Obama's U.S. Marshals Nominee Too Cozy With Private Prisons

Big surprise. Detention contracts will now be shifted to more GEOGroup facilities than CCA facilities. These cozy connections are certainly not a surprise nor are they anything new.

All that has happened here is one corporation outbid another for the prime contracts on housing immigrants. Rather than our just deporting them, we allow companies to influence  law enforcement into housing them for profit - profit that ultimately comes out of the tax payers wallets.

From an article on TPMMuckraker

Criminal justice organizations are criticizing President Barack Obama's nomination of Stacia A. Hylton for director of the U.S. Marshals Service because of her ties to the for-profit prison industry.
Hylton was a 29-year career employee of the Justice Department until she left her post earlier this year and accepted $112,500 in consulting fees from the GEO Group, a for-profit prison industry group. Hylton awarded contracts worth up to $88 million to the GEO Group during her nearly six years as DOJ's Federal Detention Trustee, according to a press release. The GEO Group is the second largest operator of for-profit prisons in the United States.

Among some issues causing concern for human rights groups is the fact that, as a Federal Detention Trustee, Hylton objected to a recommendation from the Justice Department Office of Inspector General that called for limiting the amount of profit that a state or local jail -- some of which are owned and/or operated by for-profit companies -- can earn for housing federal prisoners.
GEO Chairman and Chief Executive Officer George Zoley admitted recently that "the primary driver for growth continues to be the incarceration of criminal aliens" in the area of federal contracts, the Washington Times reported.
The Washington Times reported last month on Hylton's contract with the GEO Group and the possible conflicts of interest. She received $112,500 in income from her own private company through "consulting services for detention matters, federal relations and acquisitions and mergers" from March through July of 2010, the newspaper said.

"The U.S. Marshals preside over one of the nation's largest privatized federal detention systems," said Bob Libal of Grassroots Leadership. "Policies that have driven the private prison expansion such as Operation Streamline are carried out by the U.S. Marshals. Ms. Hylton's consulting work with the GEO Group, a troubled company that benefits handsomely from such policies, is a cause for major concern." 

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