For Immediate Release

Contact: Kayla Keller, kayla@fitzgibbonmedia.com, 281.682.6212

ColorOfChange.org, the nation’s largest online civil rights organization, condemned Florida Governor Rick Scott for headlining a fundraiser on Monday in the house of George Zoley, CEO of GEO Group, the country’s second-largest for-profit prison corporation. ColorOfChange has collected close to 15,000 petition signatures calling on Governor Scott and the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice to end all contracts with private youth prisons in the state.

“Floridians deserve better than a governor who makes public safety decisions based on his cozy relationship with for-profit prison corporations, rather than the safety and well being of children, the cost to taxpayers, and what’s best for the state,” said Rashad Robinson, executive director of ColorOfChange.org. “Governor Scott should be ashamed to dine lavishly at the house of a prison profiteer while children endure the neglectful and abusive conditions of Florida’s privatized youth prisons.”

Governor Scott has a long history of taking money from the private prison industry, including taking a $20,000 donation from Zoley to help renovate the Governor’s mansion. Scott has been loyal to the industry and has consistently advocated for increased privatization of Florida’s prison system.

Despite the well-documented failures of private prisons, Florida continues to lead the country in wasting taxpayer money to line the pockets of private companies. In fact, 100% of Florida’s youth prison system, with a budget of $183 million, is controlled by companies like GEO Group, Youth Services International (YSI), G4S, and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), all of which have horrific track records of sexual abuse, improperly trained staff, unethical business practices, increased violence, and grave human rights violations. Annual quality assurance reviews are supposed to help the state decide if it will renew its private prison contracts, but private prison lobbyists have corrupted the process.

States all over the nation are ending their contracting relationships with the failed private prison industry. Last year alone, Kentucky, Texas, Idaho, and Mississippi broke ties with the industry after reports of chronic understaffing, inmate death, and rising costs to the states became too difficult to ignore.

Rashad Robinson continued, “Time and time again we’ve seen the devastating impact of private prisons on Florida’s criminal justice system. As long as private companies are running the system we will continue to see these problems. Governor Scott just took tens of thousands of dollars from the for-profit prison industry, a clear sign that he will continue this costly and dangerous path for the criminal justice system if he is re-elected.”

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With more than 900,000 members, ColorOfChange.org is the nation’s largest online civil rights organization.