In June 2004, Judy Martz, Republican Governor (remember her), met with James Parkey in Las Vegas. James Parkey is a suave salesman for the ever-growing private prison industry. Parkey describes himself as the savior for local communities hit hard by unemployment and poverty.
Parkey runs a company called Corplan Corrections. He was looking to sell Governor Martz a prison project for the State of Montana. Through state officials he ended up in Hardin. His method is to promise a full-service team to take on the entire project, a turn-key operation. This team has a construction firm to build the facility, a prison operator to find prisoners, someone to run the facility, underwriters to sell bonds and a consultant to do an economic study. To officials in a county where poverty is double the national average, it sounded like a good deal. Hardin's $27 million municipal bonds earned the underwriters, Herbert Sims of Connecticut and Municipal Capital Markets Group of Dallas $1.62 million. The prison's designer and builder, Hale-Mills Construction of Houston a maximum price of $19.88 million. Then there was lawyers, surveyors, consultants and Parkey himself. No one knows how much Parkey made. Hardin didn't make out so well. The prison opened in mid 2007 and only had one contract in 2014 for a few months with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Montana Department of Corrections refuses to house prisoners there, going so far as to have Attorney General Mike McGrath write some rambling opinion about the illegality of the facility. It seems that the detention center is not in compliance with design standards. The majority of Montana inmates are caucasian. The Montana Department of Corrections refuses to house these caucasian inmates at the detention center because of substandard design. In 2014, The Bureau of Indian Affairs entered into a contract for a brief time with the Two Rivers Detention Center before pulling the Native American prisoners from the prison. Now the Bureau of Indian Affairs is entering into another contract with the facility to house Native American inmates from across the northern plains. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was created as a part of the War Department...yes, the War Department. How far does one need to think before realizing that the agency was created to be aggressive and suppressive. The War Department Bureau of Indian Affairs already has 11 federal prisons in Montana for Native Americans.
Montana
Blackfeet Adult Detention Center
Blackfeet Youth Detention Center
Crow Adult Detention Center
Flathead Adult Detention Center
Fort Peck Indian Juvenile Services Center
Fort Peck Police Department and Adult Detention Center
Fort Peck Transitional Living Unit
Northern Cheyenne Adult Detention Center
Northern Cheyenne Youth Detention Center
Rocky Boy Adult Detention Center
White Buffalo Youth Detention Center
The BIA now wants to add a 12th federal Native American prison in Montana at a prison that the State of Montana refuses to use for its' majority of caucasian inmates. City Attorney Becky Convery housed a goat, hamsters, gerbils, cats and a field mouse named Mr. Jingles in the detention center. Now we are going to make it another prison for Native Americans. Please Montana can we stop this madness of locking everybody up. We do not need a 12th federal prison in Montana. Hardin was sold a bill of goods that did not work. We do not need to compound the bad decision by making another bad decision to lock up more Native Americans.