Author Topic: anybody ever hear of Abraxas?  (Read 15096 times)

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Offline Ursus

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Re: anybody ever hear of Abraxas?
« Reply #15 on: November 20, 2010, 01:06:28 PM »
Thanks for this information, Celyne. As noted in my post above, Abraxas has been owned by Cornell Corrections, Inc. for some time. When I visited Cornell's website just now, to check on the state of affairs, I was redirected to GEO's website. Apparently The GEO Group, Inc. bought out Cornell just a couple of months ago.
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Offline Ursus

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Re: anybody ever hear of Abraxas?
« Reply #16 on: November 20, 2010, 06:37:23 PM »
Quote from: "Celyne"
I did know that GEO bought Abraxas  but just found online that Cubic Corp bought Abraxas, (from GEO?) if this is the same Abraxas that runs the juvenile facilities? Maybe it's a different Abraxas Corp? I believe Cubic is one of the leading manufacturers of military weapons. I have to research this more....

FYI: This posted 4 days ago on the WEB:

"Cubic Corp. (CUB) has agreed to pay $124 million for Abraxas Corp., a provider of risk mitigation and expertise for national-security, law-enforcement and homeland-security clients."
As for Abraxis... it appears that the above-mentioned Abraxas Corp. is a different Abraxas, specifically one that is located in Virginia and which has significant ties to and involvement in "support services" for the CIA, according to this blog entry. Fwiw, they also do not seem to have any personnel in common.

Their website: http://www.abraxascorp.com/

Some press releases and news pieces which confirm that it is indeed the Virginia-based Abraxis Corp. which is in the process of being acquired by Cubis Corp.:

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Offline Celyne

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Re: anybody ever hear of Abraxas?
« Reply #17 on: November 22, 2010, 12:40:14 PM »
Hi:

Thanks for clearing that up.

When I first came across the article of Cubic buying Abraxas, it appeared to be a logical progression. GEO, as a provider of alternative elementary school programs for our urban poor is worrisome enough. Their track record including their contract with housing immigrants at Guantanamo is not assuring.

Apparantly the Philadelphia School District had a plan in 2008 to cut out of sending their students to for profit/independent facilities, but appear to have done little toward this agenda. Studies are continually coming out pointing to the fact that children in these programs rarely get out of them and onto productive paths. The actual accountability of these programs is murky at best. The process for sending the children to these alternative schools is also questionable. This is what I have been able to research so far. I am in the process of getting in touch with various groups that work within these organizations and those who are independent watchdogs of them. Any leads you could provide would be helpful.

Thanks,
Celyne
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Offline Celyne

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Re: anybody ever hear of Abraxas?
« Reply #18 on: November 22, 2010, 01:06:48 PM »
Also, actually, Cornell and GEO merged see http://http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100419006086/en/GEO-Group-Cornell-Companies-Announce-685-Million for this:

The GEO Group and Cornell Companies Announce $685 Million Merger
Creates $1.5 Billion Revenue Diversified Provider of Essential Government Services
Combined Company Well Positioned to Capitalize on Growing Global Demand for Correctional, Detention and Behavioral Health Services

Also found this an interesting statement from Cornell Co.'s 2009 Annual Report:

Our smallest division, Abraxas Youth & Family Services, faced particular challenges during 2009 due to budget cuts across the country, and in particular with our two largest markets: Pennsylvania and Illinois. This created intense pressure on all providers of juvenile justice and substance abuse treatment programs.
 
These pressures compelled us to reconfigure programs and consolidate capacity at several smaller facilities. Perhaps the one bright spot in this segment is that our unrelenting focus on operating quality has enabled us to increase market share from less resilient competitors who have either exited the market or “cut corners” as they try to survive.

 Though Abraxas did not achieve the goals that we established at the beginning of the year, we did make progress as demonstrated by increasing average contract occupancy over 2009 to 85.9% from 80.6% during 2008. Also, despite the funding cuts, average residential per diems increased by approximately 3% which illustrates our ability to shift our programs to a more attractive mix. We finished 2009 with many empty beds in this segment, but for 2010 we expect to continue to gradually increase occupancy and favorable mix so that the division can continue to generate cash for Cornell, despite the continuing budget pressures facing the segment.

Read more: http://www.faqs.org/sec-filings/100430/ ... z162D6z4Oc


I guess I'm just green and naive to this topic, but shouldn't the goal of these facilities be to get the residents out and on their feet, not to increase occupancy? (I know: this was written for shareholders, who are interested in their dollar return not in the societal implications of their investments). Still, there is an apparent conflict of interest here.
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Offline seamus

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Re: anybody ever hear of Abraxas?
« Reply #19 on: November 22, 2010, 04:25:40 PM »
What a bona-fide fucking monster THAT will become. Like some thing out of a bad orwellian/kafka-esque sci-fi movie. The potential for massive abuse is epic, fucking biblical. People need to know.
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It\'d be sad if it wernt so funny,It\'d be funny if it wernt so sad

Offline Ursus

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Re: Arlene Lissner: Gateway -> Abraxas -> Cornell Correction
« Reply #20 on: November 30, 2010, 09:48:27 PM »
Quote from: "Ursus"
Briefly, Lissner founded Abraxas in Marienville, PA in 1973. It was a small drug abuse treatment TC, dedicated to the addiction treatment of juveniles, but perhaps not exclusively. I think they had 30 residents in the beginning. They were absorbed by Cornell Corrections, Inc., at Lissner's initiative, shortly after the Welfare Reform Act was pushed through during Clinton's term in the latter half of 1996. This Act made economic survival real difficult for some private non-profit social services programs.

Lissner courted a deal which enabled her program to continue operations, semi-autonomously, within the larger framework of the for-profit corrections corporation. She also started a small research foundation which she still heads, at least as of a few years ago, which is also somehow connected to Cornell Corrections, Inc.
The full formal name for that Welfare Reform Act is the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. It had and continues to have a huge impact on the availability and delivery of certain social services, which includes the treatment and rehab of court ordered adolescents, which I believe is Abraxas' mainstay.

Excerpt from a keynote address given by Edward Skloot at the annual meeting of the California Association of Nonprofits, Oakland, CA, in October 1999, and subsequently published in the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly the following year:

    Three different models of service delivery now seem to be developing. The first model is sale and merger. Consider Pittsburgh-based Abraxas. This was a respected nonprofit organization that specialized in working with the hardest to handle young people. Three years ago, its CEO, Arlene Lissner, saw the handwriting on the wall. She feared large for-profits "would roll over us and put us out of business" (personal telephone interview). So Abraxas put itself in play. It chose to be bought out by a for-profit company, Cornell Corrections Corporation. It is now part of this $200 million comprehensive services firm. It runs both adult and juvenile correctional facilities from coast to coast.
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Offline Pile of Dead Kids

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Re: anybody ever hear of Abraxas?
« Reply #21 on: December 01, 2010, 02:50:23 AM »
I can't imagine how this could encourage shit like what happened with those Wilkes-Barre judges.
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...Sergey Blashchishen, James Shirey, Faith Finley, Katherine Rice, Ashlie Bunch, Brendan Blum, Caleb Jensen, Alex Cullinane, Rocco Magliozzi, Elisa Santry, Dillon Peak, Natalynndria Slim, Lenny Ortega, Angellika Arndt, Joey Aletriz, Martin Anderson, James White, Christening Garcia, Kasey Warner, Shirley Arciszewski, Linda Harris, Travis Parker, Omega Leach, Denis Maltez, Kevin Christie, Karlye Newman, Richard DeMaar, Alexis Richie, Shanice Nibbs, Levi Snyder, Natasha Newman, Gracie James, Michael Owens, Carlton Thomas, Taylor Mangham, Carnez Boone, Benjamin Lolley, Jessica Bradford's unnamed baby, Anthony Parker, Dysheka Streeter, Corey Foster, Joseph Winters, Bruce Staeger, Kenneth Barkley, Khalil Todd, Alec Lansing, Cristian Cuellar-Gonzales, Janaia Barnhart, a DRA victim who never even showed up in the news, and yet another unnamed girl at Summit School...

Offline seamus

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Re: anybody ever hear of Abraxas?
« Reply #22 on: January 30, 2011, 06:35:14 AM »
Quote from: "seamus"
What a bona-fide fucking monster THAT will become. Like some thing out of a bad orwellian/kafka-esque sci-fi movie. The potential for massive abuse is epic, fucking biblical. People need to know.
O K  what parent in their right mind is gonna send a kid to a rtc whos parent company runs a facility(parnered/contracted to I.n.s. ,and homeland security no less) in friggin Gitmo? wtf?http://www.abraxasyfs.com :jawdrop:


and lets not forget,GEO is really WACKENHUT,same private prison ownin' bastards.got caught on tape,beatin the hell out of inmates,just a few years ago. :nods:
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It\'d be sad if it wernt so funny,It\'d be funny if it wernt so sad