THE TIES THAT BIND
America is a prison economy. All roads lead "inside." The attempt to control people's lives and restrict their opportunities has created a dragon whose greed, corruption, and incest are boundless. Even mutual funds are invested in prisons, which are the growth industry today. The people who run the corporations-and everything else-run the prisons too. The Boys and Girls Clubs (youth control program), the colleges and universities-all are being poisoned by this rot.
The "ties that bind" are the connections between prisons and corporate America, allowing one sector of the population to profit from the misfortune of another. This has nothing to do with justice! Privatized prisons are a large part of the interlocking on Wall Street. The non-privatized prisons are invested as government bonds and camouflaged in shadow companies.
Interlock: to join together, join with one another, to connect or be connected so that neither part can be operated independently.
Interlocking Directorates: Boards of Directors having some members in common, so that the corporations concerned are more or less under the same control. Boards of Directors are a collection of people who bring their connections (interlocks) with them. Therefore, they are enhanced by senior officers and standing committees. The privatized prisons have different boards of directors for the parent corporation and their subsidiaries. That leaves a lot of board members, creates a lot of overlaps, and involves many corporations.
Read through the Boards of Directors mentioned below and notice the connections and vested interests that many Directors bring to the table. Everything is connected. This information has not been brought to the public's attention before.
CORRECTIONS CORPORATION
OF AMERICA
the industry leader in private corrections is CCA, 10 Burton Hills Blvd., Nashville, TN, 37215, (615) 344-9551. Founded by former politicians and other "community leaders," including a former governor, senator, and judge, CCA manages 64,946 beds in 79 facilities in the U.S. and abroad. They are currently negotiating with the government of Ontario, Canada, for a full, private, design-build-and-operate system.
Some of the deals the company engaged in recently include an agreement with the County of Tulsa, OK, to manage a new 1,440-bed multi-security jail for adults and juveniles. Revenues will exceed $17 million a year. The County will build the jail and finance it. Opening date is expected in April, 1999. CCA contracted with the State of Montana to build and operate in Shelby, Montana, a facility expected to generate $9 million in profits annually.
The privatized prison corporations act as umbrellas for numerous investment opportunities. At the moment, CCA is proposing a merger with PZN (Prison Reality Trust), which is already part of CCA. PZN is a Real Estate Investment Trust. CCA will give their shareholders .875 share of PZN for every share of CCA stock held. This kind of manipulation is an ordinary part of the dirty dealing of privatized prison corporations, whose "product" is keeping people down.
A Texas evangelical coalition is bidding to turn a CCA prison in Venus, Texas, into a "faith-based operation." A professor of religion, Ronald Flowers, at Texas Christian University and president of the N. Texas chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, commented that "an inherent problem with this plan is government sponsorship of religion." The faith-based prison movement has grown out of the efforts and legislation of Gov. George Bush, Jr. to get private and religious groups involved in programs that were previously state-sponsored.
Wackenhut Corporation
The second largest private prison corporation is Wackenhut Corp., 4200 Wackenhut Dr., Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410, (561) 622-5656. A modern concrete and glass building standing on Hwy. 1-95 in Palm Beach County, Florida, is the headquarters. At the other end of Palm Beach County, near Belle Glade, amidst sugar fields, part-time employment, no employment, poverty, and homelessness, sits South Bay Correctional, a wretched Wackenhut facility where prisoners complain of brutality, violence, poor food, and despair. At the other end of the globe, in Port Phillips, Australia, another Wackenhut prison is host to similar conditions.
Wackenhut Corrections is a subsidiary of the Wackenhut Corporation. Their "turnkey" approach to developing new corrections institutions for government agencies includes construction, financing, and operations. They provide correction services for adults, juveniles, and special purpose institutions. According to the company, they offer health care and rehabilitative programs. According to a prisoner in South Bay Correctional Institution, a Wackenhut facility near Belle Glade,. Florida, they offer neither rehabilitative programs nor anything resembling health care!
Wackenhut's correctional services include adult corrections, juvenile facilities, community corrections, and special purpose institutions! Like CCA, they have divided themselves into various subsidiaries (aliases). One of them is Atlantic Shores Healthcare. It will assume operation of a 350-bed South Florida psychiatric hospital, contracted with the Florida Department of Children and Families. It includes the design, finance, construction, and management of a new facility to be opened around the year 2000.
Florida is polluted by Wackenhut. Universities, utilities, and health care facilities are connected to it. W.D.I., another Wackenhut subsidiary, will construct a new 350-bed facility on an existing hospital campus for $35 million. Florida Power and Light has awarded Wackenhut a 5-year contract to provide nuclear security services at 2 nuclear power plants in Dade County (Miami) and St. Lucie County (winter home of the NY Mets). Spreading their tentacles over Florida, they provide "security and physical protection, employee leasing and temporary staffing, facility management, food service, and fire, emergency, and supplementary police services."
Wackenhut also operates Corrections Properties Trust (CPV)-same address, same Board of Directors-a company defined as "a real estate investment trust company which acquires correctional and detention facilities from both private prison operators and governmental entities." The company leases its facilities to correctional and detention facility operators under long terms, triple net leases.
The company has its allies in the investment world, touting them as a sure bet. On July 9, 1998, Brian Rogers, an analyst for Genesis Merchant Group Securities, said, "Requirements for additional prison-bed funding will continue for the foreseeable future, providing correction Properties Trust with opportunities beyond the Wackenhut Corrections pipeline. We also believe Corrections Properties is provisioned to provide the capital needed to build beds for municipalities facing voter resistance to prison funding initiatives." In other words, your vote is meaningless. They do what they want anyway! The list of mutual funds that have some monies in Wackenhut is extensive, as are the investment banks who trade with them, for example, First of America, Putnam Investment, Keystone Investment Management, Piper Capital, Oppenheimer Fund, Investment Advisory, Morgan Guarantee Trust, Dean Witter, Ivy Management.
The corporate connections between universities, hospitals, and the prison-industrial complex are frightening. For example, Wackenhut Board member Benjamin Civiletti, is also on the Board of John Hopkins University and GBMC Healthcare!
Wackenhut has contracts to manage 50 facilities in North America, Africa, Europe, and Australia. They claim to have a total of 32,957 beds and additional contracts for prisoner transportation, correction health care services, and maintenance of secure facilities. "Wackenhut is the industry leader in the International market," says Chairman George Zoley. They have awards or contracts for over 50% of prison beds which have been privatized in countries outside of the U.S.
In July, 1998, Wackenhut announced that its South African consortium, South African Custodial Services (SACS), was selected by the government of South Africa as the preferred tenderer for the design, construction, financing, and operation of a 1500-bed remand center, pre-trial detention facility, in Boksburg, Gauteng Province. The SACS consortium submitted bids for the design, construction, and operation of two of the 1500-bed maximum security prisons.
Wackenhut's partner in South African Custodial Services, Kensani Consortium Pty. Ltd., is working with the African Merchant Bank as financial advisors and merchant bank. Three projects which interest Wacp;kenhut-the construction and operation of two 1500-bed maximum security prisons, a 1500-bed remand (pre-trial detention facility), plus a youth facility-will be the first prisons to be privatized by a government on the African continent.
Correctional Services
Corporation
Correctional Services Corporation (CSC), formerly Esmor Correctional Services, is another privatized prison corporation in Florida, 1819 Main St., #1000, Sarasota, FL 34236, (941) 953-9199. Like their cohorts in crimes against the community, CSC "provides management and operation of secure and non-secure corrections and detention facilities. The company provides these services to federal, state, and local corrections agencies. Their facilities include detention and processing centers, shock incarceration, and residential programs."
CSC operates facilities in Florida, New York, Arizona, Texas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Washington State, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Puerto Rico with a total of 7,693 beds. Their securities are also managed by the Mellon Bank. Some mutual funds that invest in CSC are: Philadelphia Investment Management, Penn Mutual Life Insurance., Travelers Group, Legg Mason Woodwalk, and A and B Investment Management.
Security holders for CSC include Mellon Bank, 18,700 shares; Philadelphia Investment Management, 16,000 shares; Penn. Mutual Insurance, 13,000 shares; Evans, Raymond (Proxy), 8,419 shares.
CORNELL CORRECTIONS
Another name in this Rogues Gallery is Cornell Corrections (CRN) in Houston, Texas. It is currently operating 43 facilities. Cornell has acquired some of the assets from Allvest in Alaska, which includes profits of $10 million from a 540-bed pre-release center. According to the company, revenues for the first six months of 1998 increased 100% to $56 million, from $28 million reported for the same period in 1997.
CONCLUSION
How long can a society continue whose keystone is prison (a social crime and failure)? This nation has gone completely berserk! It is out of control.
Basta ya! Enough!
Boards of Directors
CORRECTIONS CORPORATION OF AMERICA
(Partial Listing)
Dr. R. Crants, CEO and Chairman of the Board. Also West Point grad, Dir. Sodexho (the French counterpart of CCA), Dir. Sodexho Marriott Services, Dir. Saint Thomas Hospital, Dir. West Point Society of Middle Tennessee, Dir. Prison RealtyTrust-expected to serve on the Board when they merge with Sodexho-Marriott. PZN is also headed by Dr. Crants, but has a different set of executives. They include D. Robert Crants, III, as President!
Thomas Beaseley, Founder and Chairman of CCA. Also Dir. Community Education Partners, Inc., a privately held company providing educational services to various governments. Also President of Dixon Springs, Investments, 1974-1978. Also Chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party.
Lucius E. Burch, III, Director. Also, was Chairman of Massey Burch Investment Group, Inc.; Dir. Norrell Corp, a publicly traded company and a leading provider of staffing, outsourcing, and professional services; Dir. QMS, Inc., producer of Intelligent Graphic Systems and Laser Printers; Dir. Titan Holding Inc., an insurance holding company; Dir. Physician Resource Group.
David E. Bradby, Director. Also former facility administrator for the Houston INS center, former Regional Mgr., Virginia State Dept. of Corrections.
Susan Hard, Director. Also former Dir. of Public Relations for the American Red Cross Blood Services.
John D. Rees, Director. Also former Warden, Kentucky State Reformatory and Oklahoma State Corrections Dept.
Linda Staley, Director. Also formerly worked at the Justice Dept. and the INS in contracting and procurement.
Gay Etheridge Vick, Director. Also formerly with Vick and Harris, where he master-planned correctional and detention facilities.
R. Clayton McWhorter, Director. Also Dir. Columbia/HCA (health corporation), Dir. Staffmark, Inc.; Chairman, Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp., 1995-96, current Dir. Lifetrust America, a privately held company engaged in the assisted living business. Dir. Clayton Associates, providing venture capital to small businesses. Dir. Suntrust Bank, Nashville. Dir. YMCA, Dir. University of Tennessee.
Samuel W. Bartholomew, Jr., Director. Also Chairman-Founder of the law firm Stokes and Bartholomew; Dir. Sun Trust Bank, Nashville; Pres. Appointment to the Fed. National Mortgage Assn. Board.
Jean-Pierre Cuny, Sr., Director. Also Sr. V.P. Sodexho Alliance-French-based supplier of food and other services to institutions. Former V.P. Pechiney, diversified aluminum producer. Sodexho-Marriott merger will leave them the largest food service and facilities management in N.A.
William Andrews, Director. Also Dir. Shrader, Inc., Dir. Sewell Fasteners, Dir. Micom Communications, Dir. Dayton Superior Corp., Dir. Northwestern Steel and Wire, Dir. Black Box Corp., Dir. Southern N. Eng. Telecomm, Dir. Harley-Davidson, Inc.
Joseph F. Johnson, Director. Also CEO and Chairman of the Johnson Companies, closely held companies involved in government relations and corrections. Founder of National Corrections and Rehabilitation Corp., a correctional services company. In 1992, Mr. Johnson was the National Campaign Manager and political advisor to Virginia governor Douglas Wilder. Formerly council member, District of Colombia. Was Executive Dir. of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition.
Wackenhut Board of Directors
(Partial Listing)
George Wackenhut, Chairman of the Board and CEO. Former Special Agent, FBI. Former member of the Board of Directors of SSI Medical Division while at Wackenhut. Also Dean's Advisory Board, University of Miami School of Business.
Richard Wackenhut, President & Chief Operating Officer.
Anne Newman Foreman, Director. Served as Under-Secretary of the Air Force, 1989-93. General Counsel of the Dept. of the Air Forces. Attorney Boodle Hatfield Co., London. U.S. delegate to the United Nations. Foreign service career in Beirut and Tunis.
Edward Hennesy, Jr., Director. Former Chairman Allied Signal, Dir. United Technologies, Dir. Hueblein, controller ITT Board of Directors, Dir. Lockheed martin, Dir. Bank of NY, Dir. NAI Technologies, Trustee of Catholic University, Treasurer of March of Dimes.
Paul X. Kelley, Director. General Kelly is a former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, former member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, partner J.F. Lehman, Dir. Allied-Signal (an aerospace automotive and engineered materials company), Dir. UST (a tobacco products and wine company).
Nancy Clark Reynolds, Director. Sr. consultant of the Wexler Group (a government relations and public affairs consulting firm in Washington, DC), Dir. Norrell (a temporary help service firm), Dir. Smithsonian Museum, Former Dir. Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Dir. Sears Roebuck, Dir. All State Insurance.
Julius W. Becton, Jr., Director. General Becton is CEO and superintendent of the Washington, DC Public School System. Also, Dir. Prairie View, Dir. A & M University, Dir. General Dynamics, Dir. NSC, Dir. Discovery Cable, Dept. of Defense Army Advisory Panel.
Alan Berstein, Director. With Wackenhut since 1976 except for a leave in 1982 to work in a family-owned security business in NY State. Dir. Ranger Security Detectors, Dir. Miami Museum of Science and Planetarium.
Carroll A. Campbell, Jr., Director. Former two-term governor of South Carolina, member of the House of Representatives, South Carolina, member of U.S. House of Representatives.
Richard G. Capen, Jr., Director. Also former U.S. Ambassador to Spain, former Vice Chairman and Dir. Knight Ridder, 1989-91, Chairman and publisher of the Miami Herald, 1983-89.
John Ruffle, Director. Also former Chairman J.P. Morgan & Co., Dir. Polymer Group, Dir. American Shared Hospital Services, Dir. Bethlehem Steel Corp.
Dr. Floretta Dukes McKenzie, Director. Also Chairwoman/CEO McKenzie Group, Dir. Marriott International, Dir./Potomac Electrical Power Co.
Manual Justiz, Director. Also Dean, College of Education, University of Texas.
Norman Carlson, Director. Also Senior Lecturer, Sociology Dept., University of Minnesota.
Anthony Travisono, Director. Also Dir. Salve Regina University, Dir. Corrections Properties Trust (aka Wackenhut).
Benjamin Civiletti, Director. Also Former Attorney General of the U.S., Dir. John Hopkins University, Dir. GBMC Healthcare.
CORRECTIONAL SERVICES CORPORATION
(Partial Listing)
Dr. Melvin T. Stith, Director. Also Dean of College of Business, Florida State University, and former Chairman of the Marketing Dept. of the Florida State College of Business, Dir. Rexall Sundown, Inc., Dir. Boca Raton, Florida distributors of health food and vitamins (while the prisoners eat garbage!), and Dir. Financial Corporation.
Shimmie Horn, Director. Also owner of Iroquois Hotel, New York City.
Michael Gorretson, Director. Epstein, Becker & Green
James Irving, Director, and V.P. of CSC Juvenile Justice Operations.
Stuart Gerson, Director. Also former Assistant U.S. Atty. General for the civil division of Dept of Justice.
James Slattery, Director. Also co-founder of the company formerly with Mermco Properties, a hotel company, and former Mgr. with Sheraton Hotel Corp.
Richard Staley, Director. Also has held various positions with the U.S. Dept. of Justice and the INS.
CORNELL CORRECTIONS
(Partial Listing)
Campbell A. Griffen, Jr., Director. Also formerly with the law firm of Vinson & Elkins, served as Adjunct Professor of Administrative Science at William Marsh Rice University.
Richard T. Henshaw III, Director. Also Dir. of American Disposal Services, a solid waste service co.
Arlene R. Lissner, Director. Also former President of Abraxas Group (acquired by CRN), a spinoff of Abraxa, which she still chairs, related to juvenile facilities.
Tucker Taylor, Director. Also consultant to the healthcare industry, remained with Columbia/HCA following its acquisition of Medical Care Int'l., former V.P. Federal Express.
William J. Schoeffield, Jr., Director. Also former V.P. Federal Express.
Marvin H. Wiebe, Jr., Director. Also formerly of Eclectic Communications, which was acquired by CRN. He was previously V.P. of Secure Detention.
Thomas R. Jenkins, Director. Also V.P. of Abraxas, former Dir. of various juvenile facilities in Pennsylvania, and former Dir. of Pennsylvania Child Welfare Service.
Laura Shol, Director. Also from Eclectic. Before that, she was with the Salvation Army.
Winter Contents 1998 -- NCX -- Archives -- Electrons to the Editor