Jobs are hard to come by in remote, rural Texas, so when large for-profit prisonscame to town offering jobs and basically guaranteed revenue to public coffers, County Judges saw it as manna from Heaven.
But now, thirty years after the first private prison was built in the state, the boom has not only peaked, it is going flat in several counties across the state, leaving questions about financial liability.
So what happened?
Guest:
- John MacCormack, reporter for the San Antonio Express-News