Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Grits for Breakfast

Criminal Law

: Grits for Breakfast

Lives of the Saints: Private Prison Edition

Earning him a nomination, to be certain, for Patron Saint of the Texas Prison Bidness Blog, "Mando" Martinez yesterday filed HB 2589 that reads like a wish list for private prison reform advocates.It requires a public hearing in each commissioner's precinct before counties approve contracts with private prison firms. It disallows local officials like Sheriffs to personally benefit from private prison deals involving the county jail, as was happening for a while, for example, in Waco. And my own personal, sentimental favorite is the open records portion of the bill: "Information collected, assembled, or maintained by a private entity that is not a governmental body in connection with the operation, maintenance, repair, or construction of a detention facility or related facility operated under contract with the county under this subchapter is subject to Chapter 552, Government Code, in the same manner as information collected, assembled, or maintained by a governmental body, but only if the information is related to the operation, maintenance, repair, or construction of the facility...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on March 09, 2011 (boomark / email).