Florida
February 20, 2012
Prison privatization proposal failure stings Fla. Senate President Mike Haridopolos
Last year, it took until the last day of the legislative session for Senate President Mike Haridopolos to get embarrassed. This year, it happened with three weeks left.
In a rebuke to Haridopolos and his leadership team, a group of nine Republicans joined Democrats on Tuesday to defeat one of his priority bills: a revived prison-privatization plan to replace the one struck down last year by a Tallahassee judge as unconstitutional...
LINK - PalmBeachPost.com
February 14, 2012
Prison privatization bill fails in Senate vote
The Florida Senate slapped down a controversial plan to move 14,500 prisoners in South Florida to private lockups, killing a proposal that potentially meant millions of dollars for the Boca Raton-based Geo Group.
The plan, a top priority of Senate President Mike Haridopolos and Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, would have privatized 28 prisons and work camps in South Florida. But though it had the clout of the legislative leaders behind it, the matter divided the Senate and a final vote was delayed for more than a week while both sides wrangled votes...
LINK - Sun-Sentinel.com
February 14, 2012
Florida to Vote on Privatizing Prisons
Florida's Senate is expected to vote Tuesday on a controversial plan to privatize state prison facilities in southern Florida, a move that would create one of the largest private prison operations in the nation.
The vote—which both sides say is too close to call—comes as states are weighing the value of privatizing prisons, often one of the costlier items in troubled state budgets. The number of state and federal prisoners in private facilities rose 47% between 2000 and 2010, to 128,000 from 87,000, according to Department of Justice statistics. Yet it is a matter of heated debate whether states save money with private prisons...
LINK - WSJ.com (The Wall Street Journal Online)
February 13, 2012
Private prison proposal dies by 19-21 vote
The Florida Senate slapped down a controversial plan to move 14,500 prisoners in South Florida to private lockups, killing a proposal that potentially meant millions of dollars for the Boca Raton-based Geo Group.
The plan, a top priority of Senate President Mike Haridopolos and Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, would have privatized 28 prisons and work camps in South Florida. But though it had the clout of the legislative leaders behind it, the matter divided the Senate and a final vote was delayed for more than a week while both sides wrangled votes...
LINK - OrlandoSentinel.com
February 13, 2012
Prison bill dies 21-19
The Florida Senate Tuesday rejected a proposal to privatize 27 state prisons and work camps after two days of tense debate.
The proposal fell 21-19 with the Senate’s 12 Democrats joining nine Republicans to kill the bill.
Opponents argued that the plan would not result in the 7 percent costs savings that supporters touted and first needed to be studied...
LINK - MiamiHerald.com
February 13, 2012
Florida: Prison privatization fails 19-21
Update at 5:15
The Florida Senate has defeated prison-privatization bill by a vote of 19-21.
Update at 3 p.m.
The Senate has put aside a vote on prison privatization until it completes its other business today.
That means the big vote – already delayed to this afternoon in what was originally a morning start for the Senate session – is put off even later.
The Senate is set to wrap up at 6 p.m. The vote could come right before then.
Opponents still say they have the 20 votes necessary to kill the massive bill....
LINK - Tallahassee.com
January 31, 2012
Campaign finance watchdog highlights money behind Florida prison privatization move
The National Institute on Money in State Politics released a report yesterday that highlights the money behind the state’s renewed plans to privatize state prisons.
Even though a judge struck down the state’s plans to privatize prisons in some regions of the state last year, the Legislature has fast-tracked bills this session to allow them to take another stab at last year’s plans. In just a few weeks the state’s plans have passed through two committees and are ready for a floor vote...
LINK - FloridaIndependent.com
January 31, 2012
Barbs Fly in FL Private Prison Conflict
Florida correctional officers say a proposal to privatize some prisons amounts to the government picking winners and losers. They claim the losers will be correctional officers who would be unemployed or displaced, along with their families and communities. Proponents, including private prison operator GEO Group, counter that privately-managed prisons are money-savers for the state.
Captain Mike Riley, a corrections officer in Ocala, says private operators may throw current officers out the main prison gate...
LINK - PublicNewsService.org
January 18, 2012
Florida again seeks to privatize 29 state prisons
Florida lawmakers are reviving the largest prison privatization plan in the country, with a Senate committee Wednesday voting to file two bills that would turn over 29 correctional facilities in an 18-county region — including Southwest Florida — to private companies.
The vote by the Senate Rules Committee — which was opposed by two Democratic members — is aimed at reversing a court ruling last year that negated the Legislature's effort to carry out the massive privatization plan through the state budget.
Rules Chairman John Thrasher, R-Jacksonville, said the new legislation would "remedy" the objections raised by the courts, including the argument that lawmakers should have used separate legislation — not the budget bill — to authorize the private prisons...
LINK - TheLedger.com
January 17, 2012
Private Corrections Institute Opposes Prison Privatization Effort
The Private Corrections Institute, a Florida-based non-profit watchdog organization that actually opposes the privatization of correctional services, has -- as would be expected -- “sharply condemned” the latest state effort to privatize correctional facilities in 18 South Florida counties.
“While private prison companies will profit from expanded prison privatization contracts, should the legislature prevail in its mass prison privatization plan the loser will be Florida’s taxpayers, as public funds will be diverted from the state into the coffers of for-profit prison firms with no discernable (sic) benefit to the public,” Private Corrections Institute stated in a release...
LINK - SunshineStateNews.com
December 29, 2011
Prison Transportation Officer Killed in Truck Accident
A prison transport officer died in a truck accident in Palm Bay on the early morning of December 20, according to WTSP.com. Reports indicate the 47-year-old male, Officer Jeffrey Farless, died after the van he was driving rear-ended a semi-truck on Interstate 95. The van, owned by a privately contracted company, was nor carrying any other passengers.
“He was dropping an inmate off at the Palm Beach County Jail and was on his way back here,” says US Transport owner Robert Downs. “We’re very saddened. It’s a tough day for us. I’ve known him for over 10 years...”
LINK - Orlando.InjuryBoard.com
December 12, 2011
Cities want to rollback pension standard OK’d under Jeb Bush
Florida cities said Monday that they are poised to make another attempt at revamping costly pension requirements that emerged under former Republican Gov. Jeb Bush.
The current Republican-led Legislature may be wary of antagonizing police and firefighter unions, a frequent election-year ally. But Florida League of Cities officials said they hope a pocketbook appeal might drive changes when lawmakers reconvene in January...
LINK - PostonPolitics.com
December 1, 2011
Public Pension Reform: State Lawmakers Urged To Look At Hybrid Plans
At the annual fall forum of the National Conference of State Legislatures, pension reform advocates briefed the nation's state legislators on hybrid pension plans on Thursday, saying there is "nothing more dangerous" to state fiscal health on legislative agendas today.
Lawmakers must address the pension reform issue in the face of rising pension costs, declining pension reserve funds and the current state of the nation's financial markets, they argued.
"The unfunded (pension) liability is somewhere between $1.5 and $3 trillion," said former Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Mark Singel (D) about the total liability among the 50 states...
LINK - HuffingtonPost.com
October 10, 2011
FBI & U.S. Atty investigating private prison deals in Florida
As legislative leaders continue the push to privatize 19 South Florida prisons, the state’s most ambitious private prison project in Northwest Florida is enmeshed in a grand jury investigation.
The federal probe into the Blackwater River Correctional Facility has a broad sweep, touching former House Speaker Ray Sansom, R-Destin, the economic development arm of Santa Rosa County, and incoming Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville.
Since March, the Pensacola-based grand jury has issued more than six subpoenas seeking documents and testimony into the $121 million state contract that cleared the way for the Boca Raton-based GEO Group to build a prison near the Panhandle city of Milton...
LINK - MiamiHerald.TypePad.com
October 2, 2011
Court corrects overreach on prison privatization
A circuit judge's clear-cut ruling in Tallahassee on Friday that Florida's massive plan to privatize state prisons is unconstitutional sent another powerful message to Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-controlled Legislature. They are not above the law, and they are going to lose in court when they exceed the constitutional restraints on their authority.
Leon County Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford found that a plan to privatize 29 state prisons in South Florida is unconstitutional because lawmakers wrote the change into the state budget instead of passing separate legislation. Governors from both political parties and legislatures controlled by either Republicans and Democrats similarly have been overruled by the courts over the past 40 years for using the state budget to slip in significant changes to state law. That often happens when those policy changes can't stand up to public scrutiny or don't have enough support among rank-and-file lawmakers to be approved on their own merits...
LINK - TampaBay.com
October 2, 2011
Former Schwarzenegger budget chief (Arduin) at center of privatization effort in Florida
The biggest privatization move in Florida history began when a nationally known government cost-cutter told the Senate's budget committee chief that, for the right kind of inmates, turning prisons over to for-profit corporations could save a lot of money.
Now, the state's plan to privatize 29 prison facilities in 18 counties is the hottest political, management and legal issue of Gov. Rick Scott's young administration. And he didn't even ask for it.
The Department of Corrections was scheduled to open bids this week to operate prisons in its vast Region IV — everything south of Hillsborough, Polk, Osceola and Brevard counties — but a circuit court judge last week stopped the move. The state has not decided whether to appeal Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford's findings that the Legislature illegally slipped the privatization mandate into proviso language of the budget...
LINK - Tallahassee.com
September 30, 2011
Florida private prison plan blocked by judge, privateer stock takes a dive
Geo Group Inc., the Florida-based private prison operator, fell as much as 5 percent after a judge blocked the state’s plan to pursue privatization at as many as 29 prisons in 18 counties.
The state legislature’s move to bury key details on privatization in the state budget is “unconstitutional,” Leon County Circuit Court Judge Jackie Fulford in Tallahassee ruled. The 2012 budget provision changes the statutory process for privatizing facilities and directs the Department of Corrections to replace state employees at particular prisons with private operators...
LINK - BusinessWeek.com
September 1, 2011
Columnist: A cautionary tale about private prison shift
As Florida enters the uncharted territory of a huge expansion of private, for-profit prisons, this story serves as a cautionary tale.
A citizen walks into a prison and says, Hello, I'd like to look at the visitors' sign-in log, which is a public record under state law.
No, a prison official says...
LINK - TampaBay.com
August 26, 2011
Florida Gov asks state prison director to resign over privatization, other problems
Florida's prison chief was forced to abruptly resign Wednesday after a series of clashes with Gov. Rick Scott.
Edwin Buss, who had been head of the Indiana prison system before coming to Florida, had been on the job six months. But in a statement, the Scott administration said that "differences in philosophy and management styles arose which made the separation in the best interests of the state."
In recent weeks, Buss had come under fire for how the Department of Corrections was handling some of its privatization efforts as well as a decision to approve a contract granting a cable network access to a state prison for a prison reality series. The contract for MSNBC's "Lockup" was put on hold by the governor's office...
LINK - MiamiHerald.com
August 23, 2011
Prison expert rips florida’s privatization plans
TALLAHASSEE -- A University of North Florida criminology expert who specializes in prison privatization issues is blasting the state's privatization plans for facilities in an 18-county area of South Florida.
Michael Hallett, chair of UNF's criminology program and author of Private Prisons in America, completed an unsolicited assessment of the state's call for vendors, which he then sent to Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Appropriations subcommittee and an opponent of privatization.
"There are so many serious problems with this RFP that it is not easy to digest in one document," he wrote in the memo he sent to Fasano...
LINK - Sun-Sentinel.com
August 20, 2011
Prison privatization plan in Florida may stop if no cost savings
Gov. Rick Scott says a massive South Florida prison privatization plan won't fly if it doesn't save the state money.
Scott on Friday also downplayed the cost of laying off state employees at those prisons.
The Republican governor discussed the plan for privatizing 29 facilities in 18 counties during an interview with The Associated Press in Miami...
LINK - MiamiHerald.com
August 14, 2011
Beware for-profit justice
When you march up to the front gate of a medium-security prison and find no one, you've got a problem. When you ring the alert button and no one answers, that's a problem, too. When you shine a flashlight at the security camera and no one notices, that's trouble.
This rapture-like scenario is not hypothetical. As The Post's Dara Kam reported, it's what state officials found after arriving at South Bay Correctional Institution, a private prison, for a surprise inspection in June. As Florida readies one of the largest prison privatizations in history, it's hard to ignore the implications.
Next year, Florida plans to privatize at least 13 prisons in the southern third of the state, shuttering Belle Glade's Glades Correctional Institution in the process. This overhaul supposedly will save the state at least $19 million a year. But the price of any savings could prove high. For while proof that private prisons cut long-term costs is still scant, there's ample evidence that their existence invites corporations to manipulate the criminal justice system for their own gain...
LINK - PalmBeachpost.com
July 21, 2011
Private prison plan “unsafe”
The head of a prison officers union suing to stop the largest privatization in Florida history said Wednesday the plan will jeopardize public safety and not save taxpayers any money.
But Department of Corrections Secretary Ed Buss said he must press ahead with contracting, probably with a single operator, in order to get the 30 separate sites — including 12 major prisons — into private operation by the Jan. 1 deadline set by the Legislature.
The Florida Police Benevolent Association filed suit last week to stop the privatization. Among other things, the suit alleges that the Legislature illegally made substantive policy changes in the text of a state budget, which is prohibited by the Constitution...
LINK - Tallahassee.com
October 10, 2010
No stranger to a bruising budget battle
As the chief architect of Rick Scott's economic plan, Donna Arduin likely will face a tough fight in Tallahassee getting the plan passed, if Scott is elected the state's next governor.
But don't expect Arduin to back down.
She has faced these fights before.
Upon arriving in California in 2003 to advise Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on a budget crisis, Arduin was labeled an "ogre" by a legislative leader based on her advocacy for a Florida budget cut that would have eliminated Medicaid payments for adults needing eyeglasses or dental work...
LINK - HeraldTribune.com
April 12, 2010
Report: Are Florida’s Private Prisons Keeping Their Promise?
Lack of Evidence to Show They Cost Less and Have Better Outcomes than Public Prisons
March 23, 2010
CCA jail officer accused of doctor shopping for drugs
A Hernando County Jail corrections officer faces charges of "doctor shopping" to obtain prescriptions for 2,100 tablets of the pain medication oxycodone.
Hernando sheriff's deputies arrested Chris Abare, 46, of Hudson on Tuesday for withholding information from physicians in Hernando and Pasco counties from whom he was receiving the prescriptions.
A report said that between July and January, Abare got prescriptions for more than 2,100 oxycodone tablets from nine doctors. Authorities said the doctors signed sworn statements saying that Abare failed to tell them he was receiving prescriptions from other physicians...
LINK - TampaBay.com
March 23, 2010
County seeks CCA records
County officials know all about public records requests. They get them all the time from citizens and the media.
This time, however, it is Hernando County making a rare public records request of its own.
Hernando officials want Corrections Corporation of America to release inventory and budgetary information to help the county analyze whether CCA or Sheriff Richard Nugent could offer the best deal of running the Hernando County Jail...
LINK - TampaBay.com
March 2, 2010
CCA too expensive, may lose another contract
After researching the matter, Sheriff Richard Nugent believes he can take over operations of the Hernando County Jail and save the county money.
Due to the current economic condition of the county and the continually rising cost of the county's contract with Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) to operate the jail, Nugent said Tuesday he has conducted research into the possibility of his office assuming the task.
The sheriff will make a presentation to county commissioners at their meeting next Tuesday...
LINK - HernandoToday.com
December 23, 2009
Inmate On The Run After Escaping CCA Custody
Authorities are looking for an inmate who escaped from custody and jumped into the Withlacoochee River.
According to the Citrus County Sheriff's Office, Terry N. Davis, 47, escaped custody just after 1 p.m. near Allen's Bait & Seafood on Elkins Road in Inglis.
Davis is described as a white male with brownish-gray hair and blue eyes. He is believed to have taken off his jail-issued orange jumpsuit. He is 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 155 pounds…
LINK - CFNews13.com (Citrus County, Florida)
July 13, 2009
State guts prison education, drug treatment programs
The rehabilitation of convicts took a hit recently as state prisons slashed rehabilitation programs in the face of shrinking budgets.
In April, Bay Correctional Facility had its contract with the state revised, reducing prison education staff from 24 employees to eight, according to state documents. All five of the prison's drug treatment positions also were cut.
Bay Correctional officials said the cuts are unfortunate but out of their hands…
LINK - NewsHerald.com
June 12, 2009
Florida: Tackle prison overcrowding from the other end
The Florida Legislature passed a "just in case" bill that its author, Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, calls a "passive safety net," not a mandate. But the philosophy behind SB 1722, which becomes law July 1, is based on regressive thinking. It would allow the corrections department to ship inmates to other states in case prison overcrowding forces early releases here.
This is a patchwork solution that misses the point. Florida should be fighting crime at the front end — not shipping prisoners to be warehoused out of state…
LINK - MiamiHerald.com
February 4, 2009
Boca Private Prison Operator Feelin’ Heat from West Texas
Perhaps the only thing harder to contain than a prison riot is the embarrassment that comes after a prison riot. But still. Boca Raton-based Geo Group has done a ham-handed job spinning the riot that broke out Saturday at a prison it owns in the West Texas town of Pecos. On Sunday it released a statement that the riot ended with a "positive outcome."
Huh? What post-riot outcome could possibly be "positive"? Did everyone learn a valuable lesson?
And considering this is the second prison riot at a Geo Group-owned facility in Texas in less than two months, does the company know why these keep happening and have a plan for making them stop?…
LINK - BrowardPalmBeach.com
January 30, 2009
Mental health worker at prison faces contraband charges
A prison employee believed to be romantically involved with an inmate was arrested Thursday on charges of introducing contraband into a correctional facility, officials said.
Tina L. Ortiz, 35, of Chipley is accussed of bringing a cellular phone into Bay Correctional Facility with the intention of giving it to an inmate, according to a Bay County Sheriff's Office release.
Ortiz was working at Bay Correctional Facility, a prison operated by Corrections Corporation of America, as a mental health specialist assistant, Bay County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Ruth Corley said…
LINK - Panama City NewsHerald.com
December 16, 2008
Authorities: Female jailer caught exposed
Shannon Nicole Copeland, of 1613 Fairy Ave., was met at the jail by Sheriff Frank McKeithen and jail administrator Rick Anglin as she began her shift Sunday. A search of her person revealed a CD of nude photographs of herself and several printed nude images, according to a Bay County Sheriff's Office release.
A search of an inmate's cell uncovered additional nude photos of Copeland, 23, who told investigators she engaged in sexual misconduct with the inmate and had brought him marijuana, the release said.
Copeland, a control room operator who had been entrusted with the movements of inmates, was a former employee of Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA, and had been retained by the jail as an uncertified detention specialist after the transition…
LINK - NewsHerald.com
August 13, 2008
CCA: Fla. prison accused in inmate’s staph death
The family of an inmate who died from a drug-resistant staph infection claims she contracted it because she had been deprived of water for bathing and toilet use at a privately operated state prison.
A lawyer representing the estate of Emma Nobles, who died of MRSA Dec. 15, 2005, at a Tallahassee hospital, made that allegation in letters to two state agencies. The letters are a preliminary step for a possible wrongful death lawsuit.
Water was turned off for days at a time at the prison for women in nearby Gretna, apparently as a cost-cutting measure, the attorney, Patrick R. Frank, said in an interview Wednesday…
LINK - FortMillTimes.com
August 6, 2008
Inmate: I made bomb to blow up South Bay guard
A prison inmate confessed to crafting a homemade bomb to try to blow up a guard, and the guard has been charged with smuggling contraband into the prison, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said.
Jordano LaGuerre, 24, of Lauderhill was arrested Tuesday afternoon at the South Bay Correctional Facility on charges of making an explosive device. According to the report, deputies called in to investigate a bomb threat Tuesday morning found four empty honey bottles filled with gasoline and connected to batteries and wires.
The report said LaGuerre admitted to making the bomb to try to blow up a female guard, identified in the report as Sgt. Michelle Terrien…
LINK - PalmBeachPost.com
July 10, 2008
Thousands turn out to salute murdered corrections officer
As a tribute to his mother, Donna Fitzgerald's only son wore a pink tuxedo jacket to her funeral Wednesday, the coat a vibrant spot in the sea of blue, dark green, black and brown uniforms worn by hundreds at the slain corrections officer's funeral.
The 50-year-old Fitzgerald was murdered by an inmate on June 25 at Tomoka Correctional Institution, corrections officials said. Enoch Hall, 39, who is serving two life sentences for rape and kidnapping, is charged with first-degree murder in Fitzgerald's death.
According to reports, Hall stabbed Fitzgerald several times with a piece of sheet metal he fashioned into a knife. The night she died, Fitzgerald was supervising Hall and several other inmates who were on an overtime work detail in the prison's PRIDE program…
LINK - News-JournalOnline.com
July 3, 2008
Immigration center plans expansion
The corporation that runs the federal immigration detention center on Tacoma's Tideflats plans to expand the facility's capacity by 50 percent.
When completed, the Northwest Detention Center should be able to hold up to 1,500 immigrants in federal custody.
The GEO Group, the Florida-based company that runs the detention center, has made no formal announcement. Several voicemails left with its spokesman were not returned. Calls to the Northwest Detention Center were referred to a spokeswoman with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who said the company is handling the expansion and therefore should answer all questions…
LINK - TheNewsTribune.com
June 16, 2008
Private Prisons: Guards accused of using inmate food as toilet
An Inverness attorney plans to sue the company the runs Citrus county's jail, claiming employees are treating inmates like human toilets.
Attorney Greg Jones has called a news conference today to announce his suit against "Corrections Corporation of America and their employees regarding the urination and defecation in the food of a former inmate…"
LINK - ABCActionNews.com
June 11, 2008
HIV/AIDS numbers decline, but many not convinced
HIV rates are declining in prison, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, but AIDS activists paint a different picture of the disease's prevalence both in and out of prison.
Laura M. Maruschak, a statistician for the bureau, studied statewide HIV rates for 2005 and 2006, and found that the number of HIV positive prisoners decreased by a little more than three percent (from 22,676 to 21,980). Despite this drop, the overall AIDS rate among prisoners was 0.46 percent compared to 0.17 percent for the U.S. general population.
The report, "HIV in Prisons 2006," further indicated that the number of AIDS-related deaths in state and federal prisons dropped to 167 from 203; and the states with the largest numbers of AIDS related deaths were Florida (28), New York (14), Pennsylvania (13), Georgia (10) and Louisiana (10).
The data does not include information on the flow of HIV positive inmates in and out of prisons, and the Justice Department has no idea of where inmates go when released, but is exploring ways to get that data. There are also times when some states fail to submit year-end data—mostly because states do not have the facilities to track the numbers…
LINK - FrostIllustrated.com
June 4, 2008
Florida: Sheriff Tapped to Run Jail
Running the Bay County jail is not the most glamorous of jobs, but Sheriff Frank McKeithen has offered to take on the task to the delight of the Bay County Commission. At Tuesday's regular Commission meeting McKeithen made clear that he could not garuntee there would be no problems under his watch.
"I'm not going to tell you there will never be a hostage situation or jail break or issues in jail but I will tell you that there will be far less than what CCA has had to deal with in that facility downtown," said McKeithen.
Last month Bay County expressed disappointment that Corrections Corporation of America would not run the new jail at a rate of $43 a day per prisoner, but Tuesday they said McKeithen's offer of $50 per prisoner a day was reasonable…
LINK - WMBB.com News Channel 13 - Panama City, Florida
May 13, 2008
Florida: CCA Quits Bay County Jail
Late last night Bay County received word that Corrections Corporation of America submitted their notice says a County Spokesperson.
CCA runs the County's Jail and Jail Annex and was slated to run the new $40 million jail currently under construction off Cherokee Heights Road.
Commissioners plan to take up the topic when they reconvene their recessed meeting on Friday at 2 p.m. Commissioners have asked Sheriff Frank McKeithen to attend that meeting at Panama City City Hall…
LINK - WMBB.com (Panama City, Florida News)
April 22, 2008
Puryear judicial nomination draws clash
The battle over the Bush White House's nomination of Corrections Corporation of America General Counsel Gus Puryear to a federal judgeship has turned to charges between supporters and opponents of conflicts of interest and hidden business agendas.
Activists opposing private prisons and Puryear's nomination sent a formal letter to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee questioning the business ties of law firms whose attorneys have offered their own formal support of Puryear to the committee, including quite a few Democrats.
Puryear's employer shot back, saying Private Corrections Institute (PCI) is simply an extension of the larger Florida Police Benevolent Association, a Florida police union that also represents correctional officers and openly opposes prison privatization…
LINK - NashvilleCityPaper.com
April 21, 2008
Court rejects appeals by 11 death row inmates
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday followed up on its ruling last week upholding the commonly used lethal injection method of execution and rejected appeals by 11 death row inmates in seven states.
The ruling cleared the way for a resumption of executions that had been halted for nearly seven months while the justices considered a constitutional challenge to the three-drug cocktail used in the executions.
The ruling means more than a dozen death row inmates likely will get early execution dates. Officials in the leading death penalty states, like Texas, Virginia and Florida, said they planned to schedule executions that previously had been on hold…
LINK - Reuters.com
March 2, 2008
AP finds 13,000 claims of abuse in juvenile detention centers
The Columbia Training School - pleasant on the outside, austere on the inside - has been home to 37 of the most troubled young women in Mississippi.
If some of those girls and their advocates are to be believed, it also is a cruel and frightening place.
The school has been sued twice in the past four years. One suit brought by the U.S. Justice Department, which the state settled in 2005, claimed detainees were thrown naked in to cells and forced to eat their own vomit. The second one, brought by eight girls last year, said they were subjected to "horrendous physical and sexual abuse." Several of the detainees said they were shackled for 12 hours a day…
LINK - AP.org (Associated Press)
February 2, 2008
Florida: Trip to jail ends up in motel, then jail for private officer
A privately contracted corrections officer is in jail after Bradford County deputies charged him Friday with having sex with two inmates he was transporting. Shaun McFadden, 26, was arrested at the Days Inn in Starke after one of the women escaped from a motel room where she'd been taken and called police, Bradford County Sheriff Bob Milner said. Both women went to the motel willingly, but one became fearful and fled, Milner said…
LINK - Jacksonville.com
January 17, 2008
Florida: When the Rich Pay No Taxes
Web Editor's Note: PAY ATTENTION CALIFORNIA! - Jeb Bush tried to privatize all things profitable and make the people assume all risk associated with investment. His program gave a leg up to charter schools and turned elements of the state's water supply, public roads and social services over to wealthy investors. The lynchpin of his healthcare agenda was to turn Medicaid into a private managed health care system. That program was piloted in five counties and has failed miserably. The Department of Children and Families was turned into a massive private gamble that money could be made off Florida's most vulnerable children…
LINK - CounterPunch.org
January 11, 2008
Florida: New Graceville Prison
The GEO Group, a private prison management company, will buy 51.6 acres of land in the Graceville Industrial Park with an eye toward construction of a new prison or work camp there. The $153,180 purchase was approved Friday in a special session of the Jackson County Commission, a partner in the West Jackson County Development Authority. The Geo Group already manages a new 1,500-bed prison in the industrial park and is currently working to expand that facility to hold another 385 inmates…
LINK - WMBB.com
December 12, 2007
Private Prisons Over-Bill State, Partial Refund Required
A company that runs three of Florida's private prisons has agreed to refund $1.5 million to settle a state claim of $3.6 million in excessive charges for staffing and equipment expenses. CCA spokesman Steven Owen said the company was glad to resolve the case and called it "a good faith settlement" for both sides. The company operates prisons at Lake City, Panama City and Quincy…
LINK - TDO.com
