The news service pointed out that "The facility would house only prisoners who want to transfer there. They will not be required to go to church or Bible study, but will be required to sign an agreement to participate in some prison programs. Inmates will be offered classes in literacy, GED requirements, and life skills."

"It's a faith-based, work ethic, corrections initiative where we take men in their last 12 to 24 to 30 months before their earliest release, and they have to volunteer to come, which makes us constitutional," said Robinson, an ex-con and prison minister.

Robinson claimed that no public funds will be used to build the $42 million facility; it will be underwritten by "a bond backer who underwrites and does revenue bonds for Christian-related ventures has agreed to finance it."

Robinson's been down this road before

According to the blog Texas Prison Bid'ness, Robinson's outfit has been down this road before. In fact, according to an e-mail i received from a staffer at Texas Prison Bid'ness, Robinson may have failed as many as a dozen times to get this type of project launched.

 In 2007, it proposed building a faith-based prison in Leonard, Texas in Fannin County. At a mid-December city council meeting that year, no action was taken despite a large turnout from opponents of the prison who had collected 400 signatures opposing the prison from around the town of 2,000," the blog reported.

The blog pointed out that the idea of a "faith-based prison raises constitutional questions that could limit the prison's ability to attract contracting clients." Texas Prison Bid'ness pointed to an article in The Herald News, Fannin County, which maintained that "8 Texas counties and communities have already rejected CCI's offers to place a religious prison in their communities."

The Leonard Graphic reported that Dallas attorney John Sheedy, who represented the city of Leonard in the corrections concept, said that he thought that other counties rejected the prison ultimately due to the work of Satan: "He exists, he doesn't [want] this project to succeed. He is doing everything he can to defeat this project and he is using good people with good intentions. Satan is much more powerful than anybody in this room, he will twist that person around where they think they are doing the right thing in fighting it."  

(Texas Prison Bid'ness was launched in March 2007 to provide information "about the growing prison-for-profit industry in Texas." The blog's name "is a tribute to Texas writer Molly Ivins, who wrote in 2003, 'What happens if you privatize prisons is that you have a large industry with a vested interest in building ever-more prisons.'")

CCI won't pay prevailing wages, critics point out

According to the Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) Violations Web site, CCI doesn't intend to "abide by the PIECP mandatory requirements of paying inmate workers in the program prevailing wages -- instead choosing to pay them federal minimum wages -- for their labor."

This avoidance of paying prevailing wages was first presented by Corrections Concepts founder Bill Robinson to Texas Governor George W. Bush in 1995 when Bush's support was sought. Bush so liked the idea of combining faith-based community initiatives with prison industries for prison inmates, he authored resolutions there in Texas making it easier for such initiative programs to get state tax dollars for their operations. Once in the White House, Bush brought the concept with him, establishing White House Offices of Faith-Based Community Initiative satellite offices in every Federal Department and Agency including the Department of Justice that oversees the PIECP (PIE Program, which allows a relaxation of federal statutes governing the manufacture, sales, and distribution of prisoner made products and services by state Prison Industries) program. Bush did this by Executive Orders within days of taking office in 2001.

On its Web site, PIECP-Violations stated that it is opposed to the building of the prison "not on religious grounds, rather due to the stated intention of not abiding by the federal PIECP requirements regarding the planned prison industries": "Too many prison industries and their private sector partners are already taking advantage of this important program, by not paying prevailing wages to the inmate workers. This allows for more corporate and prison industry profits at the expense of the work force. In addition, it provides these violators with an unfair advantage over private sector companies who manufacture the same or similar products on the open markets."

PIECP-Violations suggested that Wakita residents "should review the PIECP Guidelines and ask pointed and specific questions of Corrections Concepts, Inc. about the proposed Prison Industry they plan on opening at the prison complex." Questions should be raised about whether the facility "will result in the loss of private sector jobs or unfairly compete with local Oklahoma Private Sector manufacturers of similar products. This must be done to protect Oklahoma jobs from disappearing behind the prison fences."