GEO Group says it’s not interested in Fla. re-entry services

Private prison operator The GEO Group says it has “no plans” to provide prisoner reentry services in Florida.

Spokesman Pablo E. Paez responded Friday to a FloridaPolitics.com report this week on nonprofit groups saying the Department of Corrections was shutting them out of continuing to help inmates and probationers readjust to life “outside the walls.”

Bridges of America CEO Lori Costantino-Brown and other nonprofit heads held a press conference Thursday in Tallahassee.

Costantino-Brown was asked about GEO Group’s annual report, which mentions the company’s “commitment to be the world’s leading provider of offender rehabilitation and community re-entry programs,” and whether the company was influencing the state’s decision making.

Costantino-Brown said she had “no evidence of that,” but added “there has been a lot of speculation about their involvement.”

Paez says: Not us.

“The speculation that our company was in any way involved with this decision is 100 percent false,” he said in an email. “Our company does not currently provide reentry services in Florida and has no plans to do so.”

The Boca Raton-based company “greatly respects the Governor’s efforts to improve the ability of state-run institutions to help inmates re-enter society; investing in programs to break the cycle of recidivism is simply the right thing to do,” Paez said.

“We pride ourselves on our rehabilitation services to maximize our inmates’ ability to transition successfully when they leave,” he said. “We have been providing in-custody rehabilitation programs in Florida since the 1990s.”

Costantino-Brown previously had said Corrections recently put out a bid “to bring all (treatment and rehab) in-house in one massive in-prison contract.”

Paez added: “More recently, we have expanded and enhanced our leadership in evidence-based rehabilitation programs around the country through our Continuum of Care initiative that includes comprehensive in-custody offender rehabilitation programming integrated with post release support services such as housing, employment, and transportation assistance. We believe that we are most effective and at our best when those entrusted to our care re-enter society as productive and employable citizens.”

A Corrections spokeswoman earlier had independently responded with a Sept. 26 statement from Secretary Julie Jones that said the department is “not limiting services or the number of individuals served” but is increasing “the number of work release beds and substance abuse care.”

Kevin Cate, spokesman for Bridges of America, denied that assertion, saying the state’s “plan is to remove over 800 beds statewide and replace them with 75 beds in Orlando and 150 in Hillsborough, where no vendors even have a facility … They refuse to deal with the net loss of beds.”