Scandal involving two private prison companies seeking a contract to build and operate a new complex near San Luis followed them to Yuma County.

The two companies, GEO Group and Management and Training Corp. (MTC), are competing for Arizona Department of Corrections (DOC) monies provided by the Arizona Legislature to build up to 5,000 new private prison beds.

DOC is considering five sites in Eloy, Coolidge, San Luis, Winslow and Goodyear as possible prison locations, and was in Yuma this week to hear public comment...

Two private prison companies — GEO Group and Management and Training Corp. — ­­involved in proposals for a prison expansion in San Luis, Ariz., are embroiled in legal battles.

GEO Group, the second-largest private prison company in the country, is currently a defendant in a federal class-action lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union for violations at its juvenile detention center in Walnut Grove, Miss.

The lawsuit contends the prison's management caused a culture of violence and exploitation by selling drugs inside the facility and entering into sexual relationships with the inmates...

Critics and supporters of the private company that runs the Kingman prison agree that last year’s escapes don’t give the complete picture about Management and Training Corp.

It’s the rest of the picture on which they differ.

Critics express astonishment that, less than a year after two of the Kingman escapees allegedly murdered an Oklahoma couple, MTC is a finalist for a contract to provide up to 5,000 more private-prison beds to Arizona’s Department of Corrections. They point to a broader record of problems at MTC facilities as showing a company that doesn’t learn from its mistakes...

The private company that operates the Kingman prison publicly took full responsibility for last year’s breakout, in which escapees were charged with the murder of an Oklahoma couple.

But behind the scenes, Management & Training Corp. clashed with the state over a litany of problems revealed after the escapes: How to improve lax security. Whether the state should pay the company for empty beds after the state, responding to the breakout, removed high-risk prisoners and quit sending new inmates there...

An escape from a privatized prison in Kingman, Ariz., last year left two people dead and raised questions among some whether the same nightmare scenario could happen in Ohio.

The company that operates the Arizona State Prison Complex at Kingman is Utah-based Management and Training Corp., one of three for-profit corrections companies seeking to buy and operate five Ohio facilities under Gov. John Kasich’s prison privatization plan.

Escapes can and do happen at publicly operated prisons too. But a stunning lack of administrative oversight before the July 30, 2010, escape at Kingman has opponents of the Ohio plan calling it a textbook example of what can go wrong when private companies operate public corrections institutions...

A former Texas detention center guard is about to get a different view of lockup after he pleaded guilty to engaging in sexual abuse of a female detainee, the Justice Department announced this week. Contract security Officer Edwin Rodriguez, 30, was assigned to pick up meal trays from the various housing “pods” inside the detention center.   Rodriguez encountered the victim outside one of the pods as she dropped off empty trays from her pod. Rodriguez pulled the woman into the guard’s bathroom located adjacent to the victim’s pod and assaulted her. The female detainee immediately reported the sexual abuse to two individuals, including a former female contract security officer supervising the pod. The abuse occurred at the Willacy Detention Center in Raymondville...

A guard at an immigrant detention center in South Texas is scheduled to appear before a federal judge after spending the weekend in jail on a charge that he sexually abused a detainee in 2008.

The Justice Department accuses 31-year-old Edwin Rodriguez of Raymondville of having sex with a woman who was awaiting deportation at the Willacy Detention Center in October 2008. The court hearing is set for Monday afternoon.

Rodriguez was an employee of Management & Training Corporation, or MTC, a contractor that operates the facility for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement...

Some Arizona officials say changes still need to be made at the Kingman prison, six months after the escape of three inmates reignited a debate about the role of private lockups in the state.

More work was needed at the prison, Arizona House Minority Leader Chad Campbell said after Department of Corrections director Charles Ryan appeared at a legislative committee hearing last week.

"It sounded like they're still pretty far away from meeting their obligation and they're still not sending any prisoners to that facility," Campbell said. "If we haven't gotten all these problems addressed, then obviously their response has been inadequate...."