According to a 14 April Tulsa World article, Republican Senate President Pro Tem, Glen Coffee, and former State Representative, Fred Morgan, took a little vacation to Mexico with Brett Robinson, a lobbyist for GEO, a private prison company.
Information provided for fiscal year 2008 by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows that the state spent slightly more than $78 million to house inmates in private prisons. Of that amount, slightly more than $41 million was spent with GEO.
Was this cozy little friendship between GEO and Coffee the reason that Coffee requested an analysis from the State Board of Corrections of what it would cost to close 3 state prisons?
Oklahoma has one of the highest incarceration rates in the nation. When the private prison industry is sure we have no other alternatives to house our prison population, they will jack up the cost per inmate and Oklahoma will be at their mercy. That's exactly what they did in New Mexico. Yes, today, they do it slightly cheaper, but when we put ourselves in a position where there is no competition for the private prisons, they will gouge us big time. Those trips to Mexico are not cheap.
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Information provided for fiscal year 2008 by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows that the state spent slightly more than $78 million to house inmates in private prisons. Of that amount, slightly more than $41 million was spent with GEO.
Was this cozy little friendship between GEO and Coffee the reason that Coffee requested an analysis from the State Board of Corrections of what it would cost to close 3 state prisons?
Oklahoma has one of the highest incarceration rates in the nation. When the private prison industry is sure we have no other alternatives to house our prison population, they will jack up the cost per inmate and Oklahoma will be at their mercy. That's exactly what they did in New Mexico. Yes, today, they do it slightly cheaper, but when we put ourselves in a position where there is no competition for the private prisons, they will gouge us big time. Those trips to Mexico are not cheap.
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