07/24/2003

By Scott Simonson
© 2003 ARIZONA DAILY STAR

MARANA - A pledge of 872 new jobs didn't satisfy many citizens at a public hearing Wednesday, when a proposed 3,200-bed prison on the Northwest Side near the Pinal County line was called unwanted, unaffordable and unjust.

Utah-based Management and Training Corp. wants to build a women's prison in Pima County, on county-owned land south of Pinal Airpark and the Pima-Pinal county line, said Mike Murphy, director of marketing corrections for the company.

Operated for the Arizona Department of Corrections, the facility would rank among the largest women's prisons in the United States. The project would create 872 jobs, Murphy said Wednes-day at the public hearing sponsored by the state.

About 80 people heard Murphy say the prison would create 500 to 600 security-related jobs, which generally pay a starting wage of $24,000, plus benefits.

Opponents of the project cited state statistics saying more than 70 percent of women in prison in Arizona are first-time, nonviolent offenders.

Sue Giddens, a Tucson resident who lives near Marana, said the state should find less costly, more effective ways to help women imprisoned for drug crimes, or for abetting male criminals.

"When women, historically, are coming into incarceration, they've made bad liquor, bad drug, bad men choices," Giddens said. "Why do we further penalize them and keep them in prison?"

Marana resident Jack Yancick said that while living in Illinois, he'd seen his town "resurrected" by jobs from a prison. Yancick said Pima County needs the jobs.

"That prison is going somewhere," Yancick said. "If this county doesn't grab it, that brass ring might not come our way."

The Pima County site is one of four locations proposed by three companies bidding on the project. Two sites are in Pinal County, near Pinal Air Park. The fourth is in Maricopa County.

A contract for the prison could be awarded in September, but the state has not yet decided whether to go ahead with the prison, and is still studying its options, said James Kimble, bureau administrator for privatization for the Department of Corrections.

Some opponents of the proposed prison wore "Stop the Superprison" T-shirts, and held signs outside the Marana Holiday Inn Express hotel before the public hearing.

When the hearing began, people packed a conference room not much bigger than the average living room.

The thermostat rose from 74 to 82 degrees in minutes, brows dampened and Murphy confusingly described an inmate project from another of his company's prisons as "Habitat for Humidity," instead of Habitat for Humanity.

The hearing moved to a larger, cooler room, but the conversation continued to be fervent.

State Rep. Ted Downing, D-Tucson, estimated the state would pay almost $1 billion to incarcerate inmates at the prison for the proposed 20-year contract.

He said the state should reconsider whether such an expense is justified, especially when more money is needed for education and health care.

The union representing Arizona's corrections officers is "100 percent against privatization," its president said in an interview Wednesday.

"It's going to be a lot less security-minded than it would be in a state prison," said Joe Masella, president of the Arizona Correctional Peace Officers Association.

For more Tucson news, visit The Arizona Daily Star