A Note On The For Profit Prison Industry
I was surprised to learn there were so many ways to make money from locking people up and letting them out; here are four that I’ve come across:
1. Creation of for profit prisons: Private companies, such as CCA and Geo Group (formerly Wackenhut), contract with states and with ICE, the Bureau Of Prisons and the U.S. Marshals Service, to operate immigrant detention centers known as contract detention facilities (CDF’s) on a per inmate, per diem basis under contracts known as Inter-governmental Service Agreements (IGSA’s). For example, using 2009 #’s, ICE detained 383,524 people, the average daily prisoner population was 32,098 dispersed over the 270 immigrant detention centers in the U.S. There were at that time, 7 facilities owned and operated by CCA or GEO Group. These companies refer to the number of empty beds at their facilities as “inventory surpluses” and to the illegal immigrants they might ‘host’ as “organic growth opportunities”.
2. Increase of prison populations: The introduction of ALEC model legislation, such as the “three-strikes” laws, popular in the 1990’s contributed to the explosion in the prison population nationwide. More prisoners = more $.
3. Use of prison labor to manufacture goods: Private, for profit companies, with the introduction and adoption of ALEC model legislation, use prison labor, a captive work force, to make goods at a cheaper cost than companies that use non-prison labor. Cheaper costs = higher profits & an unfair advantage over companies that do not use prison labor. So much for the ‘free market’.
4. Privatization of the parole process: Private, for profit, bail bond industry, led by the American Bail Coalition & ALEC, proposed via model legislation, a program entitled, Conditional Post-Conviction Release Bonding. This program would allow for early release of juveniles and misdemeanor non-violent offenders, who would be required to pay to post a bond with a private, for profit, bond company, to secure their early release on the condition they would return to jail for violating the terms of their parole.
I never agreed with the idea that a profit should be made from someone’s misery, especially when I think the opportunities for misery are by increasing and increasingly, by design, with the decline in affordable education, good paying jobs, increased militarism and an abundance of legislation that eventually, just may create criminals out of all of us.
See:
Corporate Con Game: How the private prison industry helped shape Arizona’s anti-immigrant law.
by Beau Hodai
http://www.inthesetimes.com/main/print/6084/
The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor
by Mike Elk and Bob Sloan
http://www.thenation.com/article/162478/hidden-history-alec-and-prison-labor
Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law
by LAURA SULLIVAN
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130833741
American Bail Coalition sports ALEC model bill legislation:
A Plan To Reduce Prison Overcrowding And Violent Crime:
http://www.americanbailcoalition.com/documents/ALEC_State_Factor_Prison_Overcrowding.pdf
Three Felonies A Day: http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/
