Rahim Jenkins, a corrections professional and Ward 8 resident, said he has held a contract for several months with Corrections Corporation of America. Jenkins said he is paid to recruit and train women on welfare to enter CCA’s training academy and eventually work in the D.C. Correctional Treatment Facility run by CCA on Capitol Hill.

Jenkins said he originally "vehemently opposed" the planned Ward 8 prison but changed his mind after a meeting with CCA board member Joseph Johnson, president of D.C.-based National Corrections and Rehabilitation Corp., a major subcontractor with CCA. Jenkins said Johnson told him about the positive things CCA could do for the larger community and later helped Jenkins get his contract with the company.

Johnson, a longtime D.C. activist and businessman, joined the CCA board of directors in 1995 after a long association with the company and has since helped organize local support for the Ward 8 project. Previously, he managed the political campaigns of former D.C. council chairman David Clarke and former at-large D.C. councilman John Ray, an attorney who currently represents CCA. Formerly a resident of Ward 4, Johnson now lives in Virginia.

Johnson said CCA does not have contracts with any Ward 8 organizations or businesses. However, he said he personally has made contributions to local programs serving children and has often helped local residents pay rent and utility bills. When asked if he undertook such donations as an individual, Johnson said, "I don’t do anything as an individual."

Jenkins said CCA officials plan to underwrite a $1 million loan fund for local minority businesses and to sponsor community activities such as Little League baseball teams. Earlier this month, CCA offered to pay the costs of keeping the now-closed Ward 8 Safeway store open for an additional 30 days. Safeway declined the offer.

"CCA is trying to buy the good will of the people of Ward 8," said Eugene Dewitt Kinlow, leader of the coalition opposed to the prison. "It isn’t going to work. I don’t care how much money they have or how many people they pay."

Jenkins said his involvement comes from his concern for the welfare of the community.

"We are here to make sure CCA keeps its word," Jenkins said. "There are concessions and benefits for the community in this. We might as well get as much as we can while the getting is good."

Jenkins, like other prison supporters, said he is concerned for the welfare of incarcerated D.C. residents and their families.

"We have a moral and ethical responsibility to those who have to be separated from the community because of their behavior," Jenkins said. "We have an opportunity to change the face of the penal industry by developing a state-of-the-art system here in the District of Columbia."

Other prison supporters agree it is better to work with CCA to ensure the welfare of inmates and the greater community through a citizens’ advisory board than to worry about the company’s record managing other facilities such as the Youngstown, Ohio, prison from which six inmates escaped in August.

"If it is right here, we will be able to oversee it ourselves," said Hannah Hawkins, a prison supporter who often with children left behind when parents are imprisoned. "It is better than sending these mothers and fathers hundreds of miles away where they have no contact with their families."

CCA is the largest private corrections company in the nation, operating more than 78 correctional institutions across the country. The publicly held company’s net income rose 54 percent in the first quarter of this year and 82 percent in the second quarter, according to the company’s published reports.

Meanwhile, Ward 8 Councilwoman Sandra Allen recently announced she will join the growing number of her constituents who oppose the prison.

"I will be doing everything that I can to prevent the facility from coming to the ward, including exploring alternative sites," Allen said. "I will be speaking out at the zoning hearing, to Congress if necessary and, if it gets that far, lobbying my colleagues in council to vote against the facility."

Allen said her decision followed a meeting Sept. 30 with 10 advisory neighborhood commissioners in the ward during which all but two commissioners voiced opposition to the plan.

Residents of Ward 8 and nearby Prince George’s County, Md., fighting the prison have called on Allen to write letters opposing the prison to D.C. City Council, the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the D.C. Zoning Commission, which will hold a public hearing Nov. 12 on CCA’s request to zone the site for a prison. Opponents also have asked Allen to formally request a hearing before the council’s judiciary committee on CCA’s performance on its current contracts with the city.

Allen first announced her position during a live radio interview Oct. 2 on "The D.C. Politics Hour with Mark Plotkin" on WAMU 88.5 FM. Allen previously said she had no position on the issue and neither supported nor opposed the prison. Earlier this year she sent letters in support of the prison to Mayor Marion Barry and to the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons and had voted in favor of council legislation authorizing a private prison in the District.

Copyright 1998, The Common Denominator