Privatization and reconstruction of the Karlau correctional facility

New prison for all

"Build and they will come": that is the motto of a U.S. prison company in contact with EUCC. Descriptive of its expansion plans, the motto likewise heralds the EUCC plans to reconstruct the Karlau correctional facility. Building two new prison buildings will increase the number of available beds from 450 to 900, thus increasing the number of people the state is able to incarcerate. In the past two years the number of prisoners in Austria has already increased by 10 percent.

Efficient rebuilding

EUCC aims to build high capacity prisons in Europe. In doing so, the most important concerns are cost efficiency and economic viability. Therefore, within the grounds of the Karlau correctional facility, new prison tracts will be built on unprofitable areas such as agricultural and soccer fields.

Win-Win-Situation

Although the number of prisoners will more than double, the EUCC will be able to save on prison guards. The state will pay EUCC per prisoner, allowing the EUCC to rake in a high profit. Consistent with the existing conditions in the Karlau correctional facility, the inmates will be obliged to work for a low wage. The inmates' purchases will be limited exclusively to the correctional facility shops, which will be run as a subsidiary of the EUCC. Therefore, it is assured that the prisoner's wages will flow for the most part back into the corporation.

Founding of a enterprises

EUCC will take over the Karlau correctional facility's food store, drugstore, and tobacco shop. In future, only preordered goods will be issued to prisoners to avoid the high costs of storage. Based on the model of British prisons, visitors will be prohibited from bringing the prisoners candies or articles for personal hygiene. This measure is to maximize the enterprise's profits in the correctional facility.

In-cell TV for all

The inmates' private televisions will be confiscated for security reasons. As is already the case in privatized prisons in Great Britain, televisions will be rented for a fee so that the prisoners are able to receive special, suitable informational and entertainment programs via the "in-cell TV." This is meant to control the inmates and keep them busy and by doing so, EUCC contributes to the smooth running of the penal system.

Business location Austria

EUCC aspires to collaborations with corporations such as Microsoft, IBM, Boeing, and textile companies, which should build production facilities in the Karlau correctional facility as they have in U.S. prisons. The Austrian government is challenged to create the necessary legal framework. For example, at a prison in the U.S. the Boeing subsidiary Microjet successfully produces supplies for airplane construction. The prisoners are remunerated with less than one dollar an hour for their work.

Prisoner labor as opportunity

The prisoners are required to work. Their wages are only a fraction of what employees outside of prison receive for the same work. Thus, the more that is produced in Austrian prisons, the more competitive and inexpensive are the Austrian goods. Prisoners in U.S. prisons produce goods equaling a value of nine billion dollars per year.

Guaranteed profit

Private enterprises cleverly obtain enormous profits through prison work, in Great Britain alone, more than £ 50 million yearly. EUCC will pursue the following business strategy in Austria: Rather than expensive resocialization concepts through which criminals are reintegrated into society, mandatory labor and the maximization of prisoner numbers will transform prisons into profit centers. This becomes a matter of course in an era in which top priority is given to budget consolidation.

Investment through the changing of laws

So that EUCC can also make sensible investments in future in Austria, and build further penal institutions, the corporation will first negotiate with the Austrian government. EUCC strives for legal regulations such as those in effect in California. After two prison terms, those sentenced to a third can receive a life sentence, even for a minor offence. Through the lower rotation in the cells and the longer stays, the EUCC saves costs and increases profitability.

Cost savings

The business philosophy of EUCC is to separate the rooms of the prison into small, cage-like cells. The time in which the prisoners are able to move outside of their cells, will be kept to a minimum thus saving personnel and also costs.

Rebuilding prisons revives the economy

In the U.S., renowned banks such as Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch turn over two to three billion dollars a year in investment funds for the rebuilding of private penal institutions. The corporations American Express and General Electric are already million dollar investors in private prisons in Oklahoma and Tennessee. Telecommunication companies such as AT&T, Sprint, and MCI vie for exclusive contracts, since the monopoly position in penal institutions allows them to charge the prison inmates six times the normal rate for long distance calls. EUCC is already negotiating with numerous European investors to bring this successful model here, to this country.

Expansion to Germany

EUCC joins the offense-oriented advertising campaign of the Corrections Corporation of America: "We will help provincial governments in Germany to handle the increasing crime rates, which especially in the areas of violent crime and juvenile and child delinquency, will continue to rise in the future. Therefore, we have complete confidence in presenting your government our complete facility projects with quite affordable, long-term lease agreements and very special services."
Excerpt from correspondence from the Corrections Corporation of America to the judicial administrations of the German provinces.

Privatization on the European continent

EUCC, like other companies, will support the complete or partial privatization of prisons in Europe. Also Austria is meant to create the necessary conditions. The French government has already given contracts for 1.4 billion Euros to build twenty-eight new prisons for 13,200 prisoners. Private companies will finance, plan, and build the penal facilities that will then be leased to the government for thirty years.

Security with a future

EUCC aims to reconstruct the Karlau correctional facility and make it into the most secure prison in Europe. There will be more than four-times the current fifty-eight surveillance cameras. Modern CCTV-surveillance systems will control the prison inmates around the clock, and the personnel will be retrained specifically for the new technology. The aim is more efficient control with a reduced staff.

Discipline and control

Like in the current Karlau correctional facility, the new prison tracts will also have special segregation cells built in the cellar where prisoners can be locked up as a disciplinary measure. Based on the model of the British prison in Doncaster, which is run by a subsidiary of the U.S. corporation Wackenhut, cells are equipped with standard mechanisms to conduct water or teargas into each unit to combat rebellious prisoners.

Lucrative business with prison canteens

The U.S. corporation Aramark demonstrates exactly how lucrative the business with prisons can be. Aramark is a specialist in catering and cleaning prisons with a yearly turnover of 7.3 billion dollars. Over the past six years, a profit of over 1.6 billion dollars has been made. As soon as Aramark takes over a prison canteen, prices go up and are sometimes even doubled. Prisoners are forced to produce the prison ration package or to work in the prison cafeteria. EUCC aspires to a permanent contract with Aramark for the Karlau correctional facility.