PRISONERS
OF PROFIT
requests for interviews made
over the last four months. In an
emailed response to questions,
Senior Vice President Jesse Williams said the company’s juvenile
prisons are some of the best in
Florida. He added that the state’s
Department of Juvenile Justice
rigorously inspects the facilities.
“The DJJ has a very meticulous monitoring system,” he said.
“There are numerous announced
and unannounced visits to each
facility to check for quality assurance and contract compliance, and
we do very well in our reviews.”
Williams denied that the company fails to report serious incidents to the state. “Our policy
is to report everything,” he said.
“In fact, we communicate to our
employees that if there are any
doubts about whether it is a reportable incident to go ahead
and notify DJJ.”
Senior officials at the Department of Juvenile Justice declined
interview requests. The agency
refused to discuss specific details
of HuffPost’s findings, though a
spokeswoman issued a statement
asserting the department is committed to ensuring that youth in
its system “remain safe and are
given every opportunity to thrive.”
HUFFINGTON
11.03.13
She said contract oversight is one
of the agency’s top priorities.
“With 100 percent of the agency’s residential services provided
through contractors, the contract
selection and renewal process
is paramount to our success,”
said the spokeswoman, Meghan
Speakes Collins, in an email.
Since 2011, when Republican Gov. Rick Scott took office
in Florida, the department has
“revamped” its review of contractors, she added, by engaging
in deeper statistical analysis of
trends such as high staff turnover
and the number of altercations
between staff and youth.
Former employees say Youth
Services International has maintained a pristine image in the
state’s official accounts in part by
massaging the paperwork. Riots
often go unreported, meaning law
enforcement officers never arrive
to investigate or document evidence of problems, these sources
say. Staff training sessions tend
to be conducted in a perfunctory
fashion, with little effect — but
they are nearly always well-documented and up to date.
“The paperwork was spotless,”
said Angela Phillips, a former shift
supervisor at Broward Girls Academy in Pembroke Pines, northwest of Miami. “But if you go to a
facility that has no toilet paper, no