So Long, “Owlcatraz”

by Kyle Weidleman  |  April 04, 2013

Maybe naming a college football stadium after a company that cuts costs at the expensive of public safety wasn’t such a good idea. (Photo: artist’s rendering)

A private prison company has withdrawn its financial gift that would have given it naming rights to a state university stadium for more than a decade.

GEO Group was on track to give Florida Atlantic University $6 million to place its name on the school’s football stadium for 12 years. Following student outcry, a letter signed by more than 60 anti-private prison groups including AFSCME, and media attention from the New York Times to The Colbert Report, the so-called “Owlcatraz” deal was called off by GEO.

These private prison corporations often cut a deal with state governments promising to bring down corrections costs – while still making a profit – although the alleged savings prove illusory. GEO, one of the largest prison privateers in the county, has been under attack for years for its cost-cutting methods that put all stakeholders at risk, from corrections officers to the general public and even the prisoners themselves.

Private prison companies, including GEO, use cost-cutting methods that include: refusing costly (i.e. violent, ill or otherwise high-needs) prisoners and forcing them into the public prison system; setting mandatory capacity quotas on the state government; for-profit overcrowding; cutting corrections officers’ salariesby tens of thousands of dollars; dangerous understaffing and allowing facilities to fall into cruel and unusual disrepair.

The public backlash against private imprisonment – including an official condemnation by the New Hampshire House of Representatives – is unsurprising in light of the facts of for-profit corrections facilities. AFSCME will continue to fight against for-profit prisons and state privatization which serve to line the pockets of corporate fat cats at the expense of public services and the working families who provide them.