YOUTH SERVICES INTERNATIONAL confronted a
potentially expensive situation. It was early 2004,
only three months into the private prison company’s
$9.5 million contract to run Thompson Academy, a
juvenile prison in Florida, and already the facility had
become a scene of documented violence and neglect.
¶ One guard had fractured an inmate’s elbow after
the boy refused instructions to throw away a cup,
according to incident reports. Another guard had
slammed a boy’s head into the floor after an argument.
The prison was infested with ants and cockroaches,
toilets were frequently clogged and children reported
finding bugs in their meager portions of food.
“From day one, it was hell,”
said Jerry Blanton, a former
monitor with the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, who
was then tasked with inspecting
Thompson Academy.
Conditions appeared so foul
and perilous that he told his supervisors that he “emphatically
recommended that the facility
be closed,”according to a memo
about the discussions.
What happened next speaks
to how Youth Services International has managed to forge a lu-
crative business running private
juvenile prisons in Florida and 15
other states even amid mounting
evidence of abuse. The company
used connections with state officials to complain that Blanton
was intimidating staff. Less than
a week later, the state removed
him as monitor of the facility. Two
months after that, he was fired.
Thompson remained open, and
Youth Services International retained its contract to operate it. In
the nine years since, the company
has won an additional eight contracts in Florida, bringing 4,100
more youths through its facilities,
according to state records. All the