Your article “Unions push pay, pension increases for prison officers”, [Arizona Capitol Times, Nov. 25] says correctional officers unions’ legislative plan for next session includes “higher wages, higher retirement contributions from the state and scrutinizing private prisons.”

It will interest your readers and the Legislature to know that the Association of Private Correctional and Treatment Organizations (APCTO), the trade association for the private corrections industry, also supports these issues.

Working inside a prison is a demanding, stressful and sometimes dangerous job. Who would argue that the men and women who perform that function should not earn a competitive wage and benefit package? Certainly not APCTO members. If private providers did not pay such a wage and benefit package to their workers, they wouldn’t have the competent staff they have and they’d go out of business.

APCTO-member companies also support performance-based contracting and the rigid accreditation standards of the American Correctional Association. Did you know that 44 percent of private prisons in the U.S. have that accreditation and only 10 percent of the public prisons do? Fully 60 percent of APCTO members’ facilities have this important accreditation.

Chuck Foy, representative for the Arizona Conference of Police and Sheriffs, equates profit with cost effectiveness and suggests that if the state can get a look at the books for private prisons, “the playing field will be level and the chips will fall where they may.”

Actually, it is not that complicated. Profit isn’t the point. The cost of a private prison operation is the contract price plus a little extra for contract oversight by the state. If only it were that simple to figure out the cost of public operation. The U.S. Department of Justice just released a five-year study of the cost of private vs. public operation of the federal facility at Taft, Calif. It found the private cost to the taxpayer 6 percent to 10 percent less over the five years, depending on how conservative a model of the public costs you use. This is completely consistent with a number of other studies.

Let’s not be afraid of a little competition. After all, isn’t that what our economic system is based on?

Michael T. LoBue

www.apcto.org