Leave it to Laredo to team up with problem-plagued GEO group



LareDos reported on the fiasco way back on 2007


As many locations throughout Texas were ending their contracts with the GEO group for various shortcoming, the Gateway City was but a handfull of towns that were only to eager to start up a relationship with the questionable private prison system.  As the Fort Worth Star Telegram reports, Pearsall and Laredo plus a few others contracted with GEO even after their well-publicized problems. Laredo Proud!


First, from The Fort Worth Star Telegram Today 09/03/2011

Some private prison operators also were stung by charges that they were lax in providing training for their work force, that they skimped on food and medical service and that some guards abused offenders.
GEO, which operated the North Texas Intermediate Sanctions Facility, was stung by such criticism.

The company, formerly known as Wackenhut, was criticized for letting one facility fall into disrepair with unsafe and unsanitary conditions, for an escape from the Fort Worth unit and for incidents categorized as riots. In 2010, the company reported a $20.6 million decline in revenue because of the termination of management contracts at the Fort Worth Community Corrections Facility on North Henderson Street, as well as facilities in Venus, Newton and Beaumont and one in Illinois.

Still, the company got new contracts for detention facilities in Conroe and Maverick County and in New Mexico; from a Laredo center opened in 2009; and from new services at a center in Pearsall in South Texas, the company reported.

Golden Oldie: From LareDos 2007
as appeared in Texas Prison Bid'ness.com

More Bad Press for GEO on Laredo Superjail Deal   

Geo Group Cover Story in LareDOS: LareDOS, an award-winning monthly alternative paper in the Texas border town of Laredo, has published a scathing (PDF only) of the GEO Group’s recent deal with the City of Laredo and Webb County to build a 1,500-bed private US Marshals federal detention center.

As reported earlier here at Texas Prison Bid'ness, GEO president George Zoley showed up in Laredo last month wielding $250,000 checks for both the City and Webb County -- but Zoley did not leave Laredo empty handed. Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas presented him with a building permit and Webb County Judge Danny Valdez gave Zoley an agreement to provide the prison with water and electrical hook-ups.

The LareDOS article quotes Webb County Commissioner Keko Martinez lamenting a lack of citizens “tell(ing) us that they did not want a prison here.” That comes as a surprise to us at South Texans Opposing Private Prisons who, along with the Encinal Economic Development Corporation, a group of Laredo educators, and national experts, have repeatedly warned that the superjail could bring potential problems with few benefits.