Arizona private prison escape leads to questions about industry oversight

The escape of three Arizona inmates from a private prison which possibly resulted in two murders has led state regulators to reexamine the private prison industry's growth and degree of state oversight. "State leaders in recent years have pushed for more privatization and have blocked efforts to regulate the industry, which has invested heavily in local lobbying and contributed to political campaigns," Casey Newton, Ginger Rough and J. J. Hensley of The Arizona Republic report. Private prisons, like one near Kingman, Arizona , population just over 31,000, tend to be located in rural areas.

"The last fugitives in that escape were caught Thursday, and the state's prison director has promised changes to the private sites that house Arizona inmates," the reporters write. While many private prison advocates say they represent a cheaper option for states, "data suggest that the facilities are less cost-effective than they claim to be," Newton, Rough and Hensley report. "A cost study by the Arizona Department of Corrections this year found that it can often be more expensive to house inmates in private prisons than in their state-run counterparts."

The state Department of Corrections has varying levels of oversight for each of Arizona's private prisons with the department regulating facilities that house prisoners convicted in Arizona. The department does not dictate what type or prisoners private prisons accept from other states on behalf of the federal government or how they are secured. In that case private prisons report to Arizona only "names, security classifications and number of inmates housed at their facilities," the reporters write.

In the wake of the escape, members of both parties have criticized the five-tiered system which allows "some violent criminals to migrate to lower-security facilities for good behavior," the reporters write. Two of the three inmates who escaped from the medium-security Kingman facility had been convicted of murder. Gov. Jan Brewer told the Republic she still favored private prisons, but the escape was "unacceptable, and I am absolutely pushing for more accountability." (Read more)