Up North Progressive

North Lake Correctional Facility has been a double-edged sword in Northern Michigan’s side for over two decades. GEO Group can’t keep the for-profit prison open without government contracts, and the local community can’t stay fiscally afloat without the revenue the white elephant produces for them.

In 2019 GEO Group announced the millions of dollars donated to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and inauguration paid off and they landed a 10-year contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Local Lake County residents halfheartedly cheered at the prospect of going through yet another activation.

With less than two years into their ten-year contract, one former employee feels the need to speak out about what’s happening at NLCF. Brianna Wightman posted to Facebook on May 17, 2021, of her experience working for GEO Group and their treatment of her since putting her on unpaid administrative leave – and leaving her there.

If you work or plan on working for North Lake Correctly Facility aka The Geo Group Inc…

Don’t!

And this is why,

In 11/20/2020 I started working for this company and at this point, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. The job itself was fine however the management and the warden are all from a company also owned by the geo group from another prison that is now shut down. This prison was D-Ray James correctional facility in Georgia.

They had those people come to Michigan to train employees here. I dealt with the lack of respect from these out-of-state workers and I wasn’t the only one. It got to a point I stood up for myself and one worker didn’t like that so she lied to the warden stating that I punched her. Which I was in front of the camera and that didn’t happen.

But it’s a whole system of politics. I finally was able to sit down in front of the warden and tell my side of the story. Only I didn’t know that my side of the story and the cameras didn’t matter, he already made his decision and drew up a letter putting me on administrative leave without pay “pending” termination.
It is now 5/17/2021 and I still have yet to be fully “terminated” and everytime I ask what’s going on the company just gives me the run around. I have not been able to fill for unemployment due to this situation.

Now, what possible benefit would there be for North Lake Correctional Facility to keep someone on their payroll while for all intents and purposes terminated employment with them? Other than being a dick move that keeps the former employee from collecting unemployment, could it be NLCF is struggling to keep enough people on their payroll so they don’t lose their federal contract with the Bureau of Prisons?

Ms. Wightman has more to say:

The warden continues to make shady deals with the prisoners and is able to get away with these deals because of covid, that’s right covid is being used as an excuse not to search cells. And in these cells inmates have shankes (sic), cell phones, home made alcohol aka hooche. Anytime a cell was searched I was surrounded by all of the inmates in that pod. 98 inmates to be exact on one particular occasion. In which we had probable cause to search the cell because this specific inmate had smelled and acted like he was drunk. Of course while being surrounded, the sergeant and lieutenant [on] duty was called 5 different times from 4 different people.

Just before being hired in at NLCF, there was one incident that an officer was attacked and shanked. And y’all wonder why this happens…

The media reported COVID-19 infections at NLCF early during the pandemic, but there have been few if any recent updates from local media. Independent media and blogs however reported inmate deaths are misreported intentionally, hunger strikes protesting conditions in the prison during the COVID pandemic, and the fact that NLCF’s main method of mitigating exposure is to keep inmates locked in their cells with only brief opportunities to leave. Many of these accounts from different sources talk about the same violations: Being fed rice and beans multiple meals every day, mail not being received or sent.

One source claims the only books they receive come purchased through Amazon. They have never seen the library at NLCF. This news is shocking. If they have never seen the library, what about the law library? Both of these resources exist and access to both is mandatory for both federal and state-run prisons.

Locking inmates in their cells and denying access to resources and mail are all major violations. In contrast, Brianna Wightman’s description of no searches or extractions in the inmate cells allowing contraband to exist thanks to the “shady deals” made with the warden is equally alarming.

Because GEO Group owns North Lake Correctional Facility, a private company, there is very little they must make public unless the Bureau of Prisons requires it. Privately contracted prisons are under a different set of rules from the BOP. It’s unfortunate after the population from Vermont left in 2017 that NLCF was allowed to reopen at all. GEO Group never kept its promise of providing hundreds of local jobs to the region, preferring to import employees from other facilities and giving them higher-paying jobs. When they started hiring in 2019 pre-activation they struggled to get enough people to work for them at $17.00 an hour – a third of what Michigan’s Department of Corrections pays their employees. How many 2019 hires still work there dealing with inmates and co-workers with COVID, shanked by inmates, and more importantly, are still on NLCF’s payroll after being sacked to pad their books with the BOP and not get shut down?

President Biden needs to shut down these immigrant prisons immediately.