Mesa could be first city in Arizona to privatize some jail operations

as well as individuals who are sentenced to serve jail time, to its Florence or Eloy locations.

Mesa’s offenders would be housed in an area separate from the state’s criminal offenders at the private prisons.

The city would pay CoreCivic a $35,000 monthly transportation fee and $68 per inmate, per day — with the ability to decrease the daily rate if the city has more than 200 inmates per day.

Next year’s county rate would have the city paying a $326 booking fee per inmate and $102 per inmate, per day. The difference equates to about $2 million, city officials said.

Although drastically lower than the county’s rate, the daily rate CoreCivic would charge Mesa is higher than the daily rate the company charges the state to house convicted felons at the same facility.

The state pays an average of $42 per inmate in Florence and $66 per inmate in Eloy, according to the Arizona Department of Corrections.

CoreCivic would not comment on the potential Mesa contract. Mesa police did not respond to requests for additional information.

In a February letter to Maricopa County cities about its newest rate hike, Assistant County Manager and CFO Shelby Scharbach said newly elected Sheriff Paul Penzone will review jail operations and identify efficiencies that could result in a rate reduction.

The rate increase to cities comes as jail populations drop due to several factors, including new diversion opportunities that reduce the amount of time lowlevel offenders spend in jail, Maricopa County spokesman Fields Moseley said in a statement.

But the hard costs of maintaining facilities remain, leading to rate increases, he said.

Mesa Councilman Ryan Winkle questioned if that’s the only reason rates have increased.

“Are we paying for inmates? Or are we paying for lawsuits?” Winkle said, referring to multiple legal issues faced by MCSO in recent years.

In a statement, MCSO said Penzone “is in communication with the City of Mesa and is working toward a solution that addresses budget concerns without compromising the services MCSO provides. MCSO provides a high level of customized support for a very diverse inmate population.”

Private prisons have faced a barrage of criticism since their inception in the 1980s.

Many advocacy groups argue that prisons and jails should be about rehabilitation — and that duty should not be outsourced to a company that’s looking to turn a profit.

“Fundamentally the incentive for these companies is to keep generating people who will be in prison. They are not incentivized like the government is to rehabilitate people and prepare them to be productive members of society,” said Kilar, the Arizona ACLU spokesman.

In Arizona, riots broke out in a facility near Kingman, causing the evacuation of roughly 1,200 inmates in 2015. Last year, a measles outbreak affected more than a dozen inmates at the Eloy Detention Center.

Despite criticism surrounding the private-prison industry, a majority of the Mesa City Council appears to be cautiously optimistic about a partnership with CoreCivic, the oldest privatized jail company in the country.

Councilman Kevin Thompson said it’s worth studying anything that could “possibly make us a more efficient and effective government.”

Interim Police Chief Michael Dvorak told the council during a March meeting that privatizing the jail operations will save the department millions and decrease the amount of time officers spend transporting and booking inmates at the Fourth Avenue Jail, because CoreCivic will do all the transportation for misdemeanor offenders.

Those officers’ time can be better spent elsewhere in the department, he said.

When asked about some of the controversy related to private jails and prisons, Dvorak said any organization — public or private — will experience some behavioral or health issues when dealing with such large numbers of prisoners.

The testament to a good management company is how quickly they rectify those issues, he said.

Dvorak said he believes CoreCivic will be able to handle potential issues with haste.

Additionally, the department will ensure the city retains the ability to intervene and communicate with CoreCivic if it believes the company’s practices are not consistent with city expectations, he said.

A 65-year-old man was killed after the car he was driving plunged off a freeway overpass onto Interstate 17, just west of downtown Phoenix Friday afternoon, the Arizona Department of Public Safety said.

A passenger who was in the vehicle, a Chrysler coupe, was critically injured and taken to St. Joseph’s hospital in Phoenix, DPS spokesman Raul Garcia said. Two other people also were injured and hospitalized, Garcia said, after three other vehicles that were driving southbound on I-17 crashed, DPS said.

One of the vehicles struck the Chrysler after it landed on the freeway, DPS said. Two people in that vehicle were injured. Their conditions were not immediately available.

Two other vehicles then struck the Chrysler, officials said. Nobody in those vehicles was injured, DPS said.

DPS said the accident happened about 12:27 p.m., when the Chrysler was in a left-turn lane on the overpass, but the driver decided to go straight and tried forcing his way past a semi-truck, but was forced off the road.

Officers were clearing the roadway up for several hours, and pieced back together fencing that had been plowed through by the coupe.

No information was available about the truck or its driver. Garcia said DPS is looking to contact the driver of the truck, but did not say the driver was at fault or caused the Chrysler off of the roadway intentionally.

The accident shut the southbound Interstate 17 between Interstate 10 and Grant Street for several hours. The freeway was reopened by 4 p.m.