GEO Group Opens Large Private Prison in Florida

GRACEVILLE, Fla. — International correctional and detention management firm GEO Group unveiled a new facility that could eventually be Florida’s largest private prison.

The $70 million Graceville Correctional Facility in Jackson County is designed to accommodate 1,500 inmates, and a 384-bed extension is already on the drawing board, officials say.

GCF handles minimum- to medium-security classifications, as well as close-custody prisoners and those with mental-health issues.

All inmates incarcerated at the facility will be required to participate in vocational programs, work detail or both, officials say.

Vocational programs offered at the prison include culinary arts, horticulture, computer applications and electrical wiring skills.

The Graceville facility is the sixth privately operated prison to open in the state.

The five existing facilities — GEO’s Moore Haven and South Bay, and Corrections Corporation of America’s Bay County, Gadsen County and Lake City — accommodate a combined population of 6,244 prisoners at a cost of nearly $95 million in 2006, officials say.

Baton Rouge-based GEO, which houses approximately 42,000 offenders at 50 facilities throughout the United States , also operates private prisons, detention centers and immigration facilities in Australia, Canada, Cuba, South Africa and the United Kingdom.