September 5, 2008
HOME > News > 2007 > 12-December

Prison issue explained in public meeting

By KERRY CRAIG, Graphic Managing Editor

Dec. 13, 2007 - Leonard residents were afforded an opportunity Friday evening to hear more about Corrections Concepts Inc. and the proposed faith-based prison that could be located in Leonard.

Dallas attorney John Sheedy, who represents the city of Leonard in the corrections concept, presented a short overview of the plan, but did not open the floor to questions from those attending the meeting.

“I want to take maybe a half-hour to go over how this project is supposed to work, based on my understanding of the documents and the contracts and what I’ve known over the years,” Sheedy said. “We are not prepared to take questions tonight, the idea is to get information out, let you look at it, digest it, study it and then get questions in to the people who are going to be serving on the facilities corporation.”

Sheedy said he has known Bill Robinson of Corrections Concepts, who has been trying to get this project for as many as 20 years.

“He needed somebody to act as special counsel for the governmental entities which he needs to partner with his corporation to do this deal under the law,” Sheedy explained.

Sheedy said he liked Robinson’s concept of a correctional facility that would “change the revolving door, which is our current prison system where we are teaching burglars to be better welders and, six months later, they are back in prison.”

According to the proposal, a prison facility would benefit whatever community it is in by creating new jobs and opportunities for that community.

The plan has been presented, without success, to a number ofcounties and communities including Clarksville in Red River County, Coleman and Coleman County, Tom Green County and the city of Lindale.

The attorney said the plan failed for any of a number of reasons.

“Some of it is the old ‘chicken and the egg’ problem,” he said. “You go to a community and they say ‘Yes, we want to partner with you, go ahead and get it done,’” Sheedy said. “When you go out and look for inmates, people who can come to this facility from the State of Texas, Oklahoma or other places who say ‘build the facility and we will send the inmates, we think this is a good way to go, we want to do this.’”

Sheedy continued by saying that the plan is taken to the bonding companies who have insisted on contracts before committing to loaning the money to build the prison.

It has come to a point now where the bonding companies that are involved in this believe enough in the project themselves that they are willing to say ‘we don’t need signed contracts, what we need is just a letter of intent and with that letter we can go out and get the funding,’” Sheedy said. “That has changed and that is a relatively recent change, so that is a big part of why we think this will work now where it hasn’t been able to work in the past.”

After funding is obtained, construction will start which, according to Sheedy, will mean new jobs and, after construction is complete, more than 150 job positions would need to be filled to just administer the facility along with another 15 to 20 jobs outside in the community.

“Those people are going to need a place to live, a place to shop, a place to eat,” Sheedy said. “So, it’s a snowball effect, if you will.”

The attorney said it is estimated the inmates would be housed for $38.90 per inmate.

The proposal also calls for industry to come in through the Private Industry Enhancement program and utilize inmates to perform work on services and pay the inmates the prevailing wage in the area.

“That is why the facility works best in a town like Leonard,” he said. “The prevailing wage, unfortunately in this area, is probably minimum wage or close to it.”

He said that when [faith-based prison] does happen it will change men’s lives and make them productive, taxpaying citizens.

The process has required the Leonard to form a community facilities corporation, Fannin Community Facilities Corporation, which will act as a subsidiary or instrumentality of the city and isolates and insulates the city from liability.

“That is the entity that would go out and get the bonding in place, it is the entity that issues the bonds, not the city of Leonard,” Sheedy said. “The bonds specifically state on them that the bond-holder cannot look to the full faith and credit of the City of Leonard for any kind of financial renumeration (sic). The bond holders could only look to that bond and the facilities corporation and to the bricks and sticks that will be the facility and that’s it.”

If, in a worst-case scenario, the prison does not work because of inadequate cash flow, not enough inmates or not enough industry, the bond holders would take the prison back and sell it for, what Sheedy termed as “pennies on the dollar.”

“Bond holders don’t want to own a facility, they want cash,” he said. “They will liquidate that facility in the best way they can.”

Built to be a medium security facility, the spokesman said there could be other uses such as a school or college that could use the dormitories, playing fields and a large industry building.

Sheedy also addressed some of the concerns expressed by local residents with regard to having a prison in their hometown and referred them to Bonham and the impact a prison has had on that community.

As for tax values, he said property values would not decline because of a nearby prison and again referred to Bonham and property values there.

Will the prison take jobs away from Leonard?

“No,” Sheedy said. “If it works the way it looks like it should on paper, it will create jobs, it will create contracts and construction jobs for the construction phase, administration jobs when up and running and the industry that is inside should create jobs on the outside.”

No indication was given as to a potential location of the prison other than somewhere within the city limits or extra-territorial jurisdiction limits of the City of Leonard.

The attorney also addressed a Federal Court finding that ruled faith-based prisons unconstitutional.

“Texas and the other [states] we’ve talked to have a secular alternative that these [inmates] can volunteer to go to,” he said. “That’s the key to avoiding a constitutional issue - they volunteer to come here, sign a contract to come here, they are not in breech of any separate of church and state. It’s volunteer and that makes a big difference.”

He said that would not, however, rule out a suit. Rather, he expected the concept would be tried by “some anti-God organization that believes we shouldn’t have just a separation of church and state, we ought to have a separation of God and state.”

As to why Corrections Concepts Inc. has not been accepted in any other community, Sheedy said he believed in Satan.

“He exists, he doesn’t this project to succeed,” he said. “He is doing everything he can to defeat this project and he is using good people with good intentions. Satan is much more powerful than anybody in this room, he will twist that person around where they think they are doing the right thing in fighting it.”

Questions should be addressed to any member of the community facilities corporation.