Huffington Magazine Issue 73 | Page 92

PRISONERS OF PROFIT Florida Gov. Rick Scott sent a frosty response to Washington, arguing that the issues were “confined to the closed facility” and “do not constitute a sufficient, sound or fair basis for concluding that an entire state agency and its employees are failing to properly administer the juvenile justice system in Florida.” In response to questions about whether the state has hired out- HUFFINGTON 11.03.13 Thompson Academy, the facility where Jerry Blanton had blown the whistle and lost his job eight years earlier. In a letter to YSI sent in summer 2012, the state told the company that the contract would end because the DJJ was “moving away from large institutional models” and toward smaller, community-based programs. Still, the letter added, “We strongly encourage your “They don’t want any outside company, because they want the program to look like it’s running smoothly. Outside support should be called for a lot of what goes on, but they don’t do that.” side consultants to review its juvenile commitment system, as recommended by the Justice Department, a spokeswoman pointed only to Scott’s letter. In the push to fully privatize the system and phase out state-run facilities, Florida has continued both to renew YSI’s contracts and to award the company new ones. Last year, Florida opted not to extend YSI’s contract to oversee participation” in an upcoming bid for new contracts. In January, the state gave YSI a $7.3 million, five-year contract to run the new Broward Youth Treatment Center, a 28-bed program less than a mile away from Thompson. And this summer, YSI won contracts to take over two more state facilities, one in the Tampa area and another in Jacksonville. Chris Kirkham is a business reporter at The Huffington Post.