{"id":2201,"date":"2011-04-11T09:27:57","date_gmt":"2011-04-11T13:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/georgia-following-florida-down-the-private-prison-path.html"},"modified":"2011-04-11T09:27:57","modified_gmt":"2011-04-11T13:27:57","slug":"georgia-following-florida-down-the-private-prison-path","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/georgia-following-florida-down-the-private-prison-path.html","title":{"rendered":"Georgia following Florida down the private prison path"},"content":{"rendered":"Florida is already forging down the path Georgia wants to follow\non private prisons.\nSteve Bousquet\n\nwrites in the Miami Herald:<\/a>\n
\nThe Florida Legislature\u2019s push to privatize many more prisons, its\nmost far-reaching cost-cutting plan in years, could open a lucrative\ndoor to politically connected vendors who stand to profit.\n

\nSenate and House budgets require the state to privatize prisons in\nSouth Florida, home to one-fifth of the statewide inmate population\nof 101,000. The region is the home of the GEO Group, the nation\u2019s\nsecond-largest private prison operator, which currently runs two private\nprisons, including the largest private lockup, the Blackwater River\nCorrectional Facility in Milton.\n<\/blockquote>\nWhy is this path so popular with the Florida legislature?\n\n\n

\nThe Boca Raton company, a reliable contributor to the Republican party,\nemploys more than 2,000 people and a stable of 16 Capitol lobbyists. It\ndonated $25,000 to Gov. Rick Scott\u2019s inaugural celebration in\nJanuary. A top transition budget adviser to Scott, Donna Arduin, is a\nformer trustee of a GEO real estate company, Correctional Properties\nTrust. The company\u2019s healthcare subsidiary, GEO Care, is led by Jorge\nDominicis, a familiar figure in the Capitol from years of lobbying for\nthe sugar industry.\n<\/blockquote>\nSo how is privatizing prisons supposed to save money?\n
\nIn recent testimony before the Senate, Dominicis touted the advantages of\nprivatization and said his firm achieves savings through higher staffing\nratios — more inmates per staff member.\n<\/blockquote>\nHm, I wonder if that will cause any problems with prison conditions.\n

\nNot to mention public safety:\n

\n\n<\/a>\nAs a half-dozen GEO lobbyists looked on, James Baiardi, president of the\nPBA [Florida Police Benevolent Association]\u2019s correctional officers\nchapter, argued the privatization plan would be dangerous.\n

\n“The prisons in Miami-Dade and Broward counties handle some of the\nworst inmates in the state,” he said. “To take that and just turn\nit over to a private company is just unreal.”\n<\/blockquote>\nDangerous criminals handed over to private contractors who want to\ncut the number of guards per inmate; what could possibly go wrong?\n

\nWhat’s this got to do with Lowndes County, Georgia, specifically?\n

\nGEO\u2019s main competitors are Corrections Corporation of America,\nthe nation\u2019s largest private prison operator, and Management and\nTraining Corp.\n<\/blockquote>\nCCA, the company that wants to build a private prison in\nLowndes County, Georgia (and Decatur County);\n\nGeorgia’s “great partner”.<\/a>\n

\nDo we really want Lowndes County to help Georgia follow Florida\ndown this private prison path?\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida is already forging down the path Georgia wants to follow on private prisons. Steve Bousquet writes in the Miami Herald: The Florida Legislature\u2019s 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 […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,1113,203,19,72,73,178],"tags":[4748,8817,1153,4747,1114,1031,8751,3846,8701,4749,7,4746,4751,4750,218,8731],"class_list":["post-2201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-cca","category-florida","category-history","category-incarceration","category-safety","category-vlcia","tag-broward-county","tag-cca","tag-corruption","tag-dade-county","tag-decatur-county","tag-efficiency","tag-florida","tag-geo","tag-georgia","tag-james-baiardi","tag-lowndes-county","tag-miami","tag-pba","tag-police-benevolent-association","tag-profit","tag-safety"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-zv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201","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=2201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}