Hardin Jail story turns weird...

by: Jay Stevens

Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 07:59:35 AM MST

...when Hardin officials announced this week that they had signed a deal with a California company to fill the empty jail, it was naturally a cause for celebration. Town officials talked about throwing a party to mark the occasion, their dreams of economic salvation a step closer to being realized.

But questions are emerging over the legitimacy of the company, American Police Force.

Government contract databases show no record of the company. Security industry representatives and federal officials said they had never heard of it. On its Web site, the company lists as its headquarters a building in Washington near the White House that holds "virtual offices." A spokeswoman for the building said American Police Force never completed its application to use the address.

And it's unclear where the company will get the inmates for the jail. Montana says it's not sending inmates to the jail, and neither are federal officials in the state.

Wha--? American Police Force describes itself as a "spin-off of a major security firm," and claims "to sell assault rifles and other weapons in Afghanistan on behalf of the U.S. military while providing security, investigative work and other services..."

So either it's a shadowy, private security company doing the dirty work for American intelligence agencies...or it's another big con played on an easy mark, a bunch of small-town country rubes already conned by a "Texas consortium" into building a jail no one needed.

Personally I'm hoping for the latter. I'm not a big fan of the idea that America has a secret prison network...