Corrections Corporation of America had expected to open a 220,000-square-foot prison in Stewart County next month, but now the state has no prisoners to fill it.
The private prison company, based in Nashville said it had an understanding that the
Georgia Department of Corrections would house medium-security inmates in the $45 million facility some 30 miles south of Columbus.
''I don't think these companies would come in and build prisons without some understanding,'' state Rep. Gerald Greene (D-Cuthbert), said in April 1999.
But there was never a written agreement between the state and CCA. Corrections officials say the state already has enough beds in its other prisons.  Construction of the Stewart prison is now at a standstill.
''This was just a speculative project,'' Georgia Department of Corrections Commissioner Jim
Wetherington said. ''We just don't need the beds right now. That's the reason we're not going to use the facility.''
CCA is now stuck with a prison that is two-thirds completed --- a $35 million investment.
Meanwhile, the company is repaying the construction loan with interest, said Susan Hart, CCA vice president of communications.
''There was no signed contract for a source of inmates,'' Hart said. ''But we believed, based on their projections, that Georgia would need the beds.  However, administrations changed.
Their projections may not have been what they thought they would be.''
As an alternative, CCA is considering applying to the Federal Bureau of Prisons to house 1,500 illegal immigrants in the Stewart facility, Hart said.  That contract would be awarded in September 2001.
The state of Georgia has about 43,000 prisoners and projects 47,289 inmates by June 30, 2001, according to the current state budget. The state currently has 43,000 beds and plans to build another 3,700 within the next two years.
The state has just authorized an additional 500 inmates to be sent soon to two other CCA prisons operated in Georgia, located in Coffee and Wheeler counties.
Stewart, one of Georgia's poorest counties, badly needs the 500 jobs the fully operational prison would require, said county commission Chairman John S. ''Stonie'' Patterson.
''I put this right back in the state's ball park,'' he said.
''The state or lobbyists indicated they would house inmates here in September.  That's what got CCA down here in the first place. I think what the state of Georgia is trying to do is push them into selling this facility to the state.''