Obama Nominates Private Prison Profiteer to Top DOJ Post

by Charles Davis November 10, 2010

As the Department of Justice (DOJ) employee tasked with overseeing the federal government's detention operations, Stacia Hylton awarded exclusive contracts worth tens of millions of dollars to private prison companies that profit from incarcerating Americans.

Now, even after it was revealed she made more than $112,000 this year as a consultant to one of those very for-profit prison companies, President Obama has nominated her to to one of the country's top law enforcement positions: head of the U.S. Marshals.

Understandably, human rights activists and advocates for the nation's 2.3 million prisoners aren't pleased.

"This is a prime example of the revolving door between the public and for-profit private sectors," says Alex Friedmann, associate editor of Prison Legal News, one of more than a half-dozen organizations calling on Obama to withdraw the nomination.

A news release from the coalition opposing her nomination notes that Hylton, during her nearly six years as DOJ's Federal Detention Trustee, awarded contracts worth up to $88 million to GEO Group, the second largest operator of for-profit prisons (the largest is Corrections Corporation of America, which helped pass Arizona's immigration law and whose president personally attended Hylton's retirement party earlier this year). And while in that role, Hylton specifically objected to a recommendation from DOJ's Office of Inspector General that called for limiting "the amount of profit a state or local jail can earn for housing federal prisoners." Perhaps she had a future private sector career in mind.

It should come as no surprise, then, that almost immediately after leaving the DOJ position earlier this year, Hylton became a consultant to that very company, GeO Group, earning $112,500 for "consulting services for detention matters, federal relations, and acquisitions and mergers," The Washington Times revealed last month.

And now, says Friedmann, "After cashing in on her experience in public law enforcement by taking a consulting job with GEO Group, Ms. Hylton has now been nominated for a high-level federal position where she will oversee detention services for the U.S. Marshals -- including services provided by private prison firms such as GEO."

In fact, as Bob Libal of the group Grassroots Leadership notes, "The U.S. Marshals preside over one of the nation's largest privatized federal detention systems." And as head of the U.S. Marshals, Hylton will be oversee the very policies driving the increase in the federal prison population -- and the profits of private prison companies -- such as Operation Streamline, an initiative launched by the Bush administration that requires all those caught crossing the border illegally, even first time offenders, to be prosecuted in the criminal justice system and sent to prison, rather than simply deporting them.

And under Hylton's watch, one could expect more and more people to be locked up in the U.S.'s bloated prison system -- to the cheers of GEO shareholders, no doubt, but to the detriment of those imprisoned for increasingly bogus, non-violent "crimes" and those of us forced to foot the bill for their detention.

"As taxpayers, we can’t afford increasing rates of incarceration, which we know is a failed public safety strategy that has terrible consequences for communities," says Tracy Velázquez, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute and a contributor to Change.org. "The administration should not be appointing someone working for the industry that most stands to gain by further increasing our country’s incarceration rate."