Thread by @BiancaTylek

$Prison 2: @GEOGroup

Next up is GEO Group, the nation's largest private prison corp, which rakes in over $2.4Bn in annual revenues, again half coming from fed contracts. It's headquartered in Florida and once tried to buy the naming rights to @FloridaAtlantic's stadium for $6M.

GEO got its start in 1984 with a fed contract for immigration detention, much like CoreCivic.

In 1996, the corp helped push an amendment to Biden's infamous crime bill that would allow states to use federal funds for prison construction to build private prisons.

So, other than the obvious -- caging for profit -- why are private prisons so bad?
1) They are incentivized to lobby for carceral policies
2) They are not accountable to the public
3) Their conditions are generally worse than those in public prisons

Let's unpack.

Private prison corps lobby to incarcerate more people and for longer.

Ex: In 2016, after Obama announced the roll back of private prisons, GEO donated $250k to Trump's tough-on-crime & anti-immigrant campaign. The investment paid off, GEO stock was the biggest winner on Nov 9.

Private prison corps are not subject to open records laws, such as the Freedom of Information Act, like public correctional agencies. Accordingly, their actions, communications, and subcontracts are shielded from public oversight.

All prisons are terrible, but on a whole, private prisons are the worst.

See, the easiest way for private prisons to pad their bottom lines is to cut costs. When they cut costs, staff turnover, facilities crumble, programs decline, and people suffer.
oig.justice.gov/reports/2016/e…

Private prisons also force people to work for little to no pay like public prisons. However, the savings in labor cost further pad their bottom lines.

Recently, a WA court ordered GEO to pay people in a immigration detention center $17M in backpay.
time.com/6114940/minimu…

NOTE: This is a rare outcome (kudos to the attorneys @folksmove) and unique to immigration detention, for now. Unfortunately, the 13th Amendment allows for slavery and involuntary servitude in the criminal legal system context.

Sign here to end this! endtheexception.com

Despite claims that they save govts money (with dangerous cost cutting), private prisons don't. The few correctional agencies that have deprivatized have actually saved money. This was true in Delaware County, PA that recently dropped GEO as an operator.
delcotimes.com/2021/04/02/pri…

GEO is now facing similar challenges to CoreCivic. Recently, GEO dropped its REIT status, its credit rating was downgraded for the 3rd time in a year, and the corp reached an agreement with existing lenders for maturing debt that is tantamount to default.
news.bloomberglaw.com/bankruptcy-law…

So, GEO is also working on diversifying its business model into community corrections.

In 2017, GEO Group acquired CEC, and its 7,000 reentry beds, for $360M in cash.
businesswire.com/news/home/2017…

But GEO's winning bet was acquiring BI, the nation's largest electronic monitoring (EM) corp, in 2011 for $415M in cash.

EM has exploded, in part thanks to the pandemic. Today, GEO Group has 155,000 people on its EM and an exclusive EM contract with ICE.
businesswire.com/news/home/2011…

NOTE: Electronic monitoring is not an alt to incarceration, it's e-carceration and expanding the system. As advocate @waazn1 once told me, "electronic monitors turn your home into a cell and your family into guards."

Also, EM often comes with a fee.
nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news…

Today, one third of GEO's business is now in community corrections. The corp claims to support criminal justice reform with its pivot, it even backed the First Step Act.

See, that's what's wrong with "reform" -- it's often reinventing carceral solutions.
tampabay.com/florida-politi…

We cannot depend on those who ignited mass incarceration to end it. We need to start fresh, thinking beyond carceral solutions to community solutions, and they need to sit this one out.

What can you do? Read "We Do This 'Til We Free Us" by @prisonculture.
haymarketbooks.org/books/1664-we-…