PRISONERS
OF PROFIT
while, complaints of abuse and
neglect have remained constant.
Florida leads the nation in placing state prisons in the hands of
private, profit-making companies. In recent years, the state has
privatized the entirety of its $183
million juvenile commitment system — the nation’s third-largest,
HUFFINGTON
11.03.13
YSI prisons there. “They turned
out to be the ally of the corporations, and the ally of the system.”
Florida’s permissive oversight
has allowed Youth Services International to essentially game the
system since entering the state
more than a decade ago. Despite
contractual requirements that the
[Florida’s] Department of Juvenile Justice routinely awards
contracts to private prison operators without scrutinizing
their records, a Huffington Post investigation has found.
trailing only California and Texas.
Florida not only relies on private
contractors to self-report escapes
and incidents of violence and
abuse, but the state’s Department of Juvenile Justice routinely
awards contracts to private prison
operators without scrutinizing
their records, a Huffington Post
investigation has found.
“We thought DJJ was going to
be our biggest ally,” said Gordon
Weekes, the chief juvenile public
defender in Broward County, who
has for years complained to the
state about conditions inside two
company report serious incidents
at its facilities, YSI routinely fails
to document problems, sanitizes
those reports it does submit and
pressures inmates to withhold
evidence of mistreatment, according to interviews with 14 former
YSI employees.
“The state is not doing
enough,” said Wanda Williams,
a former staffer at YSI’s Palm
Beach Juvenile Correctional Facility, who quit in 2010 after
growing disgusted with the violence and squalid conditions she
saw inside the prison. “Because if
they were, that place should have
been shut down by now.”
Executives at YSI declined