But there’s more than 2 million people incarcerated in the US at all levels, according to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics. Where will they find institutional or governmental clients who can generate and replenish the tens of thousands of bodies needed to fill their facilities?
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(NYSE:GEO) (“GEO”) The GEO Group commented today on the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announcement regarding contracted prisons for the Federal Bureau of Prison (the “BOP”).
By next spring, Justice has projected that less than 14,200 inmates would be held in contract prisons. Comprised nearly entirely of undocumented immigrants, including children and families, the average daily ICE detained population in 2013 was 33,811, according to one study. The Nation magazine wrote earlier this year about deaths under questionable circumstances in privately operated facilities. There has been pressure at the state level to end contracts with for-profit private prison operators as well.
Mother Jones has always been sniffing around private prisons (culminating with a journalist publishing an exposé after a four-month undercover investigation in the prison system), and recently, it reported that Corrections Corporation of America, the second-largest for-profit prison system in the country, netted $3,300 per prisoner in 2015. Another 10 percent were at facilities owned by Ahtna Corporation. Federal monitors tasked with watchdogging the facilities said they were not permitted by top BOP officials to use the full enforcement muscle to correct deficiencies, and plans to close failing facilities were derailed by the Bureau’s top brass. What is clear is that hundreds of thousands of people are processed and detained in these facilities, many of which are privately operated, each year.
“I am directing that as each contract reaches the end of its term, the Bureau should either decline to renew or substantially reduce its scope”, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates wrote in a memo today to the Bureau of Prisons’acting director. The recent Justice Department Inspector General findings highlights the safety and efficiency problems common in private contract facilities, and gave the Justice Department the information they needed to meaningfully reevaluate their longstanding use of private prisons. We reviewed the agency’s monitoring reports and additional federal records, all obtained through the an open records lawsuit, and interviewed former BOP monitors and officials in the BOP’s contracting office. 25 were related to the conditions of detention, six related to sexual assault or abuse and 141 – the vast majority of complaints the unit receives – related to mental and medical health care (PDF). The Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma is operated by GEO Group. GEO owns the LaSalle Detention Facility in Louisiana, the South Texas Detention Facility and Rio Grande Detention Center in Texas.
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The announcement also comes just days after it was revealed the Obama administration had bypassed public bidding laws to seal a $1 billion deal CCA for a four-year contract to build a detention facility for asylum seekers in Texas. She also pointed to multiple levels of oversight within DHS, including the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
