Waco discusses jail marketing — why?

First, it's kind of a sad state of affairs on Texas' economy (yes, Rick Perry, it is), when not just small towns, but a metropolitan area like Waco talks about jail marketing, specifically as part of rehabbing an old downtown jail out of use for a few years.

Why? Hoping for federal jail contracts plus overflow from elsewhere, even though, among state-level inmates, the trend finally seems to be toward a drop, or at least, no more rises. The talk of a warm-weather increase in inmates doesn't wash here.

And, as Texas Prison Bidness notes, this is a road that both McClennan County and LaSalle have already been down before. Add in a "tough on crime" and "hang em high" district attorney, Abel Reyna, at the county level, and, if a federal contract or two doesn't materialize, I'm sure the old DA will get tougher yet on crime.

And, LaSalle doesn't have a stellar track record elsewhere, either. (I was in Burnet County when this went down.)

The bottom-line fact is that the Harwell Center itself was a spec-built project, its size being in part a gamble on getting contracts to house prisoners from elsewhere. Well, as I just noted, those days, if not coming to an end, are likely at least on the decline.

Related to that? Let's get back to that word "economy."

Even in Texas' metropolitan areas, if you're not a really big metro, or not in the oil patch, the recovery hasn't fully been happening yet.

Waco's unemployment rate is about at state average, so, it's ahead of small towns but trails some other areas. And, not a lot of the recovery has involved a lot of higher-pay jobs.

And, after the oil patch, prison expansion arguably was a part of Rick Perry's "Texas miracle" in the first place.

The jail bubble bursts in Texas

The Great Recession never saw a huge housing bubble burst in Texas, unlike most Sunbelt states. But, what it IS showing, now, is the bursting of a huge bubble of jail construction, a bubble that, as documented here, threatens to hobble, even crush, finances of a lot of small, rural counties across the state.

And, for Texas GOPers and others who tout privatization, let's not forget that much of the push for building more of these jails was driven by private jail companies like CCA.

I feel sorry for these local counties, but NOT for the all-GOP governments that bought off on the tough-on-crime, big-on-jobs Faustian bargain that drove such construction in the first place.

And, as the story notes, the privatizers are pulling out of these "Jail to Nowhere" places too. So, I don't feel sorry for county governments, or the state, for not getting some ironclad guarantees from the likes of CCA. That said, I'd like to see a few counties sue the state, even if it would go nowhere constitutionally.

I'd also like to see the Democratic Party make more of an issue of this, as well as get tough on its own members, whatever level of government, who have supported prison privatization.

Of course, none of this will actually happen.

#RickPerry'sTexasMiracle and $349M doses of hypocrisy

Rick Perry is billing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security $349 million for costs to incarcerate illegal aliens.

This is more of Perry's usual hypocrisy, though, and in two ways.

First, many of those illegal immigrants were, at one time in the past decade, building new homes in new metropolitan East Texas subdivisions for Perry's No. 1 campaign contributor, Bob Perry. If Tricky Ricky is really that worried about the Texas budget, why doesn't he ask "Cousin" Bob to make a contribution? Having been an editor in suburban DFW, I'll confess that some part of me, once or twice, wanted to walk into an in-progress development and say, "Cartos verdes, por favor," just to see the mad dash afterward.

But that's only one part of the hypocrisy.

Here's a longstanding Texas joke.

"How small is your town? Too small to have a Dairy Queen and too small to have a state prison."

Jokes aside, prisons, especially private prisons, have been a major growth opportunity in Texas. GEO Group, the former Wackenhut, and CCA are major players, as the link shows. That's even as some Texas private prisons sit empty.

Of course, draconian enforcement of drug laws, a willingness to make school infractions criminal offenses and more all add to the prison population.

So, more Perry hypocrisy here. Incarcerating illegal immigrants is money for Texas.

And now, just like wanting stimulus money while decrying it, Tricky Ricky wants federal cake while decrying it.

Another reason private prisons aren’t such a good idea

It’s called judicial kickbacks for sentencing.

Willacy DA lays out case against Cheney – and private prison system

District Attorney Juan Guerra says Uncle Fester is financially connected with the death of inmate Gregorio De La Rosa, Jr., at the Willacy State Jail in Raymondville in 2001. How?

Guerra says Cheney owns shares in the Vanguard Group, an investment company that has holdings in Corrections Corporation of America, GEO Group and Cornell.

Willacy is operated by Geo Group, a subsidiary of Whack Your Nuts, I mean Whackenhut.

Rahymondville also houses a federal detention center, also privately operated. State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. had done consulting with operator MTC and two affiliated companies, hence Guerra naming him in the indictment.

Some “liberals” may laugh at Guerra or think he’s whack jobs.

But, private prisons violate at least the spirit of the 13th Amendment, and he’s spot-on with these indictments.