Real Savings Needed For Private Prisons

The Florida Legislature has been frugal about most things in recent years, with one exception - prisons.

Florida has been on a prison-building binge.
And despite the state's avowed fiscal conservatism, the binge has been financed with what amounts to a $1 billion credit card.

Things are so out of hand that prisons continue to be filled while crime declines. So where are the new prisoners coming from? Too often, from first-time offenders and nonviolent drug offenders.

Other states, most notably Texas, have responded by finding alternatives to prison that save money and still protect the public.

Florida, unfortunately, has responded by simply transferring more prisons to private companies. That doesn't necessarily save money. In fact, after more than a decade of prison privatization, the savings are still vague.

Major examples

- There is no hard evidence that private prisons save money or have better outcomes than public ones, reported the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy last year.
- A 2008 report from the Legislature's accountability office concluded that there was no good assurance that private prisons had comparable levels of health and mental health care as public ones.

Read Full Story on Jacksonville.com 

Private Prison Bribes Beginning to Pay Off in FL

GEOGroup's bribes to FL legislators is obviously beginning to pay off for them...

"The Florida Legislature’s push to privatize many more prisons, its most far-reaching cost-cutting plan in years, could open a lucrative door to politically connected vendors who stand to profit.

Senate and House budgets require the state to privatize prisons in South Florida, home to one-fifth of the statewide inmate population of 101,000. The region is the home of the GEO Group, the nation’s second-largest private prison operator, which currently runs two private prisons, including the largest private lockup, the Blackwater River Correctional Facility in Milton.

GEO also operates five state psychiatric hospitals, including South Florida State Hospital in Pembroke Pines, which got its long-sought accreditation after GEO’s takeover.

The Boca Raton company, a reliable contributor to the Republican party, employs more than 2,000 people and a stable of 16 Capitol lobbyists. It donated $25,000 to Gov. Rick Scott’s inaugural celebration in January. A top transition budget adviser to Scott, Donna Arduin, is a former trustee of a GEO real estate company, Correctional Properties Trust. The company’s healthcare subsidiary, GEO Care, is led by Jorge Dominicis, a familiar figure in the Capitol from years of lobbying for the sugar industry."

Read more: Miami Herald

Florida State-Funded, For-Profit Juvenile Prison Sued For Assault

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) took aim at a Florida state-funded, for-profit juvenile prison after allegations of horrific conditions surfaced. According to a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of children held at Thompson Academy in Broward County, Florida, the staff at Thompson Academy routinely brutalized, chocked and slammed the children into walls. At least one was sexually assaulted and after the abuse was reported administrations continued to allow the staff member to have contact with the child, resulting in a second sexual assault.

When the allegations of abuse first surfaced members of the SPLC went to interview children but Youth Services International, Inc., the company which operates the facility, prevented the children from having access to the attorneys. The children were also not allowed to have confidential phone calls with their attorneys and were later questioned about any meetings that did take place by the Academy's director and other staff. Many were coerced into signing statements ending or declining representation by the SPLC.

The allegations in the lawsuit go far beyond even these horror stories. Children live in hot and moldy living units that lack air conditioning. Some children were even forced to sleep on dirty floors of other units after becoming ill.