Group alleges more financial links to privatization; vote could be today

February 14, 2012
By: Michael Abrams
Tallahassee

A prison watchdog group has charged that backers of prison privatization in Florida have hidden their financial ties to a bill that would privatize at least 26 South Florida correctional facilities and eliminate 3,800 jobs connected with prisons.

The charges come as legislators prepare to vote today on a hotly-contested Senate bill that is said to be able to shave about $16 million from the state budget pegged at $69 billion last year and proposed to be reduced by $3 billion this year. The corrections budget was listed as $2.18 billion last year and the proposed budget by the governor’s office would cut $100 million from that. http://letsgettowork.state.fl.us/bdagencies.aspx

The Valentine’s day vote today could be moldy candy for the backers of the prison privatization, shot in the foot last year by a judge when legislators tried to sneak it through in a last-minute tactic as part of the annual budget rather than as a separate law.

Lobbyists from various groups have been engaged in a war of press releases, with the Florida Chamber of Commerce on the side of privatization. Opposed are the AFL-CIO and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The Florida prison system, third largest in the country, lists 61 major prisons, and with its many smaller prisons and work camps, housed 102,374 inmates last year. This figure apparently includes the 989 at Moore Haven, now run by a private firm, and may include others in private prisons.

This inmate figure does not, however, include county jails or inmates in federal prisons, which are not run by the state.

The state senate is split 20-20 on SB 2038 according to recent news reports quoting Republican Sen. Paula Dockery of Lakeland, and that vote would prevent the measure from passing. However, its fate is unsure as legislatures scurry to find a way to pare down the state budget, suffering once more this year from revenue shortfalls.

The private group, Private Corrections Institute, alleges that the Florida Chamber of Commerce press release, issued through Ron Sachs Communications, is misleading in that it didn’t contain information from two studies that showed prison inmates released from private prisons had no better success at rehabilitation than those released from public prisons.

The watchdog group said “more importantly, neither South Florida Jail Ministries nor the Florida Chamber of Commerce disclosed their connections to Boca-Raton based GEO group, the nation’s second largest private prison company, which stands to benefit financially should SB 2038 pass.”

GEO, according to state records, already operates three prisons in Florida. Another company, Corrections Corporation of America, runs four facilities.

PCI also says that the Senate Rules Committee had “undisclosed biases” in that it cited research by the Reason Foundation, which receives funding from private prison corporations.

The group alleges that Ron Book, a former Florida lobbyist for the pro-privatization Florida Jail Ministries is currently a lobbyist for the GEO Group. The GEO group has been a member of the Florida Chamber for 8 years and is a donor through its foundation to chamber efforts, according to Alex Friedmann, president of the non-profit Private Correctional Institute which issued the press release today.

Friedmann points out that Senate President Mike Haridopolos removed Sen. Mike Fasano as chairman of a subcommittee for his opposition to the privatization bill.

“The Senate leadership needs to realize that the State of Florida is not the former Soviet Union and the Florida Senate is not the Politburo,” said Friedmann in the release. “Those senators who support the prison privatization bill are also condoning the questionable process being used to advance this legislation. This is not what Democracy looks like, irrespective of party.”

The PCI has a website at http://www.privateci.org. Friedman told The Tallahassee News that while his non-profit organization does not have lobbyists “we do have people on the ground in Tallahassee.” He is associate editor for the Prison Legal News which is located in Vermont.

Whether of not the bill passes, some legislators maintain that it is within the governor’s powers to implement private prisons.