By PHIL DRAKE
HELENA – Three state lawmakers said they will request a legislative audit of a contract between the Department of Corrections (DOC) and the company that operates the private prison in Shelby following allegations which included inmates being held beyond their parole and a claim prisoners are given two rolls of toilet paper a week and told by guards to use their hands if they run out.
The three, members of the Legislature’s Law and Justice Interim Committee, said they would request the audit after hearing the claims made Friday regarding the DOC and the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) by Helena businessman Rudy Stock, who said he has visited his son at the Crossroads Correctional Center nearly 80 times since Feb. 1.

Committee members asked for the DOC and CCA to be invited to its next meeting to discuss the claims.
DOC spokesman Bob Anez said he was working on responses to be presented to the 12-member panel at its December meeting. He said the state contracts with CCA on a per-inmate basis.
According to the contract, the state pays about $64 a day per inmate.
CCA officials did not return calls for comment.
Legislative Auditor Tori Hunthausen was not available for comment.
Stock’s claims also included allegations the state could be “shorted” more than $3 million per year from a lack of corrections staff. CCC also placed inmates in a converted gymnasium that did not meet American Correctional Association (ACA) standards, and he said boxes in the kitchen were marked “Not for Human Consumption.”
He also said there were no on-site “psychiatric” services and that service was provided by video from Florida. Stock said no vocational programs were offered as required, no contract attorney to assist inmates with filing complaints and that DOC and CCA officials “ignored” the American with Disabilities Act by denying prisoners with vision problems to purchase larger TV sets.
Stock told the panel that toilet paper was passed out twice a week.
“You are allowed one roll of toilet paper per inmate for maximum of two rolls per cell,” he said, adding the paper, which is small and one ply, could be purchased at the commissary.
If the inmate uses his supply of toilet paper by the end of the week, he is told by the guards to use his hands, Stock said.
Sen. Greg Hinkle, R-Thompson Falls, said if true, he considered the toilet paper issue to be a human rights violation.
“People are people and need to be treated in a dignified manner,” said Hinkle, who said he has led Bible studies in a county jail for 17 years. “I don’t care what they have done.”
Another person speaking to the panel, Havre resident Ruben McKinney, said inmates who have been paroled are still being held at the facility long after their parole and added there were examples of nepotism among staff. On Tuesday, McKinney told Montana Watchdog that he knew of one inmate who was paroled in February 2010 and not released until February 2011.
Hinkle, Sen. Terry Murphy, R-Cardwell and Rep. Margaret McDonald, D-Billings, said they would ask the Legislative Audit Division to look at the contract between the CCA and DOC.
“I think he (Stock) made some important points that need to be clarified,” Murphy told Montana Watchdog after the meeting. “With so many potential problems alleged, the best way to get to the facts is with an audit.”
According to its website, the 664-bed CCC is the first private adult correctional facility in the state and opened in September 1999. It says it is the only adult institution in the Montana Prison System that has received ACA and National Commission on Correctional Health Care accreditation.