Bidding Up GEO Group and ICE Contract

This couldn't possibly have anything to do with all of GEO Group's pending ICE contracts or the appointment of a GEO Group lobbyist to head up the US Marshall's Service which awards contracts for privately run detention facilities now could it? Nah...I'm sure there are no backroom deals going on and that the timing of this is just pure coincidence...
From Benzinga

Posted on 11/10/10 at 1:58pm by Chip Brian
Geo Group is in SmarTrend's Security industry and this industry is currently in an Uptrend according to our research. We are monitoring many other stocks on the move within this industry.
SmarTrend currently has shares of Geo Group in an Uptrend and issued the Uptrend alert on June 17, 2010 at $21.57. The stock has risen 16.9% since the Uptrend alert was issued.

Read more: http://www.benzinga.com/press-releases/10/11/c599265/investors-bid-up-shares-of-geo-group-up-1-geo#ixzz15O89nsLj

Geo Group's Pending ICE Contracts

Now that GEO Group has succeeded in putting one of their spokesmen/puppeteers in place as head of the US Marshall's Service, they have a stronger chance of winning the *bid* for this contract...and many others as well. Small communities everywhere should be aware and not fall for the ruse of corrections for profit as a money saving endeavor. Communities who have fallen for it have paid a pretty hefty price in many cases.

From
By Beth Brelje

Pocono Record Writer

November 15, 2010 

GEO Group, formerly known as Wackenhut, wants to build and operate the detention center in Upper Mount Bethel Township, Northampton County. The operator says the center would house 2,250 illegal immigrants awaiting deportation. The project, the company says, would provide 350 construction jobs and 500 permanent jobs.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has announced an interest in securing additional detention space in the Northeast, said ICE spokesman Mark Medvesky. Ideally, a detention system would reduce transfers and house people near the site of their apprehension, and close to legal services and hospitals.

"Counties, along with private companies with whom they may choose to partner, are drafting concept papers for ICE's consideration. These concept papers, developed by local jurisdictions, are not binding on ICE," Medvesky said in an e-mail to the Pocono Record. "No sites for the northeastern U.S. have been selected and no intergovernmental service agreements have been awarded."

Story Continues -

What if GEO Group doesn't get a contract from ICE, or decides to leave after the center is built?

"In Littlefield, Texas, the municipality had to dip into reserves to cover payments for about $1.2 million in bonds and other debt used to finance the Bill Clayton Detention Center," Smart Money magazine reported in September. "The bonds were issued in 2000, but the expected revenue stream evaporated when, after a prisoner suicide in 2008, the 310-bed private prison lost its contract to house out-of-state inmates. In 2009, GEO Group ended its operating agreement with the detention center, leaving it unoccupied."

In Pueblo, Colo., GEO Group initially promised to fund the building of a private prison for 500 state inmates and later demanded repeated changes in the deal. GEO wanted government financing and changed the size of the proposed prison.

"GEO demanded more money. It wanted either more money per inmate, or a revenue guarantee that amounted to $1 billion over 30 years for two prisons," according to a 2006 report by the Rocky Mountain News."

For more information about the impact of the proposed facility and for more background on GEO Group Read Full Article

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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