Jail Privatization Issue Draws Continued Debate
Source: ANDY MEEK, The Memphis Daily News(TN), Dec 19, 2005
He's a corrections officer who has worked at the Shelby County Penal Farm for 16 years, a career that, until recently, has been mostly spent out of the limelight and away from the public eye. But in the last three years, Jeff Woodard - who has become one of Shelby County government's most outspoken, persistent critics - figures he's missed only five public meetings of the full County Commission. Protesting privatization. With most appearances, Woodard protests the notion that a private company could ever smoothly manage the county's jail and prison facilities, something county leaders have been studying with particular interest over the past year. ....... But Woodard's nonappearance wasn't the most significant absence from the meeting that day. Also missing were the new jail proposals themselves, which are tweaked versions of packages submitted to the county earlier this year by two leading companies in the private prison industry. Only a few people in county government have actually seen the proposals that Corrections Corp. of America and The GEO Group redelivered to county leaders about one month ago.