Mark
Bottom of Form / Insight on the News, April 22, 2002 v18 i14 p33(1)
Prison industry goes global. (Security). (Wackenhut Corrections Corp.)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included) Tim Lemke.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2002 News World Communications, Inc.
More than 1,000 illegal immigrants from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Indonesia and other nations are detained in the blistering desert of Australia's Outback. Across the ocean, South African prisoners sleep in newly built cells. Thousands of miles away in Yorkshire, England, 16-year-old violent offenders ,peer out of small cell windows overlooking the CheswaldRiver. All have one thing in common: They are watched over by guards of a U.S. company.
Wackenhut Corrections Corp., a Palm Springs, Fla., company, operates 55 prisons, immigration detention centers, juvenile facilities and psychiatric hospitals, with a significant chunk of its business coming from overseas. In the United States, the company operates 36 facilities, including detention centers for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Queens, N.Y., and Aurora, Colo., and has plans to operate a 1,000-bed prison in CharlotteCounty, Va., beginning in the fall.
Outside the United States, the company runs 19 facilities, including a maximum-security prison in South Africa and five immigration detention facilities in Australia designed to accommodate the influx of illegal immigrants. In fact, Wackenhut's Australian subsidiary, Australasian Correctional Management, operates 10 facilities there under exclusive contracts or licensing agreements with the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA), the Australian immigration agency. The company has exclusive rights to operate three more immigration facilities that are being built as contingencies.
Perhaps most notable of the Wackenhut facilities is the Woomera Immigration and Processing Centre, located in the desert 300 miles from the South Australia capital, Adelaide. It is Australia's largest detention center for illegal immigrants, with 1,200 detainees. (In all, more than 2,700 people from 84 nations are detained in Australia.) The Woomera facility has expanded rapidly since it opened in 1999 as immigrants from oppressive Middle Eastern nations or war-torn countries fled to Australia, most often by boat.
The company has room for growth due to the political stance of Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who was reelected in November on a strong stand against illegal immigration and support for a policy of indefinite detention for illegal immigrants. Of course, detainees aren't happy with their lot. At Woomera, they reportedly have gone on hunger strikes, some said to sew their mouths shut to protest the government's immigration policies.
Most recently, Wackenhut raised eyebrows when it helped open a new maximum-security prison in South Africa in March. The company entered into a 50-50 partnership with Kensani Corrections Ltd. to build the Kutama-Sinthumule prison under contract from the South African Department of Correctional Services.
The 3,024-bed prison is seen as a risk by some because of the volatile and violent history of South Africa. But analysts say the nation's notoriously high rate of violent crime will ensure the prison will remain full and, therefore, profitable. Furthermore, South Africa is, at least for the time being, stable enough to conduct business.
Meanwhile, the company has moved into other countries through partnerships with international companies and under license agreements or contracts with the national and local governments. In Britain, its joint venture, called Premiere Prison Services, operates seven facilities, including the 524-bed Prison Lowdham Grange, one of the country's largest prisons, located in Nottinghamshire, England.
The company, which began trading on Nasdaq in 1994 and the New York Stock Exchange in 1996, pulled in $562.1 million in 2001, an increase of $27 million over the previous year. Net income also grew from $17 million, or 80 cents per share, in 2000 to $19.4 million, or 92 cents per share.
TIM LEMKE WRITES FOR Insight's SISTER DAILY, THE WASHINGTON TIMES.
Article A84971439
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