The March 13 guest column by Daniele Monroe-Moreno, “Private prisons are counterproductive,” urged support for legislation that would eliminate an important tool for Nevada’s overburdened corrections system.
When CoreCivic was founded more than 30 years ago, the court system had intervened in prisons in more than 40 states due to their poor conditions. We stepped in to help, and since then, we’ve played a crucial role for systems that are overcrowded or aging.
That’s what we’re doing for Nevada: providing a relief valve by caring for 200 higher-custody inmates. This solution was approved by bipartisan agreement in 2017 as a way to address overcrowding that was leading to safety concerns.
The Nevada inmates in CoreCivic’s care are offered the opportunity to earn their GED, take college courses and participate in other meaningful, evidence-based re-entry programs that help them prepare to rejoin their communities.
And while we care for just 1 percent of Nevada’s inmate population, they are some of the most challenging in the system.
We acknowledge the challenges we had in Nevada 15 years ago, and we learned from that experience and improved our offerings. Corrections is a challenging profession whether a facility is managed publicly or privately. No facility is perfect, but we work hard to deliver high-quality services to the inmates in our care.
The writer is director of public affairs for CoreCivic Facility Support Center.