At the behest of Florida Governor Rick Scott, the Republican-controlled state legislature will soon be considering a bill to mandate the privatization of all correctional facilities in 18 counties even though their last attempt to do so was ruled unconstitutional.
The Florida Senate Rules Committee has proposed a bill that would require the state’s Department of Corrections to privatize all prisons and other correctional facilities in 18 counties, according to the News Service of Florida.
The state legislature passed nearly the same measure last year, but the law was ruled unconstitutional in court because it didn’t go through the committee process, violating the Florida Constitution.
The second largest private prison company in the world, GEO Group, has donated $822,000 to political campaigns in Florida, according to the nonpartisan National Institute on Money in Politics. The company also spent $25,000 for Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) inauguration party.
This has nothing to do with saving the state or the taxpayer money and everything to do with further enriching the already rich.
Privatizing prisons does nothing to lower costs because of corporate overhead, and incarceration rates increase in the presence of private prisons because there is a financial incentive to fill them up. Anyone who has been in a private prison, known someone locked up in one, or worked at one can tell you that.
This would also mean replacing the employees at each correctional facility in each of the 18 counties with cheaper, non-union, unsympathetic zombies.
Rick Scott's secret plan to personally deliver Florida to President Obama in November is going well.