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| New AZ prison houses HI, AL inmates |
| By The Casa Grande Valley News |
| Published: 07/06/2006 |
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ELOY, AZ - Hawaiian and Alaska officials, representing the two states that will send inmates to the new Red Rock Correctional Center, traveled the farthest to attend its dedication Tuesday. It's the fourth private prison in Pinal County owned and operated by Corrections Corporation of America. Red Rock will be a medium security prison, with 1,596 beds. John Ferguson, CCA president and chief executive officer, said the prison brings the company's total number of beds in Pinal County to over 7,000. "Nothing happens until a government customer gives us the responsibility to look after their inmates," Ferguson said. "... A year from now we'll be back to celebrate the opening of another facility (Saguaro) and providing 9,000 beds (total)." Starting the second week of July, inmates from the Florence Correctional Center will be bused over, about 60 per day, with lead and trailing security vehicles. The transfer will stop as the inmates get used to their surroundings, and will resume again in August. The first prisoners will be from Alaska - prisoners already familiar with Arizona and Warden Frank Luna, who moves from Florence to Red Rock. Forty-nine of those will transfer a much shorter distance from the neighboring Eloy Detention Center. They are close enough so security cameras on the northern perimeter of Red Rock can zoom in and identify inmates. Before the end of the year there will be about 1,000 inmates courtesy of the Alaska Department of Corrections. Another 250 will come from Hawaii. They will transfer from other CCA prisons across the country, and directly from Hawaii. "The Hawaiians have up to 500 beds," Luna said. "I think they'll start off about 250 and I think eventually as the year ends or at the start of next year they'll use the last 250. So we should be at capacity, I'll say, at the end of the year." Frank Lopez, deputy director of the Hawaiian Public Safety Department, told about 150 people gathered in the large visitation room that "we are in the process of negotiating a contract to bring our prisoners over here." Luna and Lopez both said the contract should be completed by the end of this month. |
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