Tweet
FBI Investigates Blatant Corruption in Florida
Former Budget Chief and Speaker of the House Ray Sansom, who now sits in prison on corruption and fraud charges, is one of the primary targets of the investigation. While he was budget chief, GEO gave a presentation before the legislature on a proposal to expand their services within the state. A month later, Sansom visited the corporate home of the GEO Group, supposedly on “personal business” (though this was the only trip he took there in 4 years as a representative). The month after that, he introduced a very last-minute provision into the budget bill to provide for $110 million to be appropriated to the GEO Group for the construction of what became the Blackwater Correctional Facility.
The prison was built on prison population projections that anticipated the state system would continue to grow; rather, it shrank. But the new budget chief, JD Alexander, tried to come to the rescue of the GEO Group, introducing his own last-minute budget amendment in the 2010 session to try to force the state to depopulate state prisons to send prisoners to the private one. Of course, he had received generous donations from the industry as had Ray Sansom. You just can’t make this stuff up.
Anyhoo, as I said the FBI is currently investigating the circumstances that led the state to give a multiple hundred-million dollar handout to a company with a long track record of human rights abuses and contract noncompliance. And DBA press has just released hundreds of documents obtained through the investigation that chronicle some of this sordid history.
I’m just thankful that our FBI apparently has some shred of decency left
17 Comments
Investigations mean nothing.
This is the same FBI that pulls gestapo tactics on US citizens involved with peace movements, right?
The FBI and their agents are just good little soldiers, “just following orders”.
Still waiting for the FBI “investigation” into the banks and separately the foreclosure fraud.
I guess I’ll be waiting a long time.
1) 110 million seems a slam dunk quid for the pro quo
2)”The month after that, he introduced a very last-minute provision into the budget bill to provide for $110 million to be appropriated to the GEO Group for the construction of what became the Blackwater Correctional Facility.”
What personal business had they ever met before or since do they socialize in the same circles? Next question BLACKWATER? are they connected to Prince’s Merc group also called blackwater that works in Iraq that uses Coke and tortures people if half the rumors are true?
3)But the new budget chief, JD Alexander, tried to come to the rescue of the GEO Group, introducing his own last-minute budget amendment in the 2010 session to try to force the state to depopulate state prisons to send prisoners to the private one
Corporate Welfare any numbers on how much the private prison charges to house a prisoner vs the state and if the private prison is cheaper just where are they getting the savings? Cutting back on food and food quality? Over crowding prisoners in cells? Cutting shower time to save water? Where do they get the savings assuming there is any?
Anyhoo, as I said the FBI is currently investigating the circumstances that led the state to give a multiple hundred-million dollar handout to a company with a long track record of human rights abuses and contract noncompliance. And DBA press has just released hundreds of documents obtained through the investigation that chronicle some of this sordid history.
The link seems to show links to the ongoing investigation not human rights abuses so can I get a link that shows the human rights abuses?
I hear what you’re saying, but I do think it’s telling that they’ve launched the investigation. I don’t often hear of them investigating political corruption like this…
1) Totally. but it’s absurd that Florida’s taxpayers were on the hook for that much for a prison to be built for a private company.
2) My point was that this was very likely NOT personal business as Mr. Sansom claimed, but rather a trip on which he was wooed by the GEO Group. The name of the prison is the Blackwater Correctional Facility. It’s not affiliated with the company formerly called Blackwater (now “Xe” in a great example of corporate rebranding) except for the fact that Dick Cheney had oodles of money invested in both. Just coincidence
3) Totally corporate welfare. In general they offer very little cost-savings over government prisons, and sometimes cost more: http://whyihatecca.blogspot.com/search/label/no%20cost-savings. The savings come primarily in terms of cutbacks to salaries, training, benefits, and levels of staff (staffing being the most expensive part of any prison’s operation). They pay their staff less in salaries and benefits, don’t hire unionized employees, and short-staff facilities. They are also notorious for cutting back on medical care (another huge ticket for prison operators), food, maintenance of the facilities they run, etc. They’re not any more or less overcrowded than government-run prisons, to my knowledge.
well yeah the link is to the investigation; here are links to some examples of the human rights abuses:
http://whyihatecca.blogspot.com/search/label/violence
http://whyihatecca.blogspot.com/search/label/abuse
http://whyihatecca.blogspot.com/search/label/sexual%20assault
http://whyihatecca.blogspot.com/search/label/death
http://whyihatecca.blogspot.com/search/label/medical%20care
http://whyihatecca.blogspot.com/search/label/negligence
Granted, not all of those are GEO, but for more on them specifically, look into stories from the Reeves Detention Center in Pecos, TX; Walnut Grove Youth Facility in MS, or any story about immigration detention.
Then there’s Hernando County, where the sheriff took control of the jail from a corporation, and is saving the county $1.5 million in the first year. In a county of 130,000, that is a LOT of money.
Now, what can a county that size do with $1.5 million dollars?
What, for that matter, could Florida have done with the $110 million dollars that it wasted?
Investigations mean nothing.
Yep until someone goes to Jail and the corp. closed it’s just talk but thanks for the update and keep them coming. Then may be they’ll be something down the road to smile about:)
Thanks for keeping this topic on the front burner and for the update re GEO in FL.
Privatization has been touted mainly by conservatives as this magical mythical pill that is the be-all, end-all to ALL of our problems. It’s used as a construct in so-called “libertarian” group-think, which posits that the magical mythical “marketplace” is this fabulous “place” where rugged individuals “stand on their own two feet” and somehow get ‘er done … and CHA-CHING money is magically made but only in the “correct” way according to John Birch Society Kool Aid drinkers.
In fact, nearly all privatization is lurk for corporate welfare. Of course, there are pros & cons to how one does anything, and no doubt, there can be some very positive aspects and outcomes to privatizing just about anything, I suppose. But time and again, privatizing rarely does all that much in terms of truly “saving money” or being “more efficient.”
It’s a FAIRY TALE that’s been sold to credulous dittoheads and other fellow travelers, who also belive in the mythical fairy tale that all this privatization is being done, somehow, by truly “small” (in terms of size) businesses run by Joe & Jane Average Q. Citizen.
Not So! Most of the privatization is run by mega-corporations who skim off profits from the top, cut services, cut whatever possible, often run the organization in a much less effective way, yet: TA DA!!!!! It’s “privatized,” ERGO it is, by definition, “better.” And the dittoheads happily believe that somehow this makes the world turn and their stupid taxes will be “lower.”
The dumbitude of such muzzy & addled *beliefs* on the part of citizens is what aggravates me the most. Citizens breathlessly listen to Rush & his ilk – and they are just spewing out what the Koch brothers have their thinktank writers come up with – and such citizens do nothing more than follow the daily directive. I’ve yet to come across one dittohead (I know plenty) who’s ever done any homework on this.
Providing them with stats, proof and FACTS about how it really works just makes them fall back on their usual “position” that I’m some DFH who peddling the de regeur liberal LIES to them. Don’t bother to do any homework; just listen to El Lushbo and all is well.
I’ll stop ranting now, but I would like to think that this investigation will result in some real action against GEO. Time will tell. It would be nice if taxpayers could STOP paying corporate welfare for reduced and degraded services, like the d*mnable privatized prison industry. I won’t hold my breath, but I’ll try to remain somewhat optimistic.
Thanks for the links next question just how did a company with these references even get a contract? Sheesh in Chicago they at least use front men with clean records to start companies that get contracts.
The front companies have silent partners with all kinds of corruption problems but in Florida the crooks don’t even bother to hide that they are crooks I see.
This shows contempt for the voters and a sense of invulnerability by big business.
To give the Bureau its due, investigations mean that agents can get statistics for them. If memory serves, getting an indictment is worth a stat. Unless the Bureau has changed since I retired, agents want stats. Gotta have that indictment before you get anything else.
With economic times getting tough as they are, it may become popular for politicians, such as Attnys Genl, to get aggressive about this kind of prosecution…hope…
Fwiw, it is the “Blackwater River Correctional Facility”.
Oops…
Link: http://www.thegeogroupinc.com/newsroom-pdfs/BlackwaterRiver.pdf – Similar
I have a feeling the $800,000+ they spent on lobbying in this past election cycle, and hundreds of thousands more in cycles previous, might have helped…
For profit prisons are one reason the US incarcerates more of its population than do other nations (including China). With only 5% of the world’s population we have 25% of the world’s prisoners. It’s amazing so many criminals live in the US – makes me fear walking the streets.
That’s right, boys and girls, your government is in the process of turning over the prison system to the freaking private sector. If you have yet to be acquainted with the ramifications of this nasty development allow me to enlighten you if I may:
All of us (or most of us I hope) long for a day when societal ills are forever eradicated, and America’s prison population is diminished to a barely perceptible molecule of what is is today. It’s a beautiful dream, is it not? You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. But it’s a dream that is never going to see the light of day if these people have their way. Why?
Here’s why: Corporations are not created in order to fail. In fact their entire reason for existing is to expand. That is what the founders of IBM had in mind when they started that company a-hundred-years-ago this month. They wanted to reach into every facet of American life – and they succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. Just look around you. IBM is everywhere.
By privatizing the American prison system these nitwits have created a brand-spanking-new corporate class whose very existence will depend upon those prisons being filled to the rafters with human beings – FOREVER! As a result the owners will send lobbyists to Washington, who will then bribe our representatives into passing more-and-more punitive laws that will ensure that those prisons are booked to capacity. How will they make a profit? Forced industrial labor – which will be just another drain on American jobs. Think about that: Forced labor. It’s something that was officially terminated in this nation one-hundred and forty-six years ago. It was called “slavery”. Remember that “peculiar institution”?
Mah! Mah! The ol’ plantation sho’ has changed!
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan