I’m more than certain that we haven’t seen the last of the industry’s efforts to acquire half the state’s prison system; in fact, Governor Scott can utilize mechanisms to privatize a few prisons without going through the legislature. The state already has 7 private prisons, and the industry is not likely to stop spending oodles of money to try to force its way in. But for now, Floridians can breathe a collective sigh of relief in knowing that, despite the efforts of some crooked and corrupt politicians, their legislature apparently does try to represent their best interests. At least most of it does, anyway.
Coming on the heels of the news that a court in Florida ruled the largest prison privatization scheme in history unconstitutional, stock for both CCA and the GEO Group lost value.
Florida is one of a few states that is seeing a wave of pro-privatization, anti-government rhetoric wreak havoc on employee unions and public services after electing a super conservative governor. This same governor has also, with the help of longtime privatization advocate and state budget chair JD Alexander, pushed for Florida to embark on the most ambitious prison privatization scheme in history. The state is currently in the process of privatizating the correctional services of 18 counties, covering nearly 30 facilities. Thousands of state employees will lose their jobs as an inherently governmental function is turned over to a profit-driven private industry with a long history of human rights abuses and failure to deliver on promised cost-savings. However, conservatives never seem to concerned with how much their bogus strategies wind up costing the state, as is evidenced by Scott’s mandatory drug-testing program for welfare recipients that has already wound up costing taxpayers far more than its anticipated savings. Hopefully though the state legislature will come to realize that privatization is an experiment that has consistently failed, and they need look no further than their own state to see just how poorly the industry has performed, and how undeserving it is of being rewarded for its failures
No state has ever undertaken such an ambitious expansion of their private prison system, and for good reason; private prisons consistently fail to live up to contractual obligations, don’t save money, and provide less efficient services than government-run prisons.
“Talk about a dangerous situation for the public! Because, in my opinion, privatizing our prisons, you bring a private company in, all they care about is the bottom line. That’s why they’re a company. That’s why they trade on the New York Stock Exchange, that’s why they trade on any exchange for that matter, they have stockholders, they have board members to be answerable to; therefore, they have to make a profit and by doing that, in my opinion, you put people at risk.”
(The article cited here goes into a lot more detail on the lack of oversight and transparency of the industry, which in turn results in a breakdown of accountability) Read the rest of this entry →
Last month, investigators from Florida’s Department of Corrections came to the South Bay CF, run by the GEO Group, to conduct an inspection of the facility. While this should not have made headlines, it did becausethe investigators could not get into the prison. After repeatedly using the call box and even shining a flashlight directly into the security camera at the gate, investigators were unable to contact anyone inside the prison to let them in. Apparently, there were no guards in the control room or monitoring the perimeter of the facility to let them in. What’s even worse is that the Florida DOC doesn’t even have authority to oversee the prison – that’s handled by the Department of Management services, which apparently lets the GEO Group conduct its own internal investigations of staff misconduct. Because who would want a department of corrections to oversee something like corrections?
So the investigators filed a report, and the DMS released their own (heavily redacted) report about the incident, but no one has given a firm answer yet as to why staff were unresponsive for at least 20 minutes of the investigators’ trying to get their attention. This is very concerning, considering the state is pushing hard to privatize the correctional services of 18 counties. There are some very high benchmarks in the request the state has put out though, such a mandating 7% savings and forcing the private vendor who wins the contract to provide programs proven to reduce recidivism. I have absolutely zero faith in any private for-profit company to meet these benchmarks, since the industry has steadfastly failed to live up to similar expectations throughout its history.
I’ve written extensively on the failures of private prisons to provide programming and offer cost-savings. But Florida’s politicians need look no further than their own state to see that privatizing correctional services doesn’t save money. Because Jackson County, which recently had been seeking to outsource prison healthcare, recently decided to continue to have the government provide healthcare. Why? Because the county will save MILLIONS of dollars per year in doing so. That’s right – it would cost millions more for a private company to provide healthcare to prisoners than the government.
Is there any question anymore that Ric Scott, JD Alexander, and all the other Florida politicians looking to privatize prisons aren’t merely corporate shills?
The Police Benevolent Association, a union that represents police and COs in Florida, just filed a lawsuit challenging Governor Ric Scott’s and JD Alexander’s proposal to privatize the corrections services of 18 counties in the state. Scott and Alexander claim, incorrectly, that the privatization plan would offer significant cost-savings for the state. Numerous studies have shown that this is not likely to be the case.
Thankfully, the PBA has stood up to Scott, a conservative wet dream who’s also trying to de-fund and cripple unions as part of a large push to privatize all that is public. The proposal was thrown into the budget amendment at the last minute, which should come as no surprise since this seems to be routine for Floridian politics. As the PBA says, the “legislature’s insertion of a massive privatization plan into the budget during the waning hours of the legislative session, on behalf of the most unpopular governor, was improper and illegal.”
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