\nAnd if prison privatization is such a money-saver, why did the prison companies’ cronies in the statehouse try to do it like this:<\/p>\n
\nLawmakers ordered the Department of Corrections to request bids for a
\nsingle contract for the 18-county region, requiring that the winning
\nvendor spend 7 percent less than current costs to operate the prisons,
\nan estimated $22 million annual savings.<\/p>\n
\nBut under existing law, Fulford wrote, lawmakers must include a specific
\namount of money for the contract \u201cafter a decision to outsource is made
\nand evaluated by DOC for feasibility, cost effectiveness, and efficiency,
\nbefore DOC proceeds with any outsourcing of services.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nFormer DOC secretary Ed Buss testified that he had created no such
\nplan and was relying on the proviso language in the budget to move the
\nprivatization forward before he was fired by Scott last month.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cAs such, the Legislature has by-passed the very safeguards
\nit built into the process that DOC is required to follow when DOC
\ninitiates privatization pursuant to substantive law,\u201d Fulford wrote.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So instead of following the law, the Florida legislature insisted
\na private vendor take over by January 1st, and Gov. Scott fired
\nthe whistleblower.<\/p>\n
\nTell me, if private prisons really save money, why did the Florida
\nlegislature feel compelled to require a specific percentage of savings
\nand try to force privatization through before anybody noticed?<\/p>\n
\nPrison privatization is a bad idea in Florida, and it’s a bad idea in Georgia.
\nIt doesn’t save money, it compromises prisoner and public safety,
\nit doesn’t decrease unemployment, and it competes with local labor.<\/p>\n
\nWe don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.
\nSpend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.<\/p>\n
\n-jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Judge Jackie Fulford ruled yesterday for the Second Circuit Court of Florida that the prison privatization plan the Florida legislature added to the state budget is unconstitutional on a key point of all prison privatization schemes. Her ruling agreed with the Florida Police Benevolent Association, which is a union of correctional workers. Judge rules prison […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,1113,40,14,15,203,2,72,20,178],"tags":[8705,8751,8701,8730,7,1188,1466,2712,225,6,8749],"class_list":["post-1455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-cca","category-community","category-economy","category-education","category-florida","category-government","category-incarceration","category-law","category-vlcia","tag-education","tag-florida","tag-georgia","tag-incarceration","tag-lowndes-county","tag-privatization","tag-profiteering","tag-rehabilitation","tag-tallahassee","tag-valdosta","tag-vlcia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}