New manager
at Texas prisons

A Florida management firm will
run two of the jails housing
isle inmates

Byh Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-Bulletin

A Florida-based developer and manager of prisons and juvenile facilities has taken over contracts to run the two Texas county jails that house Hawaii inmates.

Billy Bryan, vice president of Correctional Services Corp., said his Sarasota company on Friday assumed the contract for managing the 872-bed Newton Fillyaw County Correctional Center 95 miles north of Beaumont, Texas, near the Louisiana border.

The only occupants at the Newton jail, Bryan said, are 435 inmates from Hawaii and "a few locals."

Bryan said that on April 21 Correctional Services also won the contract to manage the 489-bed Dickens County Correctional Center in Spur, Texas, 93 miles east of Lubbock.

Both prisons were managed by the Bobby Ross Group, which has headquarters in Austin.

The Bobby Ross Group continues to operate Crystal City County Correctional Center, 121 southwest of San Antonio, which holds 60 women inmates from Hawaii.

Bryan said his company will probably assume the operations of Dickens next month.

Dickens houses 95 inmates from Hawaii and 370 from Texas.

Bryan said Hawaii's contract with both Dickens and Newton counties will expire in 1999.

Correctional Services is "working its way" through determining how many of Newton's 120 employees will remain at the facility, Bryan said.

In February, after a riot where three Hawaii inmates were charged with kidnapping and assaulting a corrections officer, Bobby Ross Group fired Newton warden Charles Hardy.

This came after earlier incidents of fights and fires in December and several jail breaks that worried area residents.

Bryan said he is aware of Newton's earlier problems, describing some as "shockers."

He said, however, other than what he has read, he doesn't have "firsthand knowledge."

"I want to assure people that we are going to do things differently," Bryan said.

There are plans to expand both Newton and Dickens. One proposal is to add three 96-bed units at Dickens.

Bryan said Correctional Services has 30 contracts to manage facilities in seven states -- Florida, New York, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Washington and Mississippi -- and the territory of Puerto Rico, with a total of more than 6,000 beds.

At the end of April, the company reported that revenues for the first quarter increased nearly 65 percent to $19 million from $11.6 million a year earlier.

Both Newton and Dickens have had their problems with Hawaii inmates under Bobby Ross Group's management, including fights at Dickens where one Montana inmate was killed in May 1997.

Crowding at Hawaii's eight prisons and the threat of lawsuits prompted the transfer of 600 inmates to Newton, Dickens and Crystal City.

That placed only a temporary lid on the problem and until a 2,300-bed medium security facility is built on the Big Island, the state will probably have to send another 600 inmates to the mainland this year.

More than 4,200 inmates are crowded into eight island prisons meant to house 2,900 inmates.