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Legislators uncertain about putting state inmates at NEOCC
YOUNGSTOWN
State legislators from the Mahoning Valley are taking a wait-and-see attitude toward whether inmates from the overcrowded state prison system might replace federal inmates housed at the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown.
NEOCC, on Hubbard Road, which is owned and operated by the Nashville-Tenn.-based Corrections Corp. of America, lost its contract to house 1,400 U.S. Bureau of Prisons inmates.
That contract expires May 31.
NEOCC, however, will continue to house 580 inmates under a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service, which expires Dec. 31, 2018.
U.S. Bureau of Prisons officials were to explain to CCA officials in a Tuesday conference call their rationales for not renewing the bureau’s contract to house undocumented immigrant inmates at NEOCC, but the bureau has not made those rationales public.
CCA declined to disclose the rationales bureau officials gave for the nonrenewal after the conference call.
“For competitive reasons and out of respect for the long-standing relationship with our government partners, we do not publicly share feedback received regarding this process,” said Steven Owen, CCA’s senior director of public affairs.
“It’s premature to say that we should put state prisoners in there until we figure out if there’s a structural problem with the facility,” or some other issue pertaining to security or the treatment of inmates, said state Sen. Joseph Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd.
The senator said the Legislative Service Commission advised him that new legislation would be needed to house state inmates at NEOCC.
State Rep. Michele Lepore-Hagan of Youngs-town, D-58th, agreed with Schiavoni.
“It’s way premature to have this discussion because we need to find out why the federal government pulled [nonrenewed] the contract, and whether it’s possible to secure new business with the federal government first,” she said.
“NEOCC houses a class of inmates that are a good fit for the private correctional institution,” she said. “I’m not comfortable, however, with the idea of privatizing the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.”
CCA already operates the Lake Erie Correctional Institution in Conneaut, which houses state prisoners.
As of Dec. 29, Ohio’s prison system housed 50,641 inmates, 31 percent above design capacity and about 1,000 more than two years ago. State officials are considering unprecedented emergency early releases of nonviolent inmates.
“If the state had a need for additional space for low- to medium-security level inmates, I would certainly hope that CCA would approach the state about utilizing any additional space at the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center,” said Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally.
As the bureau of prisons did not renew its contract at NEOCC, which charges $69.72 per inmate per day, it awarded a new contract to Moshannon Valley Correctional Center in Phillipsburg, Pa., which charges $65.22 per inmate per day.
U.S. Marshals inmate housing contracts are facility-specific, and CCA cannot move the marshal’s inmates to other CCA lockups, said Lynzey Donahue, a U.S. Marshals Service spokeswoman.
Donahue said, however, the marshals service can decide to house its inmates at any lockup with which it has an agreement.
CCA will explore other possible government contracts to house inmates at NEOCC in the hope of preserving as many of its 418 jobs as possible, Owen said. CCA has no plans to change the prison’s inmate capacity.