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Virginia Takes Back One Prison from GEO Group, Closes Four More
On July 1, 2024, Virginia’s Department of Corrections (DOC) closed four prisons and was set to terminate its contract with private prison giant GEO Group, Inc. just over a month later, taking back operational control of its only privately operated prison, Lawrenceville Correctional Center (LCC), on August 4, 2024.
The medium-security prison in Brunswick County has been managed by the Florida-based firm since 2003. It was unclear how its loss would affect the company, which reported 2023 revenues of $2.41 billion and net income of $113.8 million. DOC spokesperson Kyle Gibson said the measure was taken to “enhance public safety in the commonwealth.” As PLN reported, LCC had DOC’s second-largest prisoner population when it reported seven deaths in 2021. [See: PLN, Feb. 2022, p. 44.] Another 12 deaths were reported in 2022.
Brunswick County Sheriff Brian K. Roberts began his law enforcement career in 1998, the year that LCC opened. He had called it an asset to the rural county, until September 2022, when he said the lockup had become a liability. That was after the county’s Office of Emergency Communication received 204 calls from the prison between January 2021and May 2022, including 39 drug overdoses and 21 prisoners found unresponsive.
During summer 2022, two emergency calls turned into hazmat situations. Alberta Volunteer Fire Department Chief Ted Smith said that a group of his responders were “exposed to a drug,” perhaps fentanyl, though he admitted that “we still do not know what it was.” It put those “squads out of service for 24 hours.” Smith said that the county’s unincarcerated residents suffered when his crews spent so much time at the prison that heart attacks and diabetic emergencies outside its perimeter fence were not treated in a timely manner.
Although the GEO Group contract saved the Commonwealth $9.3 million for FY2020, Sheriff Roberts called it a “failed business transaction,” citing persistent staffing shortages that resulted in deductions in payment to the GEO Group of almost $4.5 million between 2018 and 2022. When a cabinet member of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) met with Roberts and GEO Group executives in August 2022 about the troubled prison, it was noted the LCC had 55% of all overdoses in DOC’s 50 prisons.
The takeover will cost Virginia about $9.3 million, primarily to hire 93 more guards to meet safe staffing requirements. Youngkin’s office said the budget will cover that cost. The other four lockups mothballed by DOC were Augusta Correctional Center, Sussex II State Prison, Haynesville Correctional Unit #17 and Stafford Community Corrections Alternative Program (CCAP). The four together held some 2,000 prisoners, and it was unclear where they were moved. Again, it was the number of staff vacancies that DOC cited in making the closing decisions “to enhance employee, inmate, and probationer safety, to address longstanding staffing challenges, and in consideration of significant ongoing maintenance costs.”
Sources: Richmond Times-Dispatch, Virginia Mercury, WTVR
