Wackenhut Builds The Largest Prison Complex In The State of Florida Opens In Graceville

Tallahassee
Posted : 2007-09-19 00:12:03

The big business of incarceration comes to the Panhandle town of Graceville this week, as Florida opens what will be its biggest for-profit prison in a competitive system marked by controversy.

''It's epic,'' said City Manager Eugene Adams of the 1,500-inmate institution. It is being dedicated today, and will receive its first inmates Sept. 25, but there's already a 384-bed expansion of the prison on the legislative drawing board.

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With 314 employees - 199 of them security officers - the big prison is an economic-development trophy. Holman and Adams said Graceville already has a 269-man state prison work camp and two juvenile facilities, one for each gender, but the new institution will double the corrections job rolls.

Warden Bill Willingham said Graceville can offer guards $12.10 an hour to start, along with $1,450 in education expenses to get certified as correctional officers, which they are required to do within a year. Then, he said, their salaries jump to $30,630 annually.

''We are at 99 percent full employment now,'' said Willingham. ''We'll be fully staffed when we start receiving inmates.''

In addition to the $61 million, three-year contract with GEO Group Inc. for the new prison, this year's Legislature approved an expansion.

Private prisons are required to operate at least 7-percent cheaper than state institutions. Graceville's baseline $42.74 per diem rate is $9.33 per prisoner below the daily average cost provided by the Department of Corrections.

But critics maintain that private prisons do it by scrimping on pay and benefits, or cutting corners on staffing levels, health care and inmate education programs.

''They go into these little rural communities and say they're providing jobs and economic activity,'' said Ken Kopczynski, a veteran lobbyist for the Police Benevolent Association, which represents correctional officers in the state system. ''But they don't provide benefits and people just get churned through those jobs.''

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement's 2006 Criminal Justice Agency Profile Report lists starting salaries for state and county facilities. The South Bay Correctional Facility in Palm Beach County - with 1,862 inmates, it's the private institution most comparable to Graceville - lists a starting salary of $29,420 a year on the FDLE site.

That's lower than the prevailing starting correctional officer salary in the Department of Corrections by about 10 percent, Kopczynski said. A 1999 comparison review by the Legislature's Office of Program Policy and Government Accountability said corporate-run prisons offered lower employee health-care and pension benefits than the DOC.

But OPPAGA also said GEO's corporate predecessor, Wackenhut Corrections Corp., built South Bay 24 percent below construction costs of a comparable state institution and got it fully operational faster. The report said GEO also exceeded the 7-percent savings required of privately run prisons.

''Our salaries in Graceville will be within the average salary range for Jackson County,'' said Pablo Paez, director of corporate relations for GEO Group. He declined to cite specifics but said ''we offer competitive salary and benefits packages wherever we operate.''

GEO operates prisons for the state at Moore Haven and South Bay, while Corrections Corp. of America has institutions in Bay and Gadsden counties and near Lake City. Together, they have a dozen lobbyists registered to look out for their interests in the Capitol.

Before the addition of Graceville, the five private prisons if Florida had 6,244 prisoners. At an average cost of $47.41 per inmate-day, the Department of Management Services said combined state spending for the five institutions last fiscal year was $93.3 million.

Shortly after taking over from privatization-minded Gov. Jeb Bush, Gov. Charlie Crist ordered an FDLE investigation of $12.7 million in ''questionable or excessive costs'' paid to both companies. There were allegations of reimbursement for positions that were vacant and overpayment for maintenance and repairs.

FDLE found no criminal wrongdoing. The companies vigorously defended their accounting and management.

The DMS, which took over administration when the privatization commission was abolished, reached a $402,000 settlement from GEO for operational overpayments and legal fees early this year. It's still negotiating a $3.6 million dispute with CCA.

Willingham, who retired from 28 years with the federal prison system, said that ''until about three or four years ago,'' he was skeptical about privatization. But he said the federal system also contracts for some institutions and that he saw benefits in costs and quality.

''It boils down to what the taxpayers should be most concerned about,'' said the warden. ''I will tell you now, coming out of the federal system and as a taxpayer in the state of Florida, that the taxpayers are getting their money's worth.''