In June 2011 staff at the South Florida State Hospital began to worry Luis Santana, who'd long battled mental illness, had slipped into another psychotic episode, writing in reports that Santana was "pacing, restless, repeatedly flushing the toilet." Some hours later hospital staff put Santana, pumped with six powerful psychiatric meds, into a hot bath.
Staff later discovered Santana's dead body in the scalding water, the skin "sloughing" off his face. That's according to an investigation by the Florida Department of Children and Families last year into Santana's and two other questionable deaths at the 335-bed facility operated by the GEO Care, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the private prison corporation GEO Group.
This summer, just as the Associated Press first reported on the three gruesome deaths at GEO's South Florida psychiatric hospital, GEO was ramping up efforts to take over management of a similar facility in Texas. In a quiet, largely overlooked budget rider last session the Legislature told Texas Department of State Health Services to seek bids from private companies to run one of Texas' public psychiatric hospitals — the caveat being the company could somehow run the facility at 10 percent below what Texas currently spends, all while managing to eke out a profit.
Only GEO responded to the bid, and according to those with knowledge of the proposal GEO has its eyes on the Kerrville State Hospital, where courts every year send hundreds of incarcerated criminal defendants declared incompetent and unable to participate in their own defense, so-called "forensic commitments."
As DSHS reviews GEO's proposal — the agency's set to deliver its findings and recommendation to the Governor's office and the Legislative Budget Board this month — advocates, government watchdogs, and mental health care providers bemoan the prospect of turning Kerrville over to GEO.
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Still this year a Justice Department investigation into GEO's Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in Mississippi concluded GEO officials turned a blind eye to sexual misconduct by staff with young inmates while also ignoring medical needs and suicidal behavior.
In April a federal judge wrote the youth prison "has allowed a cesspool of uncons utional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate, the sum of which places the offenders at substantial ongoing risk." GEO didn't attempt to renew its Walnut Grove facility contract or two others at Mississippi jails.
Watchdog groups worry GEO will continue to work its political connections to score another contract here. Stephen Anfinson, who headed the Kerrville facility until 2011, began working for GEO shortly after leaving the facility to oversee GEO's psych hospitals. Government watchdog groups like Public Citizen have complained Anfinson's insider knowledge of the facility gives GEO unfair advantage.
With the state currently spending about $27 million to run the Kerrville hospital each year, a contract for GEO could be lucrative. The 202-bed facility is almost always at capacity thanks to the mentally ill defenders that clog our criminal justice system. Meanwhile, many doubt GEO could maintain Kerrville's standard of care while spending 10 percent less and make a profit without cutting corners. "We already have the lowest-cost mental health care system here in Texas," said Leon Evans, president and CEO of the Center for Health Care Services in San Antonio. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Texas spends less per capita on mental health care funding than any other state.
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but ma private prisons are an example of big government! The government is too BIG, and that's why it's controlled by private sector lobbyists! A weak, less powerful government is a lot harder to corrupt! 
Go Repugs, shovel taxpayer $Bs to for-profit corporations! 