What's Happening in Florida

Lots of news from Florida recently, all of which I’ll try to compile into this one post. Most of this is at least a week old though. My bad.

First, I wanted to just link to two excellent editorials that appeared in the Miami Herald and the Tampa Bay Times. Both detail part of Florida’s long and sordid history with contracting out prison management to private companies. Among the issues that have plagued private prisons in Florida are a failure to properly document the costs of private prisons (resulting in disputes to claims of cost-savings), “lax contracts, spotty state oversight, overbilling by contractors and less legal accountability for abuses.”

The Herald editorial also documents a prison riot that occurred in 2004 at a private Florida juvenile center for girls. The girls rioted in response to cost-cutting measures taken by the private company in pursuit of maximizing profits. These measures included “increased number of lockdowns, cancellations of physical and outdoor activities, cancellation of educational classes, cancellation of various therapy sessions, cancellations of volunteer programs, cancellations of special activities.” The editorial then goes on to properly point out the influence that literally millions of dollars in lobbying money has had on the Florida legislature, which is now poised to further expand the state’s use of private prisons.

Next, here’s a link to a great interview with Dr. Michael Hallett which delves into the connection between the drug war, our country’s ridiculously disparate rates of incarceration, and the private prison industry. The disparities between incarceration rates of African Americans and Caucasians as a result of the “War on Drugs” is a topic for a different blog, but the connection between the rise in our rates of incarceration and the rise of private prisons is clear.
Dr. Hallett says, “If the question is why did we have to privatize prisons, the answer would be the drug war.”

Now, I’ll leave you on this last bit. The GEO Group donated $25,000 to the new Florida House Speaker’s Political Action Committee (PAC). The PAC, called the “Florida Freedom Committee” is one of those new super-PACs created after the Citizens United ruling that can pool corporate money for candidates or political causes. A bunch of major corporations seeking to expand their business interests in Florida donated generously to this PAC. This comes in addition to direct campaign and issue contributions by the GEO Group, and the hundreds of thousands of dollars they have spent lobbying. Clearly GEO is spending a lot of money wooing legislators in its home state, hoping to secure some political favor.

And it looks like all this money has been rather effective. The title link goes to an article detailing some of the recent developments in the Florida legislative session. Among them is the fact that the House caved to pressure from the Senate, but really from GEO’s influence through the above-mentioned PAC and other forms of monetary influence peddling, to go along with a plan to privatize the correctional work of 18 counties in the bottom half of the state. This would privatize as many as 18,000 more prison beds in the state.

The Senate Budget Chief, JD Alexander, has apparently become much more confident in his claims of cost-savings. Recently, he was touting this plan as an experiment to determine whether cost-savings could be achieved (albeit a fucking stupid experiment, but an experiment nonetheless). Now he “has insisted that the shift could save at least 7 percent in operating expenses at each facility turned private.” That’s an incredible conclusion to come to with absolutely no evidence to support it and a great deal of evidence that runs counter to that claim. I guess Republicans will just never stop lying to their constituents when it serves the interests of their corporate sugar daddies.

JD Alexander Loves His Corporate Sugar Daddy

Private prisons don't save money. The state of Florida, which has been using private prisons for at least 15 years, has never been able to prove they save money. But that hasn't stopped JD Alexander, a big fan of the GEO Group, (and Senate Budget Chief) from proposing to privatize half the state system, as a way of "saving money." Really, it's just a handout to a company that has donated millions to Florida Republicans, the latest effort by Alexander to funnel taxpayer dollars to his corporate friends.

Under Alexander's plan, older prisons in the south of Florida would be sold to private operators. Older prisons are more expensive to operate and maintain than newer facilities. Considering private prisons can't be shown to have saved any money in the first place, I question Alexander's logic in thinking his proposal could somehow be fiscally responsible (after all, isn't that what the Republicans claim underlies their every action?).

In addition to the fact that private prisons in Florida can't even prove they save money, they have consistently failed to perform up to the proper standards. Private prisons in Florida are not overseen by the DOC; they were initially managed by a special commission that was fraught with mismanagement and corruption. Following major scandals in the mid-2000s, oversight was transferred to the Department of Management Services, where private prisons have improved, slightly. From 2008 to 2010, a GEO Group prison was found to be below "acceptable" standards in 3 out of every 4 months it was reviewed; a CCA facility went 17 of 24 months as "below acceptable."

Private prisons also routinely deny adequate medical care to prisoners. Medical care is one of the biggest costs a prison operator has (aside from staffing), and private prisons deny care to sick prisoners as a way to maximize profits. In fact, 2 private prisons spent less than half as much money on medical care (to the tune of $8 million) than 2 state-run prisons in a comparison. But some in the state legislature have proposed turning over all medical care to private contractors. Apparently they don't care about prisoners with serious medical needs.

So private prisons can't prove they save any money in Florida. Private prisons definitely perform worse than government-run prisons. The state wants to turn over older facilities to private operators, who can't operate new facilities cheaper than the government. The private prison industry has donated millions to Florida's Republicans, while expanding into new markets like parole monitoring, right before various proposals in the state legislature spring up to privatize a huge portion of the state's correctional system.

JD Alexander says "[By privatizing half our state system] we could more definitely answer the question of whether there is cost savings." There is no question at this point, Mr. Alexander. Florida has conducted this failed experiment with private prisons for over a decade and a half, and no evidence has demonstrated any savings. Further, any savings that could possibly be achieved are offset by the human costs of for-profit incarceration. I'd say you should know better, but I'm sure you already do. You just don't care, as long as the money keeps flowing from the GEO Group's generous coffers.

Why I Hate Florida Today

Florida is currently in the midst of the biggest prison privatization push in history - the state is looking to privatize 29 correctional facilities, basically the entire bottom half of the state's prison system.  This comes after the GEO Group, based in Boca Raton, along with other private prison interests, spent record amounts in campaign contributions and lobbying in the last election cycle, so you wouldn't be alone in thinking this sounds a bit like a handout from Florida's Republican leadership to wealthy donors.

As this move to privatize has developed, a few groups in the community have started to fight back against the outsourcing of an inherently governmental function.   The union that represents Corrections Officers (The PBA) has filed a lawsuit, seeking to block the privatization, and the Teamsters union has filed an ethics complaint against Governor Scott because he accepted campaign contributions from the two largest private prison companies in the country, both of which are bidding on the proposed privatization.

The lawsuit by the PBA has limped its way through the court system.  After a lower court ordered ousted Corrections Secretary Edward Buss (ousted because he, as the EFFING SECRETARY OF CORRECTIONS, thought the plan was a horrible idea) to be deposed in the matter, a higher court affirmed the ruling, only to have Governor "I Love Privatization" Scott appeal.  Well, Scott lost, whining about how state officials are not to be deposed under Florida law (I guess he forgot the part where he forced Buss to resign because Buss disagreed with him). The PBA has had trouble getting information out of the Corrections Department through discovery, which is why Buss was called to testify in the first place.  It appears as though Buss, the aforementioned secretary of corrections, was never really consulted about the push to privatize nearly 30 prisons.  The state seems pretty scared to let Buss testify; the Scott administration has already appealed the ruling numerous times, and is considering challenging Buss' testimony in the Florida Supreme Court.  In fact, his lawyers at one point even let a little Freudian Slip pass, remarking that allowing Buss to testify might do "irreparable harm" to state government.

They're probably right.  Buss's testimony was released, and in it he gives details about his remarkable lack of insight and knowledge about the privatization scheme before it was forced upon him.  Buss testified that, during hearings with legislators near the beginning of his term, he was not informed of the privatization plan until after it had been introduced.  He also said that no one came to talk to him (do I need to insert his title again) about the privatization.  In maybe the most telling portion of his testimony, in response to a question as to whether or not he would have liked to have been contacted before the plan was introduced, Buss said, "It's a different state, and I just got here."  Sorry Mr. Buss, but you were definitely not in Kansas anymore.  Buss says the privatization plan was not part of the corrections budget he saw when he took the job, and that he had virtually no input when it was made part of the budget.  More details have emerged about the plan, including the fact that the original "business plan" for the awarding a contract to operate 29 prisons was only four pages long.  Four fucking measly pages.  I guess Florida's politicians all like to read as much as their heralded presidential candidate.

But even in the face of a lawsuit and an ethics complaint, the state's political leaders blindly push forward in their bullheaded plan to turn over government services to an inefficient and abusive industry.  And they're not above utilizing sly political maneuverings to get their way.  The president of the state Senate has reorganized a few legislative committees, including removing the only state senator who seems to have any sense, Mike Fasano, from the Government Oversight Committee.  This is a way of neutering the influence of Fasano, an outspoken critic of the privatization push and the $25 million the Administration failed to inform legislators that the state would be on the hook for.  So now the last defense Florida taxpayers had against this onslaught of privatization has no official power to challenge it.

Fuck you, Florida.

Florida's New Governor Loves Private Prisons

Rick Scott, Florida's new governor, is a big fan of private prisons. Such a big fan in fact that he wants to cut hundreds of state jobs and ship more Florida prisoners to private prisons (likely the Blackwater Correctional Facility, which has been under scrutiny from the moment it was proposed in a last-minute budget amendment by Florida's former speaker of the house, who's currently facing charges of bribery and corruption).

There is one piece of the article I find very interesting; he proposes mandating a 7% cost savings from private prisons (which happens to already be a law in Florida). I don't think any private prisons are able to save that much money and still provide effective services. In fact, numerous reports have been released documenting private prisons' inability to offer significant cost savings, including IN THE STATE OF FLORIDA. I will be interested to see if A) private prisons in Florida are actually able to deliver these savings, and B) if they fail to do so, what the repercussion(s) will be from a governor and state legislature that are seemingly very friendly to the industry.

Speaking of the governor's cozy relationship with the industry, he attended a Super Bowl party at the house of a major Florida lobbyist who represents the GEO Group. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that may not have been the most appropriate place for the governor to have spent his Super Sunday.

CorruptionFest 2012, Live from Florida!

I'll spare everyone a summary of what's been happening in the Florida legislature over the past two sessions (see here , here, and here, or just search for "Florida" to catch up); instead, I'll just try to continue to update what I'd like to call CorruptionFest 2012.  Again, I apologize in advance for the plethora of links to follow, but the news is coming so fast that I can't keep up any other way.

First comes an article written by a state Senator, Paula Dockery, who calls out her fellow senators for the false promises of savings and the absurd fast-tracking of the bill, which for some reason never found its way to the legislative committee that oversees corrections.  No, it just went before 2 different committees headed up by JD Alexander, who has been pushing this privatization effort for years.  Alexander has been telling anyone who will listen that the plan will save $22 million for the state, but he has never actually backed those numbers up with evidence.  As a reporter with the Orlando Sentinel noted, such "savings" can be particularly hard to calculate, especially given the industry-friendly contract terms that keep the most expensive prisoners in state facilities and leave the privates to handle the cheap, low-risk prisoners.  Many experts who have studied the industry (and who weren't funded by the industry in their research), have found savings from private prisons to be negligible at best; and considering the state would even leave some of the more high-risk prisoners in private facilities (which is a stupid idea in its own right), Florida's taxpayers would likely not save much, if anything, in this process.

In response to the fast-tracking of the legislation through committees that should have no say in corrections policy, the Florida Nurses Association has sued the state over the secrecy of the plan that could cost thousands of state employees their jobs.  They were followed by a coalition of 17 other organizations opposed to the privatization, who petitioned the effort's champion, Mike Haridopolous.  Then the Correctional Officers' Union called for the state to conduct an honest cost-benefit analysis, after their initial review found that this privatization could cost Florida taxpayers MORE THAN 120 MILLION FRIGGING DOLLARS.  All of these groups, and seemingly everyone in the state other than Haridopolous, Alexander, and employees of CCA and the GEO Group, adamantly oppose this privatization push that is "too big and too fast," according to the former deputy secretary of the state's DOC.  In fact, the entire history of this bill's movement through the legislature alone should raise some eyebrows; it was introduced over a holiday weekend, then only 1 day was permitted for public debate (in which nearly everyone was opposed to the bill), before it passed through two Committees in record time; just eleven days after its filing, it came up for a vote before the full Senate.

Thankfully though, the Republican party in the state finally tried to live up to its reputation of fiscal responsibility, as some Senators opposed the privatization plan, and the bill stalled.  Mike Fasano, who has opposed the previous, illegal push for privatization as well as the current one, spearheaded the campaign to bring some accountability to the measure.  He introduced an amendment that would have required the state to conduct a cost/benefit analysis of the plan.  So Haridopolous, standup guy that he is, called for a hold in the debate.  Fasano then became the latest victim of the industry's crazed drive to privatize when Haridopolous FIRED him from his committee seat for opposing the privatization.  That's right, Haridopolous; just remove any competition you come up against in your bloodlust.  Thank you, you "petulant crybaby," (That's a fun read, btw) for removing any doubt as to whether or not you've been bought by the industry.  To sum up this whole stinking situation, "It's obfuscation. It's secrecy. It's circumvention of laws, vindictive plots, and some smelly conflicts of interest."

Nevertheless, Governor Scott, who drug tests welfare recipients but recently refused to submit a urine sample as the beneficiary of taxpayer dollars, is "extremely disappointed" that more people haven't bought into his bullshit and supported this terrible idea.  I guess he's not a regular reader, otherwise he probably wouldn't be so convinced that private prisons offer better services for a better price (they do neither).  In fact, he need look no further than his own government's accounting office, which has consistently been incapable of proving any of the supposed cost-savings promised by the companies who have donated millions of dollars in campaign contributions state legislators over the past few years, and hundreds of thousands more hiring a small army of lobbyists, for this push.  The aforementioned Paula Dockery is trying to find the numbers that folks like Alexander and Scott have been referring to, going so far as to send a letter to Alexander specifically requesting the information he has that demonstrates cost-savings, because she has never seen any evidence to support a claim that private prisons save money, and believes they may in fact cost more.  She has also reviewed tons of evidence showing that any potential cost-savings would undoubtedly be offset by the inevitable reduction in quality of services provided by private prison companies, who are notorious for cutting costs to maximize their bottom lines.

So as the masses call upon legislators in Florida to have some common sense and decency, to reject the privatization plan for the corrupt shitshow that it is, I urge anyone reading this from Florida to do the same.  Call your representative (especially if your representative is Haridopolous or JD Alexander), call your governor, call your neighbor, your mother-in-law, or your mortal enemy, and let everyone know what a perilous adventure the state is about to undertake.  The jobs of 4,000 Florida employees, and the safety and well-being of nearly 20,000 of its residents are at stake.

Coincidence My Foot

Florida's governor and legislature are far from immune to the growing wave of anti-government, pro-privatization rhetoric sweeping the country; in fact, much of the state legislature seems to fully support it. Which bodes very well for the GEO Group, based in Boca Raton, Florida. GEO has always had a cozy relationship with Florida's politicians, donating heavily to incumbents (especially republicans) and maintaining a small army of lobbyists in the state house.

GEO has also recently been growing, having acquired Cornell about a year ago, along with a private probation monitoring company named BI, Inc. They have likewise been expanding their "health care" (and I use that term very lightly) arm for the past few years, taking over the operations of a few state hospitals.

The two recent budgets proposed in the state house seek to privatize much more of the state's prison system, along with hospitals and parole and probation offices. Thankfully, Florida seems to be the only state looking into proposals of this sort, but I wouldn't count this out in other areas that love privatization as well (Ohio, maybe). In fact, these proposals happened at just the perfect time for the GEO Group, who is looking very-well situated to earn hundreds of millions of dollars on some new contracts. As the president of the state's Police Officers' Union said, "Everything just seems to be falling into place for them, and it's all coincidental."

But aside from how GEO's generous donations politicians in Florida have influenced their desires to privatize everything but the kitchen sink (but GEO is looking into kitchen sink provision services), this push raises concerns for other reasons. Most important is the fact that the private sector, especially in the private prison industry, has consistently failed to deliver on the cost-savings they promise. Republicans love to hide behind the facade of seeking ways to cut spending as a way to balance the budget, but if the situation in Wisconsin, Ohio, and elsewhere is to be used as an example, the reactions coming from the right in regards to budgets are more about turning to increased privatization as an end goal, to steer taxpayer money to businesses who have developed relationships with the government. That's why we're seeing this rash of union-busting and pitting private-sector employees against government ones. It's a way to divide the working class and divert their attention while businesses take control of state services.

Especially troubling in this whole situation is that Florida has apparently failed to learn from its mistakes of the past. Following a major scandal in the 90s involving a private parole company, Floridians enacted a law specifically prohibiting the privatization of such services. The new budget proposals would rewrite the legislation, because I guess private parole services are apparently much better now. This strikes a familiar chord, in regards to how the right have been consistently opposed to developing legislation in response to crises.

After the oil spill in the Gulf last year, Republicans told us we shouldn't look to enact tougher regulations on the industry, because the time wasn't right. After the economy collapsed, they told us it wasn't the right time to enact financial reforms. After the tsunami that destroyed the nuclear plant in Japan, we were told the time wasn't right to improve regulations at our nuclear plants. Time and again, republicans warn us against legislating in response to crises. Hooey. That's the BEST time to legislate. When a person, group, or company violates some social norm or rule that results in a disaster or huge crisis, we should use such a situation as a learning experience, and enact legislation to prevent future occurences. But alas, republicans are pretty effective at convincing Americans that the need the exact opposite of what would be most beneficial to them.

So in this case, the law that prohibits privatizing probation services, written after a major scandal involving a private probation service provider, IS A GOOD ONE. Keep it.

But even that doesn't tell the whole story. In regards to privatizing state hospitals, GEO already runs some hospitals for the state. And, guess what, THEY COST MORE. I know, you're shocked. Regardless, republicans still want to privatize more state hospitals, because I suppose it's better to have a private company earn a profit while costing more, than to have a government run a non-profit healthcare system that costs less.

Republicans, in Florida and elsewhere, DO NOT CARE ABOUT SAVING MONEY. Republicans are absolutely not fiscally conservative in any way, shape or form. In fact, all these proposed savings in Florida, as in many other states looking to cut the budget, all help make up for the fact that the governor refuses to raise taxes. Republicans only look to cut taxes and privatize government services, whether or not that's in the best interest of their constituents or their state. In practically every single instance, it's not.

I'll leave on this perfect quote from an editorial in the Miami Herald: "The massive switch to completely privatizing 18 correctional facilities without debate, research or planning is a much more foolhardy enterprise than the FDOT proposal. It simply makes no sense and seems fueled more by lobbying and campaign contributions from private prison operators than from any reasoned approach to trimming the cost of incarcerating prisoners."

My point exactly.

Fallout from Florida's Budget Manipulations

The Blackwater Correctional Facility, built as a last-minute budget amendment by disgraced former Speaker of the Florida House, Ray Sansom, is at the center of a debate over inmate work programs in Florida.  The Florida DOC was conned into spending $24 million to bring this facility online, which was built on speculation and now isn't even needed.  More recent projections of the future prison population in the state came in much lower than those relied upon by Mr. Sansom when he pushed the facility for the GEO Group, who had donated a lot of money to his campaign, and now it turns out Florida doesn't even need the 2,200 beds in the prison.  So Florida now has spent millions of dollars to bring this prison online, and to help balance the DOC budget they cut 71 of 180 prison work squads (so nearly half of them).  While a couple of people recognize the short-term consequences of having less of a return on the investment that correctional dollars is (because there won't be as much inmate labor), the long-term consequences will likely be severe.  Keeping inmates busy is one of the best methods of helping to maintain order within the prison system (as they say, idle hands are the devil's plaything), and teaching prisoners the value of work is one of the most effective means of reducing recidivism.  I think the prisoners and the taxpayers of Florida got a raw deal on this prison due to some rather questionable legislative activity by a couple of well-placed friends of the GEO Group.

The Mighty Political Influence of CCA

Great expose today in the Florida Independent that looks at the situation in Hernando County, Florida, where CCA recently backed out of a contract with the county to run the jail once the Sheriff discovered they had let the facility fall into hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars worth of disrepair.  After the sheriff proposed taking over the facility and inspected it, CCA skipped town and is now engaged in a battle with the county over their last payment on the contract.  The county is withholding payment until a firm determines whether they or CCA are responsible for the failure to maintain the facility over 22 years.  Considering CCA ran the day-to-day operations for over two decades, I'll go out on a limb and say they were responsible for most of the upkeep, or lack thereof.

Today's article though goes far deeper than just CCA's decision to bail on the county when their practices came into question.  It examines the political influence private prison companies wield in Florida in both toughening criminal sanctions and ensuring industry growth despite scant evidence they offer any sort of increase in efficiency over government-run facilities.  CCA had donated so much money to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), that the company was a co-chair of their Criminal Justice Task Force, which was behind Florida's truth-in-sentencing act that significantly increased the prison population.  CCA's director of business development still holds a prominent position in ALEC, which has been called "Corporate America's Trojan Horse," for the anti-consumer, pro-business legislation it has covertly introduced all across the country.  CCA has donated millions of dollars to politicians and PACs (mostly Republican) in the state over the past few years, and has recruited former government employees to work for them.

So what exactly has CCA purchased with these donations to politicians and the money they gave to ensure a substantial role in developing ALEC's criminal justice policy?  Well they helped to buy the state of Florida the 3rd-largest inmate population in the country, costing the state nearly $2.3 billion to house their prisoners.  They have purchased political influence to ensure extensions of the contracts they have with both the state and smaller jurisdictions despite the fact that reports have shown they don't offer significant cost savings (in fact, private prisons might even cost more than government-run ones) and are less effective at reducing recidivism (which makes sense because if CCA rehabilitates its prisoners it will lose clientele).  CCA is costing the state of Florida millions of dollars by having directly influenced the Truth-in-Sentencing legislation that caused the incarceration rate to rise dramatically, and by not working to reduce recidivism among the poor prisoners who are forced into their facilities.  CCA and other private prison operators do not even offer fiscal savings over government-run prisons.

I hope that the situation in Hernando County will be a lesson to the rest of the state that privatizing prisons is a terrible idea, and that introducing a profit motive into the incarceration of human being can never have a good result.  Aside from the financial costs associated with the increase in prison populations, the social costs of having overly harsh criminal penalties, of having an industry that focuses on maximizing profit at the expense of human suffering, of not adequately preparing prisoners to re-enter society, are staggering and incalculable.  Florida, and every state that contracts with private prisons (along with the Federal government), would be well-served by reclaiming control of their prison systems from the greedy, manipulative hands of the private prison industry.

Florida's Prison Privatization Mess

Florida is embarking upon the largest prison privatization plan in history.  As part of a last-minute budget amendment, the state legislature mandated the privatization of the correctional services of 18 counties in south Florida, for a total of nearly 30 correctional facilities.  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.

But that hasn’t stopped Florida from forging ahead, even despite the fact that the Senate’s Budget Chief at one point even called this initiative an experiment to see if the state could save money by privatization .  While that’s not a gamble most sane politicians would ever want to make, JD Alexander was probably swayed, as were many other politicians, by the more than ¾ of a million dollars that the GEO Group spent lobbying the state legislature in the last election cycle.

Thankfully, one of Alexander’s fellow Republicans, Mike Fasano is able to easily identify the root of the deficiencies of private prisons, and has been challenging this plan from the get-go.  "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)

In addition to Mr. Fasano’s agitation within the legislature, the Florida Police Benevolent Association, the union for COs in the state, has also come to the rescue of Florida’s prisoners by filing a lawsuit seeking to prevent the privatization push.  The lawsuit contends that the process by which the plan was passed actually violates the state constitution, part of which is designed to keep budgetary and policy decisions separate.  By utilizing the budget as the sole forum for discussing the plan, legislative leaders avoided a public debate that could have proven disastrous to the interests of privateers.   The legislature also pulled a nifty trick by tying the plan to the entire corrections budget, making it virtually veto-proof.

And as with all privatization ventures pushed by conservatives, this plan isn’t quite as rosy as it first seemed.  The state initially thought it was going to save nearly $20 million in operating expenses by converting these prisons to private operation.  But – oopsie! – both Governor Scott and JD Alexander, the budget chief, forgot to tell lawmakers about the $25 million the state would still be on the hook for in compensation for the literally thousands of state employees who will lose their jobs as a result of the privatization.  Now I know what you’re thinking – anyone could overlook a $25 million payout.  Well you’d be right, if you were talking about legislators who’ve already been purchased by the private prison companies that stand to make a killing off this deal. 

The White Knight, Mike Fasano, has now called for a hearing to review the privatization plan that had the hidden $25 million tab.  I really love this guy, because he just tells it like it is; “Unfortunately, the private-prison issue was pushed down everyone’s throats during the session and done very quietly and behind the scenes… There were never any public hearings.” ... "This is all about the almighty dollars for the GEOs of the world…It's all about political contributions that were made, and the taxpayers are going to pay the consequences." 

Florida's Politicians (But Not Its Residents) Love Private Prisons

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz represents Southwest Ranches, Florida, which has been at the epicenter of a debate over a proposed immigration detention facility.  Residents of the town have consistently demonstrated their opposition to the facility, which they feel was designed and planned without much public knowledge of the proceedings.  Basically, they think they have been fleeced by CCA, who hopes to build the facility on land it already owns, into having a detention center that they fear will lower property values and present a risk to public safety.

Unfortunately, they've got a pretty poor representative in Ms. Wasserman, who's basically taking a "lesser of available evils" approach.  She initially called a town hall meeting to allow residents to voice their opposition and learn more about the project.  After more than 250 people showed up to let CCA and the town council know they didn't want a private prison, Wasserman, who had called the meeting, decided she would support the project.  She now thinks it's a good idea and that the town should move forward, saying she thinks "it is going to be far better to have that ICE detention center there than to have any other facility that would have a much more negative impact on residents there."  Other than a lead paint producing puppy mill, I can't really imagine what would be worse for a community than a privately operated, for-profit human rights violations incubator.  But there's no chance she could have been partially swayed by the nearly $20 million CCA has spent lobbying the federal government over the past decade.  Right?

Unfortunately for the residents of Southwest Ranches, Wasserman isn't alone in ignoring her constituents interests and supporting a company with a long track record of failing to live up to its contracts.  The mayor of Southwest Ranches just basically told his constituents to pound sand, because the deal is done.  CCA owns the land, and has for a decade, so he says there's really nothing residents can do to stop the construction at this point.  If there's any saving grace in all of this, it might be found in Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart from Miami, who just sent a letter to ICE to demonstrate his opposition to the proposed detention center.  So there is at least one Congressperson from Florida who hasn't been bought off by the industry yet.  Also, Udonis Haslem, one of those Miami Heat players not named LeBron or Dwyane, has voiced his opposition to the center in a letter he sent to the Southwest Ranches Town Council.

However, Southwest Ranches is not the only front in the privatization battle happening in Florida.  As you may know, earlier this year the state was looking to privatize half of its prison system, and medical care for the entire system.  After details of the plan emerged that showed it was forced through as a last-minute amendment to the budget, the state was sued by the union representing the state's COs, which succeeded in blocking the privatization because the plan violated the state constitution.  In the process, the Director of the state DOC lost his job for opposing the plan, because Governor Scott could not abide a secretary of corrections who had an independent train of thought that challenged his worldview idolizing privatization at all costs.

The corruption surrounding this whole mess was so blatant that the FBI and a Federal Grand Jury are actually both investigating the whole deal, starting with the former speaker of the house (who is currently imprisoned), who forced through a last-minute budget amendment (seems to be the trend in Florida...) a few years back that resulted in the construction of the Blackwater Correctional Facility.  I guess the name "Abu Ghraib" had already been taken.  The FBI's investigation recently resulted in a search of the house of the Santa Rosa County Commissioner.  They're apparently interested in whether the GEO Group could have effectively purchased the man's vote with either licit or illicit campaign contributions.

And yet, amid all this; the blatant corruption; investigations by the FBI and a federal grand jury; Floridians protesting the construction of an immigration detention center, Governor Scott just keeps pushing his foolish plan to privatize the prison system.  His budget proposal for FY12 includes huge increases in the amount state employees would have to pay for health insurance, increased funding for education, and, yes, a renewal of the plan to privatize half the state's prison system.

WTF, Florida?

Cause for Concern

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 because the 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?

Message to Florida's Governor

I'll keep it brief here with just an excerpt from a message the Florida Police Benevolent Association (the CO union in Florida) has asked state legislators to send to Governor Scott in response to his proposal to privatize much of the state prison system:

"Please veto the budget because it allows the additional privatization of state corrections institutions. This will not save the taxpayers of Florida a dime and it will risk public safety. If you allow this, you are hurting public safety while sending a very bad message — big corporate dollars and influence are more important than the government protecting the public or spending taxpayers' money wisely.
"Further, leave payouts to state correctional officers will cost the state approximately $32 million, thus erasing the supposed $11 million savings expected this year from privatization. Therefore, it will cost the taxpayers $21 million this year so big corporations doing business with the state can make a profit."

Florida's Love Affair With Private Prisons

Many lawmakers in Florida, home of the GEO Group, are enamored with the idea of prison privatization.  Legislators, mostly Republican, have thrice attempted (and failed) to privatize half the state's prison system within the past two years.  The former speaker of the house, serving time in prison, is still being investigated by the FBI in part for his role in bringing a private prison to the state and attempting to force the closure of multiple state facilities to populate it.  He's also the target of a federal grand jury investigation for his dealings with the GEO Group.

In the towns of Southwest Ranches and Pembroke Pines, residents have been waging war against CCA and ICE, who want to build a huge immigration detention center there.  Upset over the risks of bringing a private prison to town, residents have already faced legal harassment after they have failed to capture the attention or sympathy of their representative, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.  The parties are engaged in a struggle over resources, as CCA is attempting to strong-arm the small towns into providing water and sewer services to the prison.  Pembroke Pines has already had to shell out more than $120,000 in legal fees to battle a detention center that the federal government seems to be forcing on them.

The most recent battle in Florida has arisen over the state's plans to privatize health care for all its prisoners, which I guess was the fall-back option if wholesale privatization failed.  The plan is being challenged by the Nurses' Association, which filed a lawsuit similar to the one that successfully defeated the wholesale privatization; basically saying the state Legislature didn't have the authority to order such a sweeping change to such a huge portion of the state budget without passing a stand-alone bill.  It's estimated that as many as 2,800 jobs and $300 million of the budget could be impacted by the switch, which is also opposed by the union that represents COs.

It seems simple to explain part of this love affair, the GEO Group and CCA have contributed huge sums of money to Florida legislators, with most of that going to Republicans.  During the last election cycle, the industry donated nearly $1 million to campaigns, with more than 80% of that coming from the GEO Group.  GEO has already given more than $100,000 to Governor Scott for the upcoming election.

But just looking at the campaign contributions fails to reveal the whole story.  Governor Scott's closest advisor and de facto gatekeeper, Steve McNamara, is a man with so much political influence he's been called the state's "Shadow Governor."  He also happens to be close personal friends with Jim Eaton, head lobbyist for the GEO Group, which might help explain why Scott decided to can the head of the Department of Corrections for challenging the privatization scheme.  After news came out that McNamara had been using his influence to advance himself and his friends politically and financially, he was forced to resign.  Jim Eaton, by the way, also happens to be the head lobbyist for Wexford, one of the companies in the running for the state healthcare contract.  So McNamara's influence is likely to last well beyond his tenure as "Shadow Governor."

"We Should Never Privatize Public Safety"

Florida's legislature just passed a budget that will privatize the correctional services of 18 counties, basically 20% of its prison population. Though the decision has been criticized by both side of the aisle (the quote I used for the title comes from a Republican legislator, Mike Fasano), and despite the fact that private prisons in Florida, as elsewhere, have a long history of abuse and failure to perform up to contract, the deal went through. Senator Fasano described the claims of cost-savings touted by proponents, including budget chief JD Alexander, as "unconvincing and undocumented." In fact, Alexander at one point even said he himself was not convinced of the savings, but wanted to privatize a huge portion of the state system as part of an "experiment."

This is unrestrained Republican ideology in its most logical iteration. Governor Ric Scott and many Republicans in the state legislature, especially JD Alexander, received huge contributions from the GEO Group in campaign contributions. The GEO Group has also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying the Florida legislature in recent years, building a great relationship with conservative legislators. This is nothing but a ploy to divert taxpayer money to corporations. Republicans promote corporate welfare while eschewing individual and social welfare. They label the poor as "lazy" and bitch about their tax dollars going to social welfare programs, while they turn around and give huge tax cuts to the wealthy and subsidies and contracts to private corporations with histories of abuse and negligence, corporations that donate generously to their campaigns and help keep them in office. This is what they do.

The GEO Group utilized 2 of the top 5, and 3 of the top 10 lobbying firms in Florida during the past election cycle to maximize their influence. They have also donated hundreds of thousands to state campaigns, mostly to conservatives and incumbents. So it should come as no surprise that the state has decided to embark on the most ambitious prison privatization scheme in history.

This is conservative economics. This is the face of a country that allows for unlimited corporate contributions to politicians and campaigns. Republicans literally want to dismantle government and turn over government services to the private sector. They want to perpetuate the grossly unequal distribution of wealth and power in this country, because it serves their purposes and interests at the expense of everyone else's. And I fear this is only the beginning of what will be a huge wave of anti-government, pro-privatization activity that we're seeing crop up across the country. But people need to realize that government is not the problem. The government is a tool we can use to fix the problems inflicted on society by corporations and their endless greed.

Congresswoman Under Fire

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida), chairwoman of the DNC, has heartily imbibed the "economic stimulus" Kool-Aid, and has publicly supported CCA and ICE's plans to build an immigration detention center in Southwest Ranches, Florida.  Her constituents have been pretty strongly opposed to the project from the get-go, and the debate has devolved into a legal battle between the next town over, Pembroke Pines, and CCA.

But Debbie, along with another Representative from Florida, just keeps ignoring the folks she's supposed to represent.  Recently, she was petitioned by the Florida Immigrant Coalition and a smattering of other advocacy groups with a video demonstrating the local opposition.  A spokesperson for her office basically told them she wasn't re-considering her endorsement.

Elva McCraig Fights the Good Fight

Elva McCraig, a correctional nurse at a state-run prison in Florida, has requested both state and federal investigations into the situation that allowed for the state of Florida to not only purchase land for the GEO Group for the Blackwater facility (at a cost of more than $1.5 million), but also the mechanisms that went into awarding them a $110 million contract to run it. Her complaint is actually very-well researched and quite damming of the insider trading, shady real estate deals, and favoritism within the Florida legislature for former GEO employees. Ms McCraig, I applaud you for your efforts and the exhaustive research you compiled on how GEO has influenced the Florida legislature.

A Glimpse Inside the Industry's Influence in Florida

Florida's leadership is among the most aggressive in the nation in trying to bring private prisons to the state.  The governor, speaker of the house, former speaker of the house, and a host of Republicans in the legislature repeatedly attempted to force through what would have been the largest wholesale privatization of prisons in US history.  Though those measures failed, a battle is still being waged in court over the abuse of the political process by Republicans who tried to force the privatization by putting it into the budget and bypassing the committee that would have normally reviewed it.  The state is now also moving forward with plans to privatize 20 work release centers of the 21 that are still operated by the state, possibly because Governor Scott seems downright determined to put state employees out of work.  Lest you think I'm being unfair, a DOC spokeswoman said the state wasn't likely to save any money in the process, which would have theoretically been the only justifiable reason to do so.

The industry has fared rather well in the state despite the failure to pass the wholesale privatization, but not quite as well as it has with the federal government in taking responsibility for incarcerating immigration detainees.

The GEO Group has been particularly successful in both these arenas, due in large part to the amount of influence it peddles throughout governments.  This influence was apparent during the 2010 election cycle, when the company donated more than $800,000 to campaigns in Florida.  But what's not quite as easy to see is how these companies also gain political influence by having favorable people, and sometimes previous employees, placed in positions of power.  Take for example the chief of staff to young Republican superstar Marco Rubio, Cesar Conda.  Conda still maintains ties to a powerful lobbying firm in Florida that has lobbied for the GEO Group.  In fact, he still maintains partial ownership, and was paid between $50,000-$100,000 by the firm after he became Rubio's chief of staff..  So he's still being paid by companies like the GEO Group while working as the number-one guy to a US Senator.

So the GEO Group has revenues of nearly $2 billion per year, much of which comes from the federal government as payment for detaining immigrants.  It has spent more than $5 million in lobbying and political contributions in the past 8 years, a small fraction of their overall revenue, and in doing so has greatly expanded its role in the immigration detention system.  They also now have a paid lobbyist working in the office of a Republican Senator at the forefront of the immigration debate, in a state with major immigration issues.

In the state legislature meanwhile, President of the Senate Mike Haridopolous, one of the biggest proponents of the aforementioned failed privatization measure, has a really cozy relationship with a lobbyist as well.  He steered millions of dollars to a company that monitors juveniles for the state, after it had come to light that the company had failed to meet many of the terms of its contract.  But he went a step further - he removed the competitive bidding process as a last-minute budget move (sounds familiar...), assuring the company, which employes his close friend as a lobbyist, would maintain the contract.  The secretary of the state's Department of Juvenile Justice even wrote that "the use of this exemption from competitive procurement may not be in the best interest of the state."

CCA Silencing Dissent

A sort of bizarre and depressing story out of Florida this morning, particularly Southwest Ranches, where local residents are adamantly opposed to the construction of a new immigration detention facility.  Florida is one of only 2 states that requires private prison operators to comply with public records laws (called "Sunshine laws" in Florida), whereby government agencies must disclose records to the public upon request.  Public records laws are essential to a functioning democracy because they permit the public to review government operations.

So despite the fact that private prison operators perform an inherently governmental service, and the fact that Florida's courts have mandated that private prison operators comply with public records laws, CCA doesn't seem to have gotten the message.  At a town council meeting last month, one resident of Southwest Ranches was informed that the town council was prohibited from talking about the proposed immigration detention center.  Why?  Because CCA asked them not to talk.  That's right - a corporation planning on building a private prison that many local residents are opposed to succeeded in silencing the local government and preventing it from discussing the proposal with citizens.  This is a blatant slap in the face of representative democracy and a shining example of how devoted governments can be to serving the interests of corporations.

They Just Don't Get It

Governor Ric Scott and many republicans in Florida's legislature have been trying to force the privatization of 29 prisons on the state's DOC.  This earlier resulted in the forced resignation of the DOC's director, who was adamantly opposed to the privatization (though he himself had been a champion of privatization before coming to Florida), and a lawsuit by the union representing Florida's COs to block the proposal.  The union, the PBA, won in its initial lawsuit and Scott's camp originally said it did not intend to appeal the judge's decision that the legislature had acted unconstitutionally when it inserted the privatization language into a last-minute budget proviso.

But, being the stand-up guy he is, Governor Scott's office decided to appeal the ruling at the very last minute.  Then, as if appealing a decision that your blatant corporate handout was unconstitutional wasn't ballsy enough, Scott's office re-opened the bidding process for the privatization because they were apparently so confident in their chances to win on appeal.  Thankfully, the PBA stepped in again, requesting that the court stop the bidding process because of the "panic" experienced by state COs who have no idea whether or not they'll have a job within the next few months.  In fact, corrections officials had promised not to re-open the bidding process.  They should have stuck by their promise, because now the state has been ordered to "Cease and Desist" from all activities related to the proposal and privatization.

Get it through your head, Florida Republicans.  Your thinly-veiled handout to the industry that spent more than a million dollars lobbying you last election is unconstitutional and corrupt.  The plan should have never even made it this far.

Effing Florida

So before I go off on a tangent here, I apologize for the litany of links to come.  But the situation in Florida has quickly spiraled out of control and, seeing as I'm already weeks late on reporting this, I wanted to try to put together as much info here as possible.  Enjoy!

Florida's politicians really just can't take a hint.  After they failed to force widespread privatization on the state's prison system, against the wishes of the director of their DOC (but at the behest of companies that spent a million dollars lobbying the legislature), the asshats in the state legislature are back at it, this time with a vengeance.  Even the fact that the GEO Group is under FBI investigation over a deal that brought a private prison to the state, and the state's Circuit Court ruling the initial push unconstitutional, have failed to slow down the push to privatize.

The state Senate introduced a stand-alone bill that mirrors the one that previously failed.  On January 18th, the law that would force nearly 4,000 government employees out of jobs (of course, this comes from the Republicans, the party of "job creators," or so we're told) passed a rules committee and went before the full Senate for consideration.  A separate bill would even exempt the state from a requirement to perform a cost/benefit analysis of the proposed privatization until after a contract is signed.  In a state where the two biggest private prison companies have been found to have cheated the state out of almost $13 million within the past 7 years.  The state ought to perform a more thorough analysis of the potential risks and benefits of privatization before committing so many taxpayer dollars to such a risky venture.  Because otherwise, this is just about as blatant a handout to corporate special interests as I could conceive, a gateway to giving millions of taxpayer dollars to companies that, if they weren't subsidized by desperate governments, would utterly fail on the free market.  Then again, Republicans don't actually like free markets, they just like markets rigged in the favor of the wealthy, but that's a different story altogether.

As if all this wasn't bad enough, the state seems to be assisting the industry that has failed to demonstrate any significant cost savings, ever, by removing the most costly prisoners from the facilities intended to be privatized. The industry is notorious for cherry-picking the cheapest inmates, but I can't remember an instance in which a state preemptively took the most expensive prisoners for itself.  This whole thing reeks so badly of corruption that a conservative-leaning newspaper in Florida has opined that the state's legislators "seem to be drawn to secrecy and backroom deal-making at the expense of good government and public trust."  I'll say.

In fact, some politicians seem downright hell-bent on getting this privatization passed, despite the substantial opposition coming from pretty much everyone BUT Republicans in the state government and the industry.  Senate Republicans have fast-tracked the two bills by putting them before just one committee, a committee that really has never had any responsibility in determining correctional needs.  Thankfully, there is at least one Republican in the state with some sense, Mike Fasano, who has voiced his opposition to the way the bills are being handled and called upon his colleagues to refer the bill that would privatize half the prison system to the committee that oversees the state prison system.  Revolutionary thinking, I know.

So Haridopolous, the bill's sponsor, said he'll also refer it to the Budget Committee.  As in, not the criminal justice committee.  As in, the same committee that hid the original privatization proviso as a last-minute amendment, prompting the circuit court to rule its actions unconstitutional.  As in, the committee headed up by JD Alexander, who has pushed for privatization for years, starting with the deal that the GEO Group is currently under investigation for.

More than two hours of testimony from state employees who would likely lose their jobs if the plan moves forward failed to sway the opinions of the republicans who are just determined to destroy state jobs for the sake of giving hundreds of millions of dollars to corporations that lobby them. JD Alexander remains convinced, based on evidence no has has seen but him apparently, that the state can save $45 million per year by privatizing its prisons.  I don't think it's a stretch to say that, should those fantasy numbers ever materialize, that it will come directly at the expense of the prisoners who find themselves in private lockups.  The bill then passed a house appropriations subcommittee, where the legislators are seemingly unaware of the other bill that would allow for contracts to be signed with private prison operators absent any demonstration of cost-savings.  In what I guess is supposed to be some conciliatory gesture towards the thousands of state employees who will be out of work, the bill requires they get the first shot at jobs at the new private facilities.  Those would be jobs that pay significantly less in wages and benefits, where they would be surrounded by green staff without proper training, and where they would likely be routinely subjected to working with a short staff, which creates a dangerous environment for employees and prisoners alike.  What a great deal!

Or, more accurately, what a fucking mess.