not clear how much other testimony will have to be re-presented, he added, noting that commissioners are still sorting out the implications of the BOP’s unusual move.

"Nobody here knows quite what to do with it," Karkeet said. "It floored everybody."

Copyright 1998, The Common Denominator