Senator McSorley has soured on prison privatization. New Mexico, he says, has not yet measured the hole in its Treasury left by a mere few months of Wackenhut operations. The company's latest move is to dump 109 of their problem prisoners on the government which must spend millions to ship them to other states' penitentiaries. And, unlike government prisons, there's little or no schooling, job training, library books, although the state pays Wackenhut for these rehab services. But most are left in their metal cages.
Brutality is cheap, humanity expensive - in the short run.
The chief of the state prison guard's union warns that Wackenhut's treating prisoners like dogs insures they lash out like wolves. Wackenhut Corporation does not want to be judged by its corrections affiliate only. In March, this column described their other services. We reported that a British Petroleum unit had wiretapped and bugged the home of a whistle blower working with the US Congress. This black bag job was contracted to, designed by and carried out by a Wackenhut team.