Florida ought to follow U.S., ban privately run prisons
The federal government has taken a big step forward in deciding to get out of the private prison business. Now Florida should do the same. As The Post’s Pat Beall documented in a comprehensive series in 2013, private management of state, as well as federal, prisons has been a failure on many counts. Prisoners are at greater risk of assault. And frequently, private prison management doesn’t even fulfill its biggest promise: saving taxpayer dollars.
What Deputy U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates said this month about privately managed federal prisons — that they “simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs and resources” and “do not maintain the same level of safety and security” — can be equally said of the seven state prisons managed by private companies in Florida.
The Justice Department decision to phase out its private-prison contracts follows a report from the Office of Inspector General detailing high levels of assaults and riots in the 14 prisons managed by GEO Group (based in Boca Raton), Corrections Corporation of America and Management & Training Corp.
The three companies manage a total of seven state prisons in Florida, housing roughly one in 10 of Florida’s 100,000 inmates. As Beall documented three years ago, there were nine major riots at privately run prisons nationwide from 2000 to 2012.
And: “At least 25 inmates died amid claims of mistreatment, inadequate medical care or in riots. Three prisons for teenagers were closed after discoveries of squalor and sex abuse. A woman’s prison emptied after widespread reports of rape by staff.
“At Florida’s state-run prisons in the same 12-year period: No major damage or severe injuries from riots; no closures over squalor; no Justice Department investigations over human rights.”
Similarly sorry results followed after Florida privatized all inmate medical care in 2014, a key pledge in Gov. Rick Scott’s first campaign. The rationale was to deliver taxpayer savings by the millions. But just 100 days after health care was handed off to two companies, The Post found, the state’s monthly inmate death count shot to a 10-year high. The yearly death rate for 2014 was the highest in a decade.
The state yanked the contracts of the prison system’s two health care providers soon after The Post’s award-winning reports appeared. But medical care at Florida’s prisons is still in private hands.
In March, the state dumped Youth Services Inc., a Sarasota firm running seven juvenile facilities, after years of allegations of poor performance, including a staggering rate of youth-reported sex abuse at the Palm Beach Juvenile Correctional Facility.
It is high time to rein in the rest of the system. It is abundantly clear that the goals of making a profit and providing a safe and secure environment — for prisoners and guards alike — are in irreconcilable conflict. We wonder if this industry would even exist were it not for the huge payouts it makes to lobbyists and political campaigns.
The feds have the right idea. Florida should boot the private operators, as well.