| Since July 1st 1995 when parole was abolished in Virginia, the services
in prison have been contracted out to the highest bidder. Before this,
your tax dollar was used for what you pay it for! Now it is used to warehouse
bodies for profit.
The Keefe Group:
This company sells goods to prisoners across the nation at very
high prices, (see Price
List) Families of those incarcerated send them money to help them
be as comfortable as possible while being warehoused. With these huge price
hikes in the cost of these items there is a hidden agenda. Keefe makes
millions and so does the State of Virginia and every other State they serve.
Keefe provides kickbacks to these States for allowing them to be the exclusive
vendor. Before privatizing the Canteens in Va. the local vendors around
Va.'s 40 plus prisons provided the goods sold. These LOCAL business
people built their business on the State's prisons. When the Va. Dept.
of Corrections joined the prison industrial complex, these vendors were
useless to them because it was not profitable to the State to use them.
These businesses went bankrupt and sued the State with no chance of beating
this monster that is the prison industrial complex. The State of VA. only
cared about lining its' pockets with the profits of an out of State vendor
and had no concern for the LOCAL taxpayer who made their living
by providing the same service at low cost to the family of the incarcerated
persons.
|
Phone Services:
| Inmates have phones in each housing unit all over this State. Pre
July 1st 1995 these phones were priced at the average collect rate at that
time. Inmate's family paid the same price of a collect call from a person
not locked up as one who was. The State decided to contract this out too.
Now a 15 minute collect call costs $9.00 on average. The company of today
in the Va. Dept. of Corr. is Global Tel*Link®. Inmate phone calls are
routed from Virginia prisons, through Texas, and back to Virginia. Anyone
with Caller ID who receives a phone call from a prison in the Va. D.O.C.
sees Texas on their Caller ID, and the company's Customer Service is in
INDIA!
The thing that the taxpayer does not know is that the Va. D.O.C.
receives anywhere between $6 and $8 million dollars in kickbacks from this
company as well. (per year)
|
The Geo Group:
| This is a private prison company. They operate
prisons across this nation. In Virginia they operate Lawrenceville Correctional
Center in Brunswick County. This company is paid with your tax dollar to
warehouse Virginia prisoners. This is done to cut cost of incarceration,
this company cuts every corner possible to warehouse inmates in an effort
to profit. The guards are paid less and receive none of the benefits that
Va. D.O.C. guards do, it uses its own private food services, medical, etc.,
etc., for the inmates it houses. Inadequate to say the least. The lack
of pay and benefits to the guards is the very reason it is most likely
the most corrupt institution in this State. Guards supply inmates with
Cell phones, drugs, cash, sex, and there was one instance of extortion
of an inmate who received a settlement from insurance by a ranking officer
there. The ranking officer used intimidation to force an inmate to pay
him thousands of dollars or get jumped by other inmates and claim he assaulted
the said officer. This made the newspapers in and around Brunswick in 2006
but went away after only firing the officer. He was not prosecuted of course!
This is what your tax dollar paid for. Guards supplement their lack of
pay by doing such things.
Governor Kaine just proposed borrowing 100 million dollars to build
another prison in Grayson County. (see Article
"Kaine Proposes $100 Million Grayson Prison" by Michael Hardy of the Richmond
Times Dispatch)
Another prison is set to be built in Charlotte County and is to be
Virginia's 2nd Geo Group run prison. (see Article
"Despite Halt in bed rentals, Va. strains to House Inmates" by Anita Kumar
of The Washington Post) Not only are the Geo Group being brought into
another Va. State Prison, the Va. D.O.C. is planning to layoff employees
because the warehousing has come back to haunt them. The state tricked
you the taxpayer to build all these new prisons since 1995. They did not
have the need for them at the time. They wanted to rent beds out to other
states who couldn't trick their taxpayers to pay for prisons. But after
abolishing parole and passing the 85% law, no one is getting out of Va.
prisons. So now they need the room due to overcrowding and cannot rent
the beds out because the Virginia Beach Sheriff sued the state because
he had inmates sleeping on floors in his jail because of out of state inmates
Virginia was warehousing. The sheriff won and the inmates have to go back
to their own states and Virginia is still short on beds and going to have
you pay for $100 million dollar prisons and $25 million dollars per year
for the 43 prisons it has and the 43 to come unless you say NO!
If you wish to know how this Geo Group gets these bids. (see "Correctional
Capitalism" in the Land of The Free by Jens Soering. PDF
Format HTML
Format) It explains how Campaign Contributions are made to politicians
and the dollar amount that each one has gotten from this group and others
to keep the gears turning on this machine called The Prison Industrial
Complex. (see Article "Profits for
Private Jailers")
|
HIGHLIGHT
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will propose several budget
changes when he addresses members of the state Senate and House today.
They include:
$100 million in borrowing for a medium security
prison in Grayson County.
$79.5 million for K-12
education, including $64 million for teacher raises.
$250 million for sewage treatment plants.
$60 million for Medicaid.
$161 million for transportation.
$175 million for construction cost overruns
on existing building projects around the state.
$15 million to increase retirement benefits
for state police
$15 million for homeland security.
$10 million remains unallocated |
Correctional Medical Services:
Prison Health Services, Inc.:
| These companies are contracted to provide health care in prisons
across this nation and Va! The same thing applies to them as the Geo Group.
They are in business to profit. Prisoners are cut short on real medical
service in order to accomplish this. There is no reason to treat human
beings like this. These type of companies have no right to provide services
to anyone with their attitude toward cutting cost by cutting services.
To learn more about them, contact Virginia's Health Department, and Attorney
General and see how often complaints and law suits are filed against these
companies. The state is not liable because they aren't providing the service,
they save money by contracting it out, and fining the company when they
break their contract and get caught. No harm no foul type of business.
It's only a problem if you get caught ia the Va. D.O.C.'s philosophy on
the matter. (also see "Correctional Capitalism" in the Land of The Free
by Jens Soering. PDF
Format HTML
Format for more info)
Aramark:
Canteen Correctional Services:
| These are food service companies that follow the same standard of
every other privatized company, only with food instead of life itself.
They profit only by cutting cost, ao the food is of the lowest quality
possible along with the lowest quantity possible. This goes hand in hand
with the Keefe Group.
Feed them only enough to stay alive, they'll have their families
send money to them to buy Canteen at your high prices, and we'll both make
millions! But at the same time, the state taxes you blind to provide these
services, and receives kickbacks from these companies you are paying for,
but they are broke? Where is all that money going? It is time for the politicians
behind all of this to answer these questions! You just have to ask them
first! |
|
Outside companies such as AC-Delco have plants
in Va. D.O.C. institutions. Coffeewood Correctional Center in Northern
Va. has a plant inside. Inmate labor at less than $1 dollar per hour is
used to rebuild starters and alternators, with the unemployment rate how
it is, those several hundred jobs could be had by law abiding taxpayers.
But that wouldn't be profitable to these politicians and D.O.C. officials.
Virginia prisons such as Greensville and Brunswick build furniture, Buckingham
and Dillwyn have metal shops. Basically the equivalent of a sweat shop
where the state profits, not you as the tax payer. In the U.S., companies
such as AC-Delco, TWA, WalMart, UpJohns, Toys-R-Us, IBM, MicroSoft, Boeing
and Nintendo use prison labor.
These practices are commonplace these days
only because those footing the bill to warehouse inmates are blind to the
facts. It will only get worse if the taxpayers in Va. and across this nation
tell these politicians, "It is over!" You have the one power that can bring
a politician to their knees, Your Vote! Please start questioning
them and voicing your opinion to them by phone, letter, email or face to
face! Everything you need to know to contact them is found in How
To Help.
Jobless rate up
The unemployment rate is up sharply since the beginning of the year: |
| Month |
Jobless Rate1
|
| January |
4.9%
|
| February |
4.8%
|
| March |
5.1%
|
| April |
5.0%
|
| May |
5.5%
|
| June |
5.5%
|
| July |
5.7%
|
| August |
6.1%
|
| September |
6.1%
|
| October |
6.5%
|
| 1 - seasonably adjusted; Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics |
|
