NOTE: Our update about the informal meeting of the Prison Population Taskforce is lower in the post [end note]
A local newspaper has published an in-depth article in which state senator Lyle Koenen, DFL-Clara City, and state representative Tim Miller, R-Prinsburg, outline the prospects for blocking a proposal to bond for an expansion of the state prison at Rush City and open a shuttered private prison in Appleton instead.
The Swift County Monitor has posted only an abbreviated version of County board updated on prison potential use on its website, but a kind friend has sent a pdf of the entire article, which we embed below.
After reading the article, the outlines of the efforts legislative strategy--for which Goff Public has secured a lobbying contract from Swift County--emerges.
Koenen asserts that a bonding proposal from the Department of Corrections has been "put out and it is just sitting there." The conservative Clara City Democrat casts doubt on the willingness of capital investment committee chair Senator Leroy Stumpf, DFL-Plummer, to adopt the proposal. Koenen also speaks of an effort to meet with the Department of Corrections about the CCA re-opening, as well as an informal working group of legislators from both chambers and parties to look at prison space.
The working group should meet sometime near the end of September, Koenen told the board. Bluestem will keep an eye out.
UPDATE 9/9/2015, 9: A reader active in the faith community sent us word that the Prison Population Taskforce will meet on Friday, September 25 at 9:00 a.m. in Room 10 of the State Office Building, according to the Minnesota Senate calendar. The notice reads:
The meeting is for the Prison Population Taskforce, an informal discussion by a group of stakeholders including the Senate Judiciary Committee, members of the House of Representatives, and officials from state and local agencies, among others. Rep. Tony Cornish will serve as the co-chair of the meeting.
Agenda: |
|
To be announced. |
As Bluestem learned last fall from the meeting of the Senate Rural Task Force, informal task forces are just that, but serious business--like discussions of dumping the MPCA Citizens Board--can go on at them, without the meddling presence of video and audio archives or even minutes. We recommend that those interested in criminal justice reform be there with their videocameras.
We'll have more on the makeup of the task force as we get the list of members. Our source tells us that lobbyists are on the task force. It sound like more regulatory capture. [end update]
Miller posits that the Republican-controlled Minnesota House will have "little appetite" for bonding, and that "the one truth" is that Minnesota will need to house more inmates than there are currently beds for them. He noted that House legislative staff has been meeting with the Governor's office about re-opening the prison.
Read the embedded pdf below for the entire story. We anticipate that the lobbying effort will generate controversy. Not only because CCA is non-union, the single reason that the Monitor's coverage reports, but because the for-profit prison industry has been widely criticized in articles such as Truth-out's America's Top Prison Corporation: A Study in Predatory Capitalism and Cronyism.
For our earlier coverage of the plan to re-open the prison, check out the links below:
Swift Co hires Goff Public to work on reopening CCA private prison to solve state's inmate binge
Union's Director of Public Affairs & Public Policy says AFSCME opposes re-opening private prison
W. Central residents speak out for broadband, while guy who's not King of MN favors CCA.
Campaigned against it in 2014: in legislative update, Miller joins choir for rural broadband
MN17A lawmakers meet privately with Swift Co, CCA & lobbyists about private prison lease
Here's a PDF of the full article from the September 9, 2015 Swift County Monitor:
County board updated on potential prison use
Photo: The now-shuttered Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton, MN. The private prison is owned by Corrections Corporation of America. The for-profit corrections industry has been widely criticized as profiting from incarceration, in venues as varied as news media and the mostly current season of Orange is the New Black on Netflix.
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