PRISONERS
OF PROFIT
realized it had enough beds for that
population already, so the Department of Juvenile Justice began
placing some of its delinquent boys
in the facilities — youth who were
meant to be housed in far less punitive settings.
In a news release announcing
the groundbreaking for the prisons, Slattery called the new fa-
HUFFINGTON
11.03.13
Recruiting qualified local staff
was a challenge, however, particularly at the rates the company was
offering — $15,995 per year.
The Pahokee facility opened
to youth in early 1997. Within
months, local judges were hearing complaints about abusive staff,
prison-like conditions and food full
of maggots, according to recent in-
In a drive to cut costs, Florida has effectively
abdicated its responsibility for some of its most
troubled children, leaving them in the hands of
companies focused solely on the bottom line.
cilities “the future of American
corrections.”
Among the new Correctional
Services Corp. prisons was the Pahokee Youth Development Center,
which sat in the middle of sugarcane fields in a rural, swampy part
of the state northwest of Miami.
Local leaders welcomed the
economic development opportunities that came with prison construction. Pahokee Mayor Ramon
Horta Jr. even joined the company
as a project manager.
terviews and state audits and court
transcripts from the time.
Miami-Dade County Circuit
Judge Tom Petersen drove an hour
and a half to Pahokee in 1997 and
started snapping pictures. As a
juvenile judge, he thought he was
sending boys to a moderate-risk
program with outdoor wilderness
activities. What he found was a
hardcore prison.
“I came back with all those pictures and I raised hell about it,”
Petersen recalled in an interview.
He saw small 12-year-olds confined alongside much stronger
17-year-olds. Boys were served