PRISONERS
OF PROFIT
seem like they weren’t.”
Genesia Williams-Wilkerson,
a former case manager at the
same prison who left the institution in 2011, said the accuracy
of paperwork documenting staff
training sessions was particularly questionable. Even if employees missed or showed up
late for classes on CPR or proper
restraint techniques, managers
told them to sign in as if they
HUFFINGTON
11.03.13
ployees, when state officials visited to review facilities, managers
would handpick trusted employees and youth to be interviewed.
“We would be coached,” said
Wanda Williams (no relation), a
former youth care worker at the
Palm Beach prison. “They’d say,
‘You better not put anything on
this paper that you shouldn’t
put there.’ The state didn’t do
enough, and they never wanted to
To discourage inmates from reporting abuse, staff
provided youth with snacks or special privileges, such as
being allowed to stay up late, former inmates said.
had attended, she said.
“They’d just bring around the
paper, and you’d sign it. That
way they’d have the papers saying we’ve done the training,”
she said. “They just worry about
the audits. They’re not worried
about these kids’ lives.”
Jesse Williams, the YSI spokesman, denied claims that paperwork was backdated and fabricated, calling the inspection process
“stringent and thorough.”
But according to former em-
talk to us one-on-one.”
Because the state relies almost
entirely on its juvenile jail contractors to self-report major incidents, staffers said the company
consistently tried to conceal fights
and riots from the state Department of Juvenile Justice as well as
state and local authorities.
“They don’t want any outside
company, because they want the
program to look like it’s running
smoothly,” said Williams-Wilkerson. “Outside support should be
called for a lot of what goes on,
but they don’t do that.”
The state maintains a spe-