Tag Archives: GEO

Gladiator School cancelled; 2 other CCA prisons closed

CCA loses contracts, including for its notorious

Gladiator School; GEO, too.


Some states are catching on to the private prison scam.

Aviva Shen wrote for ThinkProgress 21 June 2013,

Three States Dump Major Private Prison Company In One Month,

State lawmakers who embraced private prisons as a cost-cutting
measure are starting to have trouble ignoring their abysmal
conditions. Corrections Corporation of America, the largest and most
powerful private prison company in the nation, lost four prison
contracts in the past month after extensive reports of abuse,
neglect, and even fraud within their operations.

Idaho cut ties with the corporation on Wednesday, which turned the


state’s largest prison into a violent hellhole inmates called
“Gladiator School.” Earlier this year, CCA was caught
understaffing the prison and using prison gangs to control the
population. The company admitted to falsifying nearly 4,800 hours of
staffing records to squeeze more money out of the state for
nonexistent security work. Shift logs at the prison showed the same
security guards working for 2 to 3 days at a time without breaks.

Last week, Texas closed two CCA prisons, including Continue reading →

Time to divest from private prison companies

It’s time to stop private prison profiteering by refusing to take
their profit: divest private prison company stock from personal,
pension, and church funds.

There’s no need to speculate that private prison companies have
incentive to keep more people locked up: CCA says so.
Kanya D’Almeida wrote for IPS 24 August 2011,

‘Profiteers of Misery’: The U.S. Private Prison Industrial Complex:




CCA’s 2010 annual report states categorically that, “The demand for our
facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation
of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards
and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain
activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws — for
instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances
or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested,
convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for
correctional facilities to house them.”

CCA continues, “Legislation has been proposed in numerous jurisdictions
that could lower minimum sentences for some non-violent crimes and
make more inmates eligible for early release based on good behaviour,
(while) sentencing alternatives under consideration could put some
offenders on probation who would otherwise be incarcerated. Similarly,
reductions in crime rates or resources dedicated to prevent and enforce
crime could lead to reductions in arrests, convictions and sentences
requiring incarceration at correctional facilities.”

What’s this got to do with Georgia?

Continue reading →

Georgia following Florida down the private prison path

Florida is already forging down the path Georgia wants to follow
on private prisons.
Steve Bousquet

writes in the Miami Herald:

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.

Why is this path so popular with the Florida legislature?

Continue reading →