The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has a good editorial today on prison privatization. They chastize the Kentucky Privatizer, DOC chief David Donahue, for selecting GEO Group, Inc. (formerly Wackenhut, I believe) which got caught with its hands in the cookie jar to the tune of several million dollars on a Florida contract.
“The fact the contractor made contributions to Gov. Mitch Daniels and the Indiana GOP, and not to Democrats, only makes this deal look worse than it should.”
The audit found that GEO billed Florida for salaried positions that were vacant and charged an excessive rate for cost-of-living adjustments for worker salaries from January 1999 to December 2004, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. The inspector general also found the state’s prison contractors were allowed to avoid minimal staffing requirements for nurses, trainers and teachers. The audit blistered Florida’s defunct Correctional Privatization Commission for putting “profits for the politically well-connected companies ahead of the public interest,†the Tallahassee paper reported.
. . .
The contract also raises another issue. The state rejected a proposal from New Castle employees to run the prison. This contrasts to candidate Daniels’ stance that Indiana should buy from Indiana. Daniels told voters in 2004 that “nobody’s minding the store†when it comes to procurement and the state was doling out too much taxpayer money with out-of-state companies.
Under funding the medical care is of particular interest to me. In my neck of the woods, a substantial chunk of prisoner’s lawsuits allege constitutionally inadequate medical care. I don’t know if Wackenhut or the state is on the hook if an inmate dies because of substandard medical care. As a taxpayer, I hope it’s the private company. As a citizen, I’m a little uncomfortable if the state government gets to pass the buck like that.
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