A former legislative aide to now–Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been lobbying his former boss’s Department of Justice on behalf of a private-prison giant that has seen its DOJ contracts increase under the Trump administration.
Roughly two months before Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, two former Senate aides to former Alabama Sen. Sessions registered to lobby for the Florida-based GEO Group, which has gotten more government funding for detention and re-entry services since Trump took office. Lobbying records reviewed by TYT show that one of these lobbyists, David Stewart, has helped his law firm, Alabama-based Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, pull in $390,000 from GEO Group since the third quarter of 2016.
Since this lobbying arrangement commenced, GEO Group bought its first facility in Alabama, a state that has generally opposed private prisons despite support for the industry from Sessions, the state’s former attorney general and U.S. senator. In April 2017, GEO Group purchased the Alabama Therapeutic Education Facility, which the company calls “the first and largest residential re-entry center in the region.” The purchase was part of GEO Group’s acquisition of the company Community Education Centers.
Two months earlier, Sessions had rescinded an Obama-era DOJ order to reduce federal contracts with private-prison companies. According to GEO Group, the Alabama Therapeutic Education Facility contracts with the Alabama Department of Corrections and the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles. The latter entity has four ongoing DOJ grants for re-entry and reducing recidivism totaling nearly $2.3 million.
According to GEO Group’s website, the facility provides “cognitive behavioral therapy, substance abuse programming, educational services, life skills, relapse prevention, cultural diversity programs, family services programs, workforce development activities, work release services, community volunteer service, faith-based services, and alumni and aftercare programs.”
In February, an inmate at the Alabama re-entry center likely died from exposure to a stimulant drug known as flakka.