expanding in tough times, 1
The Palm Beach Post
November 2, 2001 Friday FINAL EDITION
SECTION: BUSINESS, Pg. 1D
LENGTH: 712 words
HEADLINE: ADJUSTING TO END OF PRISON BOOM WACKENHUT CORRECTIONS TURNS TO FEDERAL
AND NON-PRISON FACILITIES
BYLINE: Stephen Pounds, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
DATELINE: PALM BEACH GARDENS
BODY:
Private prison firms operated on a single theme through most of the 1990s:
Build them and they'll be filled.
Not anymore.
In 1994, 40 states were under court orders to ease prison overcrowding. The
year before, 30,000 violent criminals had to be released without spending a day
behind bars. States turned to private companies such as Palm Beach Gardens-based
Wackenhut Corrections Corp. to solve the crisis. They, in turn, undertook a
six-year prison building spree.
But now, as a result of lower crime rates stemming from the economic boom of
the 1990s, some states are facing a surplus of prison beds. Wackenhut has had to
rejigger its business strategy to cope.
It has turned more to the federal government than to the states for new
business and has diversified into managing other types of facilities.
"That's our primary focus domestically, until the state market develops,
which we think it will in the next year-and-a-half," said George Zoley,
Wackenhut Corrections' chief executive officer.
In the second half of 2000, state prison populations fell by 6,200 inmates -
the first drop since 1972 - compared with a rise of 6 percent from 1990 to
midyear 2000, a U.S. Department of Justice report showed.
Thirteen states reported a decline in the prison population for 2000, and
six others showed an increase of 1 percent or less. Making matters worse for
prison companies such as Wackenhut, states such as Florida are reporting a
surplus of beds. At the end of 2000, Florida had filled only 81 percent of its
prison beds.
Even so, the bed surplus hasn't hurt Wackenhut in Florida, where the state's
five privately run prisons - two of which Wackenhut runs - are at 95 percent of
capacity or better. Gov. Jeb Bush wants to save money by filling privately
managed prisons.
The state "has been specifically pumping inmates into our facilities because
of the budget crunch," said Mark Hodges, director of the Florida Correctional
Privatization Commission, that state agency that oversees the state's private
prisons.