SANTA FE, N.M. – The New Mexico State Legislature will debate House Bill 40, a piece of proposed legislation that makes it illegal for any city, village, or county to make an agreement or extend a contract with a private prison. This affects Cibola County because two of the county’s three detention facilities are operated by a private company. The Cibola Citizen first reported on this bill on Jan. 27.
New Mexico State Representatives Angelica Rubio (D – Dona Ana), Rep. Karen C. Bash (D – Bernalillo), Rep. Daymon Ely (D – Bernalillo, Sandoval), Rep. Gail Chasey (D – Bernalillo), and NM Senator Katy M. Duhigg (D – Bernalillo, Sandoval) moved to advance the bill.
Where is the bill today?
There has been little change with House Bill 40, according to nmlegis.gov, which shows the bill is still in the House Pre-file, meaning that it is awaiting a scheduled time for a vote on the House Floor where all Representatives will have the chance to vote.
If approved through the House, the bill moves to the New Mexico State Senate for approval. If both chambers of the state legislature pass this bill it goes to the governor for final approval.
This bill has an emergency clause, meaning that it becomes law once signed by the governor.
What does this bill do exactly?
Section 3, A of the bill reads, “It is unlawful for any person, corporation, business or nonprofit entity to operate a private detention facility.”
The bill makes it clear that no entity, including a county, municipality, sheriff, or lawmaker of any kind can make an agreement to expand the private incarceration of people in New Mexico. The bill makes it unlawful for any entity or person to be reimbursed for the work of keeping a private prison.
If passed, all incarcerated people across New Mexico will be moved to state prisons, which is clarified in Section 4, B of this bill. However, no person will have the length of their sentence reduced or commuted regardless as to where they may end up according to this proposed legislation.
It is likely that New Mexico would save money by decoupling from privately owned and operated prisons, according to the fiscal impact of this bill.
Where will all the prisoners go?
The fiscal impact report acknowledges that around 2,296 inmates will need to be relocated.
Under the bill all people who are sentenced to a term of less than a year can be held by the county in which they committed their crime if the county has entered an agreement with the state to allow such an incarceration. If the county has not entered into an agreement with the state, the person will be held at the judge’s discretion. Counties will have the authority to petition the judge for a change in where the person will be held.
The bill allows for the NM Corrections Department to enter contracts with publicly held incarceration facilities, like jails operated by cities, to hold inmates.
Until the expiration of the contract, private prison and incarceration facilities can continue their work. Upon expiration counties, municipalities, and other entities will not be allowed to reenter the contract, according to the bill.
The fiscal impact report states that Torrance County could lose around $100 thousand in Gross Receipts Tax if the prison industry, CoreCivic, goes away. The state was unable to collect tax revenue numbers for other counties with CoreCivic prisons, like Cibola County which has two CoreCivic owned and operated prisons in its sphere, Northwest New Mexico Correctional Center in Grants and Cibola County Correction Center in Milan.
Only NWNMCC holds state inmates; the CCCC in Milan which holds county and federal inmates of various designation was not mentioned in the fiscal impact report.
What do officials say?
“With a history of serious and chronic violations in privately-run facilities, private prison corporations continue to advance their profiteering while failing to fix abundantly documented problems. Given the financial and human costs of privatized detention, now made more acute by a global pandemic, it is time to end the costly business of private detention in New Mexico,” said a spokesperson for People Over Prisons New Mexico.
NM Corrections Department Secretary Alisha Tafoya Lucero said that New Mexico is not ready to shut down private detention facilities without making better preparations and plans. Tafoya Lucero has been with the corrections department for more than18 years and was appointed to the post by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham in 2019. Tafoya Lucero said that the department has been working for years to phase out private incarceration facilities but that the department cannot rush the process without serious issues arising.
Tafoya Lucero predicted that if this bill was approved New Mexico would lose around 3,000 inmate beds.
The comments come after US President Joe Biden urged the US Justice Department to begin the work of phasing out for-profit incarceration facilities.
To quell Tafoya Lucero’s concerns with the bill, the fiscal impact report suggested that New Mexico lease bed space and take over management of them from private prisons. Or the state could begin construction of a new facility during three fiscal years at an estimated cost of $54.6 million. The report did not suggest which county might receive the prison if the state chose this option.
Rep. Rubio can be contacted at 575-616-1090; Rep. Bash can be contacted at 505-238-2117; Rep. Ely can be contacted at 505-610-6529; Rep. Chasey can be contacted at 505-266-5191; Sen. Duhigg can be contacted at 505-397-8823.