Prisons for the surplus population

It's a profitable growth industry

A recent CorpWatch report states that:

While the nation's economy flounders, business is booming for The GEO Group Inc., a private prison firm that is paid millions by the U.S. government to detain undocumented immigrants and other federal inmates. In the last year and a half, GEO announced plans to add a total of at least 3,925 new beds to immigration lockups in five locations. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and the U.S. Marshals Service, which hire the company, will fill the beds with inmates awaiting court and deportation proceedings [links added].

GEO reported impressive quarterly earnings of $20 million on February 12, 2009, along with an annual income of $61 million for 2008 – up from $38 million the year before. But the company's share value is not the only thing that's growing. Behind the financial success and expansion of the for-profit prison firm, there are increasing charges of negligence, civil rights violations, abuse and even death.

Naturally circumstantial evidence of financial corruption has emerged:

The Tacoma lockup, site of the most recent GEO controversy, is located on top of a former toxic waste dump that borders coastal wetlands near the Port of Tacoma, Washington. In August 2008, the firm announced plans to expand its 1,030-bed Northwest Detention Center to 1,575 beds, "to help meet the increased demand for detention bed space by federal, state, and local government agencies around the country."

Just four months after GEO's announcement, ICE notified government contractors that the agency was looking for a contractor-owned and -operated detention facility. According to federal procurement data, the new facility should be capable of providing 1,575 beds — the same number GEO was set to build – to be completed no later than September 2009 — the same date GEO had set for the completion of its own construction project.

Lorie Dankers, ICE spokeswoman in Washington state, implied that the similarity in numbers and date was a coincidence. "I would never comment, nor have I in the past, on what GEO is doing and why they're doing it. That's a business decision that GEO made," said Dankers. "To insinuate that there was some kind of connection, or that they has [sic] some inside information as to the request, that would be incorrect."

Dankers added that ICE's request for more space is still in the "pre-solicitation" phase, meaning that there is no guarantee a contract will be offered, and the agency is simply requesting information from contractors to "guage [sic] interest."

"I don't have any information one way or the other as to what would happen," Dankers said. "I think often times, if I had to speculate, they see where there's a need. I think they're always looking for opportunities."

That GEO Group — they're real Merican go-getters!