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ilbegone
10-31-2009, 06:41 AM
Assemblyman questions closure of private prisons


BY CHRISTINE BEDELL

Oct 29 2009

Assemblyman Danny Gilmore, R-Hanford, challenged Thursday the recent decision to close the McFarland Community Correctional Facility, saying if there aren't enough low-level inmates to fill it maybe it should be upgraded to hold other kinds of prisoners.

He also questioned why it's happening when thousands of low-level California inmates are housed out of state.

"My district encompasses 14 different prisons and correctional facilities, each of which plays an important role in maintaining public safety," Gilmore, in a news release, said of the 30th Assembly District. "I disagree with the decision to close the McFarland facility for several reasons, not (the) least of them the cost-savings it offers."

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced this week it has issued 60-day closure notices to three private prisons, two of them in Kern County: the McFarland facility and the Mesa Verde Correctional Facility in Bakersfield.

It did so because of declining numbers of minimum-security inmates. Gilmore said in his release that upgrading the private prisons could help ease overcrowding at state-run prisons and preserve jobs in a town like McFarland with nearly 28 percent unemployment.

"At a time when Californians are struggling to find jobs it is irresponsible to continue employing people in other states, especially at the expense of California residents who are able and willing to work," Gilmore said in the release.

Corrections department spokeswoman Terry Thornton said it would be tremendously expensive to upgrade the community correctional facilities with such things as electrified fences and guard towers and the state doesn't own them anyway.

She reiterated that the state is about to issue requests for bids to house female inmates and the facilities have a shot at those contracts.

Thornton said there are 7,910 inmates housed out of state under a 2006 temporary order but they don't meet the criteria for housing at the three facilities facing closure.