And that my friends is a black eye on what was a great day up in Milledgeville yesterday as Gov. Sonny Perdue was on hand yesterday for the groundbreaking of the new 1500 bed prison slated to be open in 2012.
Officials from controversial GEO Group included the CEO Wayne Calabrese, as well as State Senator Johnny Grant, State Rep Rusty Kidd, & Angela Gheesling among others.
The prison will bring a total of 300 Jobs to Baldwin County, which has been hit extremely hard by Job losses over the past decade.
The $80 million facility will be constructed by New South Construction for The GEO Group. GEO won the bid over then competitors Corrections Corporation of America and the Cornell Company. GEO has since acquired the Cornell Company, placing it among the largest private corrections corporations in the world.
Its great that Baldwin County is getting jobs to help offset the highest unemployment in the county, but the problem here isn't the prison nor the jobs, its the GEO Group that will be operating the facility & the people of Baldwin County need to know about the history of GEO Group that consists of myriad of Lawsuits, Abuse, Torrid Conditions at its facilities. Suicides, fetid conditions in cells of inmates, mismanagement, squalid living conditions, atmosphere of intimidation,etc, etc, etc.
GEO has had problems at other facilities throughout the United States. In other states, the company has also been accused of providing inadequate healthcare and failing to protect inmates from abuse in addition to inmates’ deaths, riots and dangerous, filthy conditions.
But too bad the elected officials up in Baldwin County aren't going to inform voters what kind of people they are going to be dealing with in GEO Group.
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