GEO has a firm commitment to the health and safety of our employees and those in our care, as well as contractors, medical providers and visitors at all our facilities. Our responsibilities in these areas, along with those of our employees, are highlighted in Section 7 of GEO’s Code of Business Conduct and Ethics.
SAFE AND HUMANE ENVIRONMENT
We respect the right of all persons to have a safe and humane environment, and our commitment to this right is unwavering. Our goal of ensuring a safe and humane environment for everyone in our care calls for us to follow many sets of standards and laws that define and prescribe the daily operation of our facilities and programs.
Throughout our operations, GEO has implemented an Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) Management System that is grounded in Integrated Safety Management. Our health and safety management system and practices apply to all GEO employees and contractors. Through the EHS, we have established objective, quantifiable targets and extensive feedback and reporting mechanisms to achieve continuous improvement in our health and safety performance.
The overall management of GEO’s EHS program is led by GEO’s Corporate Risk Management department, which is comprised of more than 50 professionals with expertise in occupational safety, workers’ compensation and insurance, risk analytics, and environmental issues. Regional Safety Managers are embedded into our operations throughout the United States and provide hands-on, field support for our facilities.
All facilities in the U.S. Secure Services Division also employ a dedicated Fire & Safety Manager responsible for managing the EHS program at the local level. Fire & Safety Managers are formally trained in multiple EHS disciplines, including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), along with company and customer required practices.
In addition to organizational and management structure, the following elements are critical to GEO’s ongoing EHS program:
Operational Excellence:
Our organization strives to achieve sustained, effective levels of operational performance. This involves a focus on operations, decision-making, open communication, and systematic approaches to reduce and eliminate the chance of events or situations that may jeopardize the safety and health of employees and/or those in our care.
Individual Responsibility for Workplace Safety:
Every employee at GEO accepts the responsibility for safe operational performance and is trained to be mindful of work conditions that may have an impact on safety.
Compliance Oversight:
Competent, robust, periodic, and independent oversight is an essential source of feedback that can be used to verify safety performance expectations are met and to identify EHS gaps and opportunities for improvement.
Communication and staff engagement:
There are multiple formal and informal channels for communication to and from staff regarding the discovery and mitigation of potential hazards and corrective actions that involve all aspects of workplace safety. We also encourage individuals in our care to be active participants in each facility’s safety program by reporting any issues that may give rise to hazards or injury.
Safety committees are active at each of our facilities and play an integral role in assisting the Fire & Safety Managers and facility management teams, in reducing injuries and hazards associated with facility operations.
GEO has long been an industry leader in Safety & Risk Management. Several years ago, we launched a university partnership to create a Correctional Officers Safety Course. After many years of success and hundreds of GEO students attending the course, we decided to bring the course in-house. After six months of planning, development, and creating the curriculum, the first GEO/OSHA General Industry 30- hour class was conducted in December 2016. In 2024, GEO’s Risk Management department conducted two classes for Fire Safety Managers.
The GEO Safety Institute provides safety curriculum to each Division of the Company, as well as training curriculum for The GEO Continuum of Care®. Instructors are authorized trainers of the OSHA511 30-hour General Industry course. The course is generally attended by Fire Safety Managers, maintenance staff, compliance staff, management staff, and others. Since the inception of the GEO Safety Institute, approximately 525 Certificates of completion have been issued to successful participants.
The GEO Safety Institute also supports The GEO Continuum of Care® program for inmates and residents. The GEO Continuum of Care® program includes a safety curriculum that increases a participant’s ability to seek gainful employment
by providing several marketable training course certificates. The participants have access to classes such as the OSHA 10-Hour Construction Safety course
and forklift operator training. In 2024, 4,317 CoC students successfully completed either the OSHA 10-hour course and/or forklift operator training.
Since 2022, more than 12,000 CoC students have
completed the course.
THE GEO SAFETY INSTITUTE SUPPORTS THE COMPANY BY PROVIDING TRAINING MODULES ON THE FOLLOWING SUBJECTS:
In 2021, among other measures aimed at elevating the company’s protection against potential cyber-related incidents, GEO established a Board-level Committee to provide oversight on these matters. The Cyber Security and Environmental Oversight Committee is empowered and authorized to oversee and guide the Company's efforts regarding cyber security, privacy, and environmental concerns.
Notably, its members are from diverse industries that have implemented state-of-the-art protections against cyber incidents. Their collective insights inform measures being developed, implemented, and continually updated by GEO’s information technology, finance, operations, and risk management departments. Day to day cyber security responsibility rests with our Chief Information Security Officer, who reports to the Committee on a regular basis, and the IT Department. The Department has a data security incident management plan to investigate and remediate any issues that are raised.
GEO facilities take steps to protect the privacy of inmates/residents, clients, and employees, including monthly cyber security training, prohibiting memory storage devices, website restrictions, and requiring additional permissions for certain tasks. GEO takes data security issues seriously, and we have a third party conduct risk assessments and audits of our data security system on a regular basis.
BI Incorporated, like GEO, takes cyber security seriously: conducting monthly vulnerability scans that are initiated by a third party and adhere to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cyber security guidelines. In addition to NIST, BI Incorporated is in the process of obtaining Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) certification, which provides standardization of security monitoring for cloud products and services.
BI Incorporated also provides training to all employees on privacy and cyber security, conducts background checks, and maintains an administrative hierarchy for accessing information. In addition to these protections, BI Incorporated does not store any of the data collected nor do they analyze the data; this ensures that only the institutions using its devices have access to the information.
GEO also implements specific cyber-related risk management and insurance protocol tools for all GEO contractors, vendors, and suppliers.
GEO places great value on its relationships with its numerous and varied contractors, vendors, and suppliers; accordingly, the cyber security requirements are designed to protect them, as well as GEO, its employees and government clients from computer viruses, ransomware, malware, phishing and other attacks and potential threats from cyber-criminals.