Private company operates two in Cibola County
SANTA FE, N.M. — The New Mexico State Legislature will debate House Bill 40. This legislation, if enacted, makes it illegal for any city, village, or county to enter into an agreement or extend a contract with a private prison. This affects Cibola County because two of the county’s three detention facilities are owned by a private company.
A group called People Over Private Prisons New Mexico is helping New Mexico Representative 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) to advance the bill.
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, as clarified in Section 4, B of the proposed legislation. However, no person will have the length of their sentence reduced or commuted regardless as to where they may end up due to this bill.
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 retain the authority to petition the judge for a change of location in where the person is held.
The bill allows for the NM Corrections Department to enter contracts with publicly held incarceration facilities, such as city-operated jails, to hold inmates.
Until the expiration of the contract, private prison and incarceration facilities can continue their work. Upon expiration of the contract, counties, municipalities, and other entities will not be allowed to reenter the contract.
HB40 is at the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee as of press time. The bill then travels to the House Judiciary Committee; if approved it goes to the House Floor for a vote. “With a history of serious and chronic violations in privately-run facilities, private prison corporations continue to advance their profiteering while failing to fix abundant 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 People Over Private Prisons New Mexico spokesperson.
None of the lawmakers responded to the request from the Cibola Citizen for comment about the impact on jobs in Cibola County.
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.