The share price of Correctional Services Corporation was declining again Thursday morning after the company's CEO announced he was "disappointed in the first quarter results": a net loss of $509,000.[1] -- Correctional Service Corporation's net income after taxes has been in the red for five of the last six quarters, as these profit (loss) figures (in millions of dollars) show: Quarter ending 3/31/05 (0.5), 12/31/04 (0.6), 9/30/04 0.8, 6/30/04 (0.5), 3/31/04 (0.5), 12/31/03 (0.2). -- Correctional Services Corporation is the Sarasota-based private prison company that owns and manages the controversial for-profit Northwest Detention Center, which opened fifteen months ago on a Superfund toxic cleanup site on the Tacoma Tideflats. -- Sadly, corporate-owned mainstream media in Western Washington, including the News Tribune (Tacoma, WA), have failed to inform the public that there is an important ongoing debate in the nation and in the world over private prisons. -- Don't expect to read about it in the Seattle Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, or the News Tribune, but on June 13 & 14 in Arlington, Virginia, there will be a two-day conference called "The National Debate on Prisons & Punishment," sponsored by the American Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology.[2] -- Important critics like Stephen Nathan of Prison Privatisation Report International of Greenwich, England, will be there, as well as Paul Wright of Prison Legal News in Seattle, Ed Kropp of Institute for Global Ethics, Peter Wagner of the Prison Policy Initiative, and many others. -- At a time when the U.S. national security state is taking its failed model of the incarceration ("The U.S. prison system . . . has quadrupled in size since 1980 to a population of 2.1 million, the world's largest," according to a May 11 Reuters article) and bringing it as an approach to social programs to the nation of Iraq, the refusal to discuss the moral dubiousness of the policy of prison privatization is an institutional failure of U.S. journalism, and a major one....
1.
Press Release
CORRECTIONAL SERVICES CORPORATION ANNOUNCES FINANCIAL RESULSTS FOR FIRST QUARTER 2005
Business Wire
May 12, 2005
SARASOTA, Fla -- May 12, 2005--Correctional Services Corporation (NASDAQ:CSCQ) today announced financial results for the first quarter 2005. Revenues for the first quarter were $32.1 million versus $32.0 million in the comparative period in 2004. For the 2005 quarter, the Company reported contribution from operations of $3.1 million and a net loss of $509,000 or $0.05 per diluted share. For the first quarter of 2004, the Company reported contribution from operations of $2.2 million and a net loss of $656,000 or $0.06 per diluted share. Diluted shares were 10,167,000 and 10,159,000 in the first quarter 2005 and 2004, respectively.
Included in the reported amounts for the first quarter 2005 and 2004 were the following pre-tax items: Startup expenses associated with the opening of new facilities: $139,000 (2005); $1,705,000 (2004) -- Loss from discontinued operations: $140,000 (2005); $658,000 (2004).
The above pre-tax charges for the first quarter 2005 totaled $279,000. The total for the 2004 pre-tax items was income of $2.4 million. The after tax charges for 2005 were $170,000 or $0.02 per diluted share and the after tax charge for 2004 was $1.4 million or $0.14 per diluted share.
Commenting on the first quarter results, James F. Slattery, President & CEO stated, "I am disappointed in the first quarter results which were impacted by lower utilization by the Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) at several of our Texas adult facilities due to budget issues. However, additional funding is now in place and we have begun to see occupancy improvement."
Slattery further stated, "The Company will continue to focus on our near term goal of improved earnings by increasing occupancy at our existing adult facilities and stabilizing the performance of our juvenile division. We continue to proceed toward the timely opening in late June of our new 1020 bed Department of Homeland Security ICE facility in South Texas and the June opening of the 96 bed expansion of our Littlefield facility which will house inmates for the Wyoming Department of Corrections. These new beds in addition to the full implementation of our Behavioral Health Overlay Services (BHOS) at our Florida Juvenile Programs are expected to produce earnings improvement in the third and fourth quarters."
The Company will be having a conference call to discuss this release on Thursday May 12, 2005 at 11:00 a.m. EDT. The number to call is (888) 858-4066 (U.S. only) or (973) 935-2403 (International). A replay will be available by calling (877) 519-4471 and using the pin 6045297.
Through its Youth Services International subsidiary, the Company is the nation's leading private provider of juvenile programs for adjudicated youths with 17 facilities and 1,300 juveniles in its care. In addition, the Company is a leading developer and operator of adult correctional facilities, operating 14 facilities with approximately 5,500 beds. On a combined basis, the Company provides services in 12 states, representing approximately 6,800 beds including aftercare services.
2.
CORRECTIONS PROFESSIONALS AND REFORMERS DEBATE EFFECTS OF PUBLIC POLICIES ON U.S. PRISONS AND PUNISHMENT
PR Newswire
May 11, 2005
WILMINGTON, N.C. -- On June 13 and 14, 2005, the American Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology (AAFCP) will host "The National Debate on Prisons & Punishment" in Alexandria, Virginia. The debate is intended to open up discussions between corrections professionals, reformers, scholars, civil rights groups, crime victims, and the general public regarding public policies surrounding the U.S. corrections system and its role within the community at large.
Among the topics that the panels will address during the moderated debates are whether longer sentences are effective, the pros and cons of self- monitoring, the pros and cons of prison privatization, reform programs that work, whether prisons are helping ethnic communities, and whether a major goal of prisons should be preparing criminal offenders for re-entry back into communities and what communities need to support these programs.
The keynote speaker will be Dr. Reginald A. Wilkinson, Director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, past President of the American Correctional Association, and a leading proponent of a balanced, progressive approach to corrections -- both within the prison system and in the community. Wilkinson has worked for over 30 years in various prison systems.
Other speakers include Rep. Bill McCollum (Former Chairman of the Crime Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee); Todd Clear (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY); Marc Mauer (The Sentencing Project, Washington, DC); Bo Lozoff (Human Kindness Foundation, Durham, NC); Stephen Nathan (Prison Privatization Report Int., Greenwich, England); Alex Tabarrok (The Independent Institute, Oakland, CA); Elizabeth Alexander (ACLU National Prison Project, New York, NY); Don Specter (Prison Law Office, San Quentin, CA); Jenni Gainsborough (Prison Reform International, Washington, DC); Greg Kane (Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, MD); Ken Kopcyzinski (Private Corrections Institute, Tallahassee, FL); Ed Kropp (Institute for Global Ethics, Camden, ME); Mary Livers (Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, Baltimore, MD); Patricia Muldoon (League of Women Voters, Boston, MA); Peggy Ritchie (National Institute of Corrections, Longmont, CO); Julie Stewart (Families Against Mandatory Minimums, Washington, DC); Peter Wagner (Prison Policy Initiative, Northampton, MA); Lester Welch (Sex Offender Treatment Alliance, Okemos, MI); State Rep. Kay Kahn (House of Representatives, Boston, MA) and Paul Wright (Prison Legal News, Seattle, WA).
According to Dr. John L. Gannon, President of the American Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology, "The Debate was formulated with the hope that people with disparate interest and goals in corrections will have a forum to examine their differences. Even if they leave without changing their minds on the issues, perhaps they'll have a better understanding of the issues from the other sides' perspective, which seems a laudable goal in and of itself."
For more information and to register, please visit www.aa4cfp.org.
The American Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology (AACFP) is an organization of behavioral scientists and practitioners who are concerned with the delivery of high-quality mental health services to criminal offenders, and with promoting and disseminating research on the etiology, assessment, and treatment of criminal behavior. For more information about AAFCP, please visit http www.aacfp.org.
SOURCE: American Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology
CONTACT: John L. Gannon, Ph.D., President of the American Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology, +1-805-489-0665, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.