Saturday, March 29, 2014

STOP Rep Kavanagh's $900,000 bonus for GEO Group!

thanks to the AFSC-Tucson for this:



URGENT ACTION ALERT
No Handouts for GEO Group!!
Tell Senate Appropriations Chair to pull $900,000 appropriation for GEO Group in state budget!

The budget deal negotiated Thursday in the state House included an EXTRA $900,000 specifically earmarked for facilities run by one private prison corporation: GEO Group.

This money was not requested by the Department of Corrections.  The Arizona Republic reported that a lobbyist for GEO Group went directly to Rep. John Kavanagh, Chair of the House Appropriations Committee to make the request.

The corporation essentially circumvented both the contract negotiation process AND the state agency budgeting process.
Despite a contentious process in which a group of holdout Republicans were fighting to secure needed funds for the states broken child welfare system, Kavanagh handed this corporation $1 million that the Department of Corrections says it doesn't need.
How many needy Arizona families will go without child care? 

How many CPS cases will go uninvestigated because John Kavanagh cares more about the interests of GEO Group than about the people of Arizona?
Read The Republic story here
YOU CAN STOP THIS
The Senate hears the budget THIS MONDAY, March 31.

Call the Senate Appropriations Chair Don Shooter and Senate President Andy Biggs and tell them to pull the plug on Kavanagh's $1 million GEO Group giveaway.

Sen. President Andy Biggs: (602) 926-4371; abiggs@azleg.gov
Send emails this weekend, but please call first thing Monday morning.
*Please CC cisaacs@afsc.org on any emails you send and forward any responses you get (even automatic ones) so we have an idea of how much impact this action has had. Thanks!

Caroline Isaacs
Program Director
AFSC Arizona
Learn more about the work of AFSC Arizona
AFSC Arizona combines advocacy for incarcerated people and their families with statewide policy change to document and improve prison conditions while working to reduce the number of people incarcerated in Arizona.

Through research, documentation, advocacy, and sentencing reform, AFSC Arizona secures more humane prison conditionsprevents prison expansion, and fosters alternatives to incarceration.

We serve as a resource for prisonersex-prisoners, and their family members, providing information and resources to address questions, and a place to get involved in bringing their voice to the seats of power in Arizona.