Texas Prison Bid'ness

Our friends at Private Corrections Institute (PCI) have released a newly-updated list of corrections lobbyists nationwide (in Excel). Of particular interest to us, of course, is the list of Texas private prison lobbyists, including Robert "Ray" Allen, the former legislator who now is earning hundreds of thousands of dollars as a lobbyist, and his former chief of staff, Scott Gilmore. Plus, Allen was lobbying on the federal level in 2002 and 2003, representing the National Correctional Industries Association while he was still in the Texas legislature (in his defense he said that he was lobbying on the issue of prison labor, not prison privatization).

According to the list compiled by PCI, there were three dozen lobbyists working the state capitol in 2007 on behalf of companies with some connection to corrections (not all of them working for private prison companies). Of the private prison companies with paid lobbyists working the capitol on their behalf this session:

• Corrections Corporation of America had eight paid lobbyists (PCI rap sheet)
• GEO Group had five paid lobbyists (including two "GEO Care" lobbyists) (PCI rap sheet)
  
• Avalon Correctional Services had two paid lobbyists (PCI rap sheet)
  
• Cornell Corrections had one paid lobbyist (PCI rap sheet)
  
• Centracore had one paid lobbyist (Scott Gilmore)
• MTC had one paid lobbyist (PCI rap sheet)

PCI has also updated their incidents page with new information about incidents in Texas prisons (including a 36-page GEO Group incident report for Texas prisons 1995-2004). All around, they're just a great resource, which is why they're also listed on our "Links" page as an ally.