The Geo Group, one of the largest prison companies in the United States, will open a third re-entry center in the Bay Area, reported SF Weekly.
The new San Francisco SoMa facility joins the Male Community Re-entry Program and will house up to 80 inmates who are close to the end of their sentences and will be released in the Bay Area.
They will be required to wear electronic ankle monitors at all times.
The Geo Group also runs two other re-entry facilities, the Taylor Street Center in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district and the Oakland Center in Oakland.
Both facilities were reported to have had abuse allegations of “sexual touching and voyeurism,” according to the SF Weekly.
“The vast majority of people in prison are going home, whether you like it or not”
Regardless of any claims against the Geo Group, it “won a five-year, nearly $13 million state contract to run the re-entry center,” SF Weekly reported.
The facility will operate at least through June 2021. The state will pay the company $48 to $60 per inmate per day.
The contract requires the Geo Group to provide individual and group counseling, as well as substance abuse counseling. In addition, they are required to provide literacy, employment readiness, community survival skills, and housing assistance programs.
This new facility is part of a trend of private prisons diversifying into inmate re-entry service, even as scrutiny grows over of abuses in the private prisons sector, the article noted.
“The vast majority of people in prison are going home, whether you like it or not,” said Krissi Khokhobashvilli, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesperson. “These facilities help ease that transition.”
