PRI Chapter 56: Angelina Holds Leverage

After being called upon by Chad Bruce, Lind came to the center of the conference room and briefly explained Border Prison's management measures to everyone.

This included daily management of prisoners, technical training, and wage promotion systems.

However, when he mentioned paying prisoners over ten thousand dollars monthly in wages, many wardens immediately lost interest in learning.

After all, they usually paid prisoners no wages or extremely low wages.

To them, every penny spent on prisoners needed to be split in half before they wouldn't feel it was such a loss.

They absolutely couldn't be as generous as Lind.

Yes, even paying $4 daily to each prisoner who worked 8 hours, they felt was too generous.

They believed Border Prison's system couldn't last long and that the prison would eventually be forced to cut prisoner expenses due to declining income, finally reducing wages to the same level as other prisons.

Only a few people thought Lind's method was good and could be applied to their own prisons with slight modifications.

Lind looked at the chattering crowd, maintaining a polite smile on his face while inwardly scoffing at their comments.

If it were an ordinary prison, perhaps it would indeed have to cut expenses due to backward technology and difficult prisoner management.

But was Border Prison an ordinary prison?

Given time, Lind was confident he could turn it into America's largest private prison and military equipment production factory.

Not to mention anything else, just establishing the electronic ankle monitors and high-tech police baton production lines would already surpass 80% of America's prisons in technical content.

So Lind completely ignored others' comments.

After sharing his insights, he didn't leave but sat beside the ACA chairman.

Only after the meeting officially ended amid discussions did he intercept Chairman Chad Bruce as he got up to leave, actively saying, "Mr. Chairman, thank you for recognizing our prison."

"Don't mention it," Chad Bruce was a middle-aged man with drooping eyebrows who had held important positions in multiple private prison companies and had deep understanding of the industry.

Perhaps because he found Lind agreeable, Chad Bruce opened up, "I think your prison's management model is very good and worth promoting. You know, America's private prisons are generally quite chaotic now, which isn't conducive to requesting government funding support."

"Understood, Mr. Chairman. That's why I've been working hard to develop the prison's self-operated products," Lind said, taking out some photos from his bag. "Look, this is our newly built production line."

"Oh?" Chad Bruce took the photos and was quite surprised after viewing them. "These are electronic ankle monitors? You've assembled their production line?"

"That's right, sir."

"Do you have enough skilled workers?"

"Through headphone production line training, we currently have 15 prisoners capable of electronic ankle monitors production work, and before coming here, we had already produced several samples," Lind explained to the chairman.

"Quite surprising," Chad Bruce stared at Lind's young face. "This isn't something ordinary people could accomplish. I'm very pleased to see a young person with such vision."

"Thank you for the praise."

"This isn't praise. In fact, I think you've accomplished what many prisons cannot, perhaps..." Chad Bruce pondered for a moment, then continued, "Perhaps you could help ACA secure a major client."

He then asked, "Do you have time tonight?"

"Of course," Lind nodded.

"Then are you interested in meeting other prison administrators?"

"I'm very interested, Mr. Chairman." Lind smiled.

Not far away, watching Lind chat happily with the chairman, Austin couldn't help feeling somewhat jealous.

But he was a man of action, so he also ran to Chad Bruce's side, wanting to get familiar.

However, Chad Bruce didn't have much to say to him, only exchanged a few simple words before turning to leave.

When Austin turned to look for Lind, he found that he and that beautiful female secretary had already left the exhibition.

...

At midnight that night, Lind returned to the hotel reeking of alcohol after attending the banquet.

Just as he was about to wash up, there was suddenly a knock at the door.

"Knock knock knock!"

Through the peephole, Lind saw the female secretary's figure.

Opening the door, Angelina stood prettily at the entrance holding a hot towel.

She had changed to gray stockings today, which looked very lustrous under the light, seemingly made of different material than before.

Lind supported the door frame with one hand, "You're still awake?"

Angelina's lips curved upward, "As a secretary, naturally I can't sleep earlier than the boss."

"Such nice words, but I won't give you a raise," Lind smiled and made way at the door.

After returning to the room, he sat in the hotel chair, enjoying Angelina's thoughtful hot towel face treatment.

"Did it go smoothly?" Angelina timely brought up tonight's drinking session.

Lind tapped the armrest with his finger, "Very smoothly, or rather I appeared at just the right time."

He began recalling everything that happened tonight.

In the first half of the drinking session, he met the heads of CCA and GEO, and saw bosses from other major prison companies.

Since Lind could see everyone's weaknesses, or rather preferences, he quickly integrated into these capitalists' conversations and successfully gained everyone's favor.

He talked about art collectibles with Chad Bruce, discussed horse-raising insights with the CCA head, and played blackjack with the GEO head.

In short, everyone got sufficient emotional value from Lind.

So much so that everyone took turns chatting with Lind and even invited him to visit their homes.

In the second half of the drinking session, after some unrelated prison bosses left, Chad Bruce finally revealed his purpose.

In fact, the reason Chad Bruce invited Lind to their drinking session was because they were currently negotiating a cooperation with the federal government.

"Guantanamo Bay Prison?" Angelina raised her eyebrows upon hearing this name. "Isn't that the location of the US military base in Cuba?"

"Exactly," Lind nodded and explained. "The US military plans to establish a prison inside the Guantanamo Bay naval base for holding criminals."

"This project has already passed Congressional approval and is estimated to begin construction next year, then be completed in 2002."

"What ACA, or rather CCA and GEO want to compete for, are the orders for various facilities within the prison."

Angelina understood but was still somewhat confused, "But what does this have to do with our prison?"

Lind picked up a coin to play with in his hands, "Of course it's related. Regarding Guantanamo Bay Prison, there are currently two voices within the federal government."

"One is to place orders with military-industrial enterprises or private companies for construction."

"The other is to place orders with major private prisons for construction."

As for why not give orders to public prisons? Don't be ridiculous, public prisons have transparent accounting, how would officials take kickbacks!

Lind continued, "But the problem is many people don't trust private prisons' production capabilities and quality, so there will be special officials conducting inspections of major private prisons next."

"But as you know, CCA and others are great at exploiting prisoners, but making prisoners work hard and improve their skills is somewhat difficult for them."

"So after the chairman saw the electronic ankle monitors produced by our prison, he actively proposed adding us to the supplier list to handle officials' inspections."

Angelina shrugged after listening, "Sounds quite troublesome. Can't you just use money to pave the way?"

"Of course you can, but those officials have big appetites. If quality doesn't meet standards, how much money do you think it would take to convince them?"

"Most importantly, if supply quality is reliable, when those officials take kickbacks in the future, we'll also have room to negotiate."

"I see."

Angelina threw away the cooled towel and pressed her tender hands on Lind's shoulders and neck, gently giving him a massage.

"So comfortable."

Lind closed his eyes, planning to see what tricks this little bitch would play today.

After massaging for two minutes, he suddenly felt his belt loosen, followed by a cold little hand slipping inside.

"Hiss!"

[NEXT CHAPTER]