-Caveat Lector-
Just in the process of updating
http://leviathan.weblogs.com
And I thought this article might interest listreaders:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0012/12/pageone/pageone7.html
The more punishment the better to fill George Wackenhut's coffers
A reclusive American millionaire is the man behind the company accused of covering up
abuses of detainees at Australia's migrant detention centres. Bernard Lagan reports.
George C. Wackenhut, a Florida-based former FBI agent, has built a business behind
bars that makes him $US400 million a year.
In his Sydney outpost, a four-times-daily ritual helps protect his profits. At 8am
each day, the 400 people in the Villawood detention centre for illegal migrants line
up for about 30 minutes before the guards employed by the local subsidiary of the
Wackenhut Corporation, the world's largest private jail operator. They carry their
photo identification passes, and wait to be counted.
Before they go to sleep at night, in what even the Department of Immigration has
conceded are overcrowded and inadequate conditions, the muster will be repeated three
times.
Escapes from Villawood cost Mr Wackenhut's local, wholly owned subsidiary,
Australasian Correctional Management (ACM), thousands of dollars in penalties to the
Government, which has contracted the company to run Australia's six detention centres
where around 3,500 illegal migrants are kept. That includes the Woomera detention
centre, in the South Australian desert, lately the subject of widespread criticism
because of the treatment of inmates.
The number of daily musters, recently increased at Villawood, can - as the Australian
Human Rights Commissioner has pointed out in a report to Parliament - be traced to
ACM's need to preserve its profits.
ACM's charges are, in official parlance, non-citizens - people locked away because
they have illegally entered Australia, mostly by boat, or who have overstayed their
visas.
Yet they are also a source of cheap labour for ACM and its subcontractors who employ
detainees to work in detention centre kitchens and clean toilets.
Where else would people work 12 hours a week in return for a $15 or $20 phone card -
the going rate for detainees, including those at Villawood?
Those who work in NSW prison industries are paid up to $75 a week.
George C. Wackenhut now has some 40,000 prisoners and illegal migrants in his
companies' charge in the US, Europe and beyond, including about 5,000 in Australia, if
the three private prisons ACM runs are included.
Villawood is being expanded to lift the detainee population from 500 to 650. Woomera
is being expanded to cater for up to 2,000.
Wackenhut will profit from the extra numbers so long as ACM retains its contract when
it comes up for renewal next year.
Wackenhut is a great believer in incarceration. He said in a documentary screened on
SBS in October: "They're [Australia] really starting to punish people, as they should
have all along." He added: "This year we are going to make $US400 million."
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
