LOS ANGELES — Erik Townsend says he prefers the Arizona prison where he’s serving 15 years for robbery to the California facility where he was until August. For one thing, he was getting just two hot meals a day at the other prison.

“We get three hots here,’’ Townsend, 40, said while taking a short break from sweeping the yard at La Palma Correctional Center in Eloy, Ariz., a desert town halfway between Phoenix and Tucson. “It’s all right. It’s decent.’’

La Palma, which houses about 2,900 convicts from California, is one of 65 facilities operated by Corrections Corp. of America.

As is the case at the company’s other facilities, all the workers at La Palma, from the guards and office staff to the warden, are employed not by a government agency but by Nashville-based Corrections Corp.

via Cash-strapped states fuel lucrative business for privatized prisons – The Boston Globe.