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Dominion Correctional Services: Rap Sheet

Presented to the Joint Select Committee on Corrections on October 21, 2002 by the Criminal Justice program of the American Friends Service Committee, Arizona Area Program.

Dominion Has Little Experience Managing Correctional Facilities

• Dominion generally builds the facility and hands it over to other corporations to manage, most notably Correctional Services Corporation (see Correctional Services Corporation Rap Sheet). It is likely that this arrangement is planned for the proposed facility.
• Due to this shared arrangement, it is difficult for states to know which corporation to hold accountable when problems occur.

Dominion Has a Poor History of Oversight Over Facilities Operated by Other Companies

• A Crowley County, Wyoming facility was built by Dominion and operated by CSC. At this facility, two staff were fired and three others resigned after a disturbance that caused the prison to lock down in 1998. At that time, the Warden admitted to the Denver Post that almost three quarters of the staff in the facility had no correctional experience. (Data Center 2001)
• Four months later, in the same facility, a riot involving 500 prisoners broke out which required the assistance of Colorado riot police. Almost 25 percent of the staff quit after this incident. One year later, Dominion resumed management of the facility. (Data Center 2001)

Dominion Has A Dismal Record of Its Own

• Women prisoners in an Oklahoma prison run by Dominion filed suit in 2001 for sexual abuse at the hands of Dominion guards. The women charged that they were sexually assaulted by staff, and that one woman was later "tortured" by guards for her reporting of the assaults to authorities. One of the women who was sexually assaulted reported that she became pregnant as a result of the rape and was forced to have an abortion at a prison medical facility. (Honolulu Adviser, "Hawai'i women file prison suit alleging sexual abuse," 8/21/01)
• The company caused controversy in Wisconsin after it built a prison on spec and without permission in Stanley and then approached the state to purchase it. Wisconsin leased the facility from Dominion. (Data Center, 2001)
• The Stanley facility was not ready to open on schedule. The plan was for the prison to begin training guards in July of 2002 and open in September. In July the company announced it would not open until January of 2003, causing outrage on the part of the residents who had been promised prison jobs. It was estimated that the delay will cost the state $1.3 million. (Marshfield News Herald, "Stanley prison outrage," 7/17/02)

Dominion Execs Have Checkered Business Histories

• Calvin Burgess, once principal owner of Dominion, was also principal owner of Cimarron Pork, Inc., an Oklahoma based hog farm. The farm, which seems to have been shut down in 2000, was investigated by the Environmental Protection Agency for burying hundreds of dead pigs in illegal, unlined pits. About two years later, the farms hog population was annihilated by disease, and the company abandoned the site without cleaning it up. (The Oklahoman Online, 5/30/00)
• Larry Fields is either president or V.P. of Dominion (reports conflict). Fields was employed in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections for 17 years, and was its director until 1997, when he resigned under pressure after a newly released inmate killed three people in Oklahoma City. (Tulsa World, 1/18/01)

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