Florida, famous for shipping orange juice all over the country, may yet be known for a very different kind of export: criminals, says the St. Petersburg Times. With the inmate population hovering around 100,000 and the state lacking money to build more prisons, the state legislature is permitting officials to ship inmates to other states for the first time.
The nation’s largest private prison company, Corrections Corporation of America, houses prisoners from eight states, including California, and has long promoted the transfer idea in Florida without success. CCA calls itself “the leader in out-of-state housing.” It operates 62 prisons and has thousands of surplus beds in other states that it is eager to fill with convicted felons, and Florida has the nation’s third-largest prison system.