The Utah company hoping to reopen the former Delta Correctional Facility has plenty of competition for the federal inmates it would expect to house in the Greenwood prison.
Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said Management and Training Corp. (MTC) is one of several private prison operators trying to win a contract from the federal government to house 1,600 minimum-security illegal immigrants.
“There’s no way to tell who’s going to get that contract. There are many companies, from Florida to Colorado, who have empty beds and who want that request for proposals,” Epps said Friday.
The Leflore County Board of Supervisors was presented last week with a letter of support for MTC’s pending bid with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The letter was drafted by the state Department of Corrections.
MTC, based in Centerville, Utah, is the third-largest operator of adult corrections facilities in the country, according to its website.
The deal to reopen Delta Correctional Facility would require MTC to build a new 150-bed jail for the county because federal rules do not allow federal inmates to be housed in the same compound as a county jail. The county currently has a lease-purchase agreement with the Department of Corrections for the portion of the state-owned compound that houses the jail.
In addition to the new jail, the deal would also result in the hiring of an estimated 350 to 400 workers at the reincarnated prison.
Leflore County Chancery Clerk Sam Abraham has said that the new jail would be built near the Leflore County Justice Center, which sits adjacent to the current county jail. The Justice Center houses the Sheriff’s Department and Justice Court.
Though county officials were excited about the prospect of more jobs and a new jail, they were reluctant to act on the letter last week because they said it was short on details as to what the new jail would look like and how much money MTC would be willing to spend.
Abraham said MTC representatives later assured him that all those details would be forthcoming.
But Epps said there’s no guarantee the county will get the chance to sign a contract with MTC, since MTC could fail to get the bid from the federal government.
The corrections commissioner said he did not know how many companies had placed bids to house the inmates, but he said there were probably several.
“From my conversations, you would have Corrections Corporation of America, The Geo Group, and you’d have someone from Colorado, which has empty beds,” said Epps.
“Corrections Corporation of America probably has over 10,000 vacant beds,” Epps added.
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is the former operator of Delta Correctional Facility, which closed January 2012.
CCA pulled out of the operation because it was unable to reach an agreement with the Department of Corrections that would pay it enough to continue housing state inmates at the 1,200-bed facility. CCA said at the time it would have lost money on the contract renewal proposed by the state.
Abraham said Friday that he wasn’t sure what MTC’s chances are for getting the federal bid.
“I don’t know anything about that,” he said after being told of Epps’ comments. “I just don’t want to talk about it because I don’t want to mess up this deal.”
Epps said that MTC might have a better chance at landing the bid than companies proposing to house the inmates in other states because Mississippi “has one of the lowest federal hourly wages in the country.”
“I’m hoping that tips the scales,” he said.
