GEO Fact Sheet

GEO Fact Sheet 

2012 (June): OSHA fines totaling $104,100 for violations at GEO group prison in Meridian, Mississippi.

“This employer knowingly put workers at risk of injury or death by failing to implement well recognized measures that would protect employees from physical assaults by inmates,” Clyde Payne, OSHA’s director in Jackson, Miss., said in a statement. (PBP, 8/25/12; US Dept of Labor http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=NEWS_RELEASES&p_id=22536)

2012: Inmate awarded $1.2 million for negligence resulting in violence that cost him his vision in one eye. (PBP 9/13/12)

October 2011-February 2012: Five preventable deaths in GEO-operated East Mississippi Correctional Facility, a prison for people living with mental illness. (Daily Kos, 4/29/12; http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/29/1086699/-Billion-dollar-GEO-prison-for-profit-group-abandons-its-Mississippi-cesspool)

2011 (June): A jury verdict for $6.5 million was returned against the Company in a wrongful death action brought by the Personal Representative of the Estate of Ronald Sites, a former inmate at the Company’s Lawton Oklahoma Correctional Facility (GEO Annual Report, 2012, p. 87). The inmate was strangled to death by his cellmate in 2005 (PBP, 8/25/12).

2011: Florida Department of Children and Families cite neglect that led to Florida man’s death. ((PBP 8/25/12)

2011: New Mexico Department of Corrections fines GEO Group$1.1 million for understaffing one of its prisons (The American Independent, 11/15/11; http://americanindependent.com/205722/new-mexico-fines-prison-company-for-inadequate-staffing-2)

2011: Justice Policy Institute report highlights GEO’s political strategies of working to make money through harsh policies and longer sentences. (Justice Policy Institute) Strategies include lobbying elected officials.

2011 (August): State inspectors are unable to get into South Bay Correctional Institute in Palm Beach County to do a surprise drug sweep. After 20 minutes of trying to get someone’s attention, including shining flashlights at security cameras, the state inspectors give up and leave. (FCIR, 8/26/11)

2011: Corrections secretary, New Mexico hired previously by GEO as a warden at Lea County Correctional, the very facility for which the company is now being fined. (Am Independent, 11/15/11)

2010: Immigrant who overstayed visa denied asthma inhaler in immigrant detention center in Deerfield Beach. (Based on interview with victim; PBP, 8/25/12).

2010: Lawsuit in Arizona by U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for sexual harassment and molestation of female employees by GEO Group manager. (USEEOC; PBP, 8/25/12)

2010: DOJ investigation of Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility. Findings (2012): Youth were sexually preyed upon by staff and all too frequently suffered grievous harm, including death. (US Department of Justice, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/March/12-crt-352.html)

2008: Seattle University School of Law Report claims immigrants at a Washington State detention center run by the GEP group Inc. are being held in conditions that violate both international and US laws (ABC News, 8/5/ 08; http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5466166&page=2#.UUt_eoU78YI).

2008: Inmate dies after a month of solitary confinement without proper alert system for his epileptic condition. Uprising in Reeves County Detention Center, Texas. Concerns: 5 deaths bet 8/08 and 3/09 (Texas Observer, 10/ 8/09; http://www.texasobserver.org/the-pecos-insurrection/).

2008: Two Inmates, one with schizophrenia and a thyroid condition and the other with cystic fibrosis, die after being denied their medication. (Delco Times, 10/16/08; also:Philadelphia Weekly & Fox News, respectively)

2008: United Methodist Church Resolution 3281 - Welcoming the Migrant to the US, which advocated the "elimination of privately-operated detention centers." http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=4951419&ct=6480621

2007: Texas canceled an $8 million contract with GEO and closed the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center. Inspectors found feces on floors and walls, padlocked emergency exits and overuse of pepper spray on young inmates. (PBP, 8/25,12).

2007 (October): Texas Youth Commission removed inmates from one of the company’s juvenile facilities after an official visited and determined the conditions were “unsafe” (ABC News, 8/5/ 08).

2007 (August): several hundred detainees at the facility fell ill with abdominal pain and diarrhea from food poisoning. Detainees told that they had to wait till morning till the clinic opened, although they were supposed to have round the clock care. (ABC News, 8/5/ 08).

2007: Lawsuit filed over medical negligence in North Carolina. Neglected conditions include severe, festered tooth decay requiring surgery, and boils indicative of MRSA improperly diagnosed by company nurse as “a sign of aging” to save medical costs. (PBP, 2/28/13)

2007: Lawsuit by mentally ill prisoner citing denial of crutches, withheld medication, isolation and abuse at Pearsall Texas. (http://closereeves.weebly.com/learn-about-geo-group-scandals.html; http://www.texasprisonbidness.org/lawsuits/)

2006: Sued for overbilling State of FL of 12.7 million in false claims. (GEO Annual Report 2006)

2005-2009: At least 8 died GEO Group-operated George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, the state's only privately run jail (Daily Kos, 4/29/12).

2005: Contract with state of Michigan cancelled after the daily cost per prisoner for the private facility was higher than that for 33 of the state’s 37 publicly-operated facilities.” (Grassroots Leadership, 12/20/12; http://grassrootsleadership.org/releases/2012/12/national-and-state-groups-urge-governor-not-repeat-failed-prison-venture)

2001: Inmate incarcerated for nonviolent drug offense is beaten to death—corrections officers report that warden and assistant warden watched and laughed. Inmate’s family later files suit and GEO pays $42.5 million. (PBP, 8/25/12; www.texasprisonbidness.org/geo-group/settlement-reached-record-br