PRISONERS
OF PROFIT
taunted and humiliated inmates,
and Esmor frequently failed to
alert the INS about staff turnover
issues. According to an INS interview with a facility administrator,
Esmor’s corporate policy was to
“keep INS in the dark as much as
possible about any problems or
incidents which occurred.”
Joyce Antila Phipps, an immigration attorney who had several
clients at the Newark facility,
recalled many complaints about
male guards peering into female
group showers. The report found
that many detainees also refused
to board their deportation flights,
because Esmor guards hadn’t returned their money and valuables.
“There was a total lack of training of the staff,” Phipps said. “And
on top of that, the staff knew they
could get away with murder, so
they robbed people blind.” The
INS concluded in its investigation
that Esmor’s management was
marked by “a continuing cycle of
contract violations”and a “general
failure to follow sound management practices.”
But the INS did not fine Esmor
or cancel its contract to manage
the facility. Instead, the agency allowed Esmor to turn that contract
into $6 million in cash, selling it
HUFFINGTON
11.03.13
to a rival prison giant, the Corrections Corporation of America.
SUNSHINE STATE DYSFUNCTION
Even before his operations in the
northeast were tarnished by the
detention center uprising, Slattery was looking to move Esmor’s headquarters south, to the
Gulf Coast of Florida. In 1996, he
changed the company’s name to
Correctional Services Corp.
Slattery had already won several
contracts to operate youth facilities in the Sunshine State before
the immigrant riot, and Florida
looked to be a ripe base for expansion. Beginning in the late 1980s,
the state had started handing its
juvenile inmates to private companies in an effort to cut costs.
By the following decade, this
business opportunity was growing swiftly. Beset by a run of
murders by teenagers that had
spooked the public, Florida began
intensifying the penalties facing
juvenile offenders.
The state asked for bids from
private companies, anticipating a
major buildout of juvenile prisons.
In 1995, Slattery won two contracts
to operate facilities in Florida. The
two new prisons were originally
intended to house boys between
14 and 19 who had been criminally
convicted as adults. But the state