PRISONERS
OF PROFIT
still works in the field. “They have
cut so many costs and taken away
so many tools to help these kids,
that it’s just a revolving door.”
DOCTORING DOCUMENTS
In recent years, some of YSI’s
facilities have shown improved
scores on annual reviews from
the state, in some cases scoring
so highly that they won exemption from required reviews the
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such visits, these sources said,
staff work feverishly to prepare
documents showing that medical exams, therapy sessions and
staff trainings are conducted as
required — supplementing and
back-dating the files as needed.
The quality evaluation process
“was a joke,” said Angela Phillips, the former Broward Girls
Academy shift supervisor. “The
paperwork looked great, because
someone was going around and
“They just worry about the audits.
They’re not worried about these kids’ lives.”
following year.
But interviews with former YSI
staff members reveal that this
numeric progress may have little
to do with improved conditions.
Rather, they said, it likely reflects
the company’s sophistication in
fabricating the necessary paperwork for its annual quality assurance evaluations.
Each facility knows when state
auditors are scheduled to visit,
according to former YSI employees. In the weeks prior to
spending overtime just to make
sure that paperwork was correct.
If there was something missing,
they would just forge it.”
Several former employees recalled marathon work sessions in
which they sometimes fabricated
entire log books to paper over discrepancies in records, or to fill in
the gaps when the files lacked required reports.
“Just about every area you
could look into, they were deficient,” said a former medical employee at YSI’s Palm Beach Juvenile Correctional Facility. “So they
made up documents to make it