CCA won't protest loss of federal prisoner contract

YOUNGSTOWN

The owner of the city’s private prison isn’t pleased that it lost a contract to house federal inmates, but will not take any steps to fight that decision, Mayor John A. McNally said.

The mayor said he spoke Wednesday to officials with the Corrections Corp. of America, which owns and operates the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center on Hubbard Road on the city’s East Side.

“CCA has agreed to not protest” the decision, McNally said.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons recently told CCA, based in Nashville, Tenn., that it wouldn’t renew a contract to house about 1,400 of its inmates at NEOCC after its contract expires May 31.

CCA has declined to discuss the reasons the bureau gave the company for not renewing the contract.

The prison will continue to house 580 inmates under a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service, which expires Dec. 31, 2018.

Steven Owen, CCA’s senior director of public affairs, has said the company will explore other government contracts to house inmates at NEOCC and retain as many of the 418 employees there as possible.

Read more about the changes in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.