In an age when freedom is fast becoming the exception rather than the rule, imprisoning Americans in private prisons run by mega-corporations has turned into a cash cow for big business. A growing number of American prisons are now contracted out as for-profit businesses to for-profit companies. The companies are paid by the state, and their profit depends on spending as little as possible on the prisoners and having as many as possible, housed as cheaply as possible. Approximately 13 million people are introduced to American jails in any given year. Incredibly, more than 6 million people are under “correctional supervision” in America, meaning that one in 50 Americans are working their way through the prison system, either as inmates, or while on parole or probation. The majority of those being held in federal prisons are convicted of drug offenses — namely, marijuana. Presently, one out of every 100 Americans is serving time behind bars.
States Have to Guarantee Prisoners to Private Corporations
For Corrections Corp of America (CCA) and GEO Group, the leaders in the partnership corrections industry, prisons are a $70 billion gold mine. Two years ago, in an attempt to increase profits, CCA floated a proposal to prison officials in 48 states offering to buy and manage public prisons at a substantial cost savings to the states. In exchange, the prisons would have to contain at least 1,000 beds and states would have to agree to maintain a 90 percent occupancy rate in the privately run prisons for at least 20 years.
The Economic Recession Is Good for Business
Corrections Corp of America pointed out to potential state clients that private prisons comprise a unique, recession-resistant investment opportunity, with more than 90 percent of the market up for grabs, little competition, high recidivism among prisoners and the potential for “accelerated growth in inmate populations following the recession.” To make sure they have the ear of lawmakers — who write the sentencing regulations — CCA spent about $1 million in both 2009 and 2010 on direct lobbying expenses on the federal level alone. The company and its Political Action Committee further gave over $812,000 in federal and state political donations in 2009 and more than $722,000 in 2010.
Profiting From Locking Up Children
In Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, in 2009, it was revealed that for 10 years, the Mid Atlantic Youth Service Corporation, which specializes in private prisons for juvenile offenders, paid two judges to jail youths and send them to private prison facilities. The judges, who made over $2.6 million in the scam, had more than 5,000 kids come through their courtrooms and sent many of them to prison for petty crimes such as stealing DVDs from Wal-Mart and trespassing in vacant buildings. When the scheme finally came to light, one judge was sentenced to 17.5 years in prison and the other received 28 years, but not before thousands of young lives had been ruined.
Immigrants Are Good for Business
In recent years, private prisons have profited not only from harsh sentencing policies but also from an unprecedented increase in the number of detained immigrants — a group incarcerated pursuant to civil detention authority but housed in prison-like conditions. According to one group, facilities operated by private prison companies currently house nearly 50 percent of the more than 30,000 immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at any given time.
Private Prison Companies Brag About Providing Local Jobs
The GEO Group’s website, for example, claims that GEO prisons provide local communities with an “influx of capital [that] has the ability to stimulate the economic makeup of a community through consumer spending, new business enterprises, and capital improvements.” Similarly, CCA promises that “[o]ur presence means more revenue for counties, towns, cities and states. Our facilities mean more local jobs for hardworking residents.”
In Hardin, Montana, Helping Those With GEDs Get a Job at Private Detention Center
In 2004, a group of businessmen had a proposal for the small town of Hardin, Montana: Build a private detention center. The theory was that such a facility would lead to economic benefits for the community. In 2004, the city’s economic development director predicted that at the new facility, a job seeker “with a GED or high school diploma” might be able to “get a job with a significantly higher income.” To finance the project in Hardin, the economic development authority created by the town issued $27 million worth of municipal bonds that were both uninsured and unrated. But once the facility had been built, it was unable to obtain a contract to house prisoners, and its 464 beds remained empty. One news report described the facility as follows: “Inside its concrete walls, orange jumpsuits, rubber sandals and stacks of white tube socks weigh down the shelves of the storeroom. Computers, phones and video monitors line the tables in the control room. In the cafeteria, stacks of plastic trays and cooking utensils wait to be put to use.” To fill its empty jail, when President Barack Obama pledged to remove all detainees from Guantanamo Bay, the Hardin City Council voted unanimously in favor of receiving Guantanamo detainees at the local facility, a proposal that of course never materialized.
$100 Million Worth of Abuse in Mississippi
Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility, a juvenile prison in Mississippi operated by the GEO Group, was the target of a lawsuit and a Department of Justice investigation regarding conditions alleged to be so horrific that a former resident reportedly calls the facility “the deepest depths of hell.” Another former prisoner indicates that violence is so pervasive that it has become “entertainment” for guards. The facility averaged as many as three injuries per day due to violence. Oversight at the facility was highly questionable, as the GEO Group provides reimbursement for the salary of the individual appointed by the state to monitor conditions. A lawsuit filed by the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2010 alleges a pattern of horrendous physical and sexual abuse by security staff, use of prolonged solitary confinement, abuse and neglect of mentally ill youth, and failure to provide basic mental health care. While juveniles allegedly suffer in atrocious conditions, private companies including the GEO Group have, according to one report, extracted more than $100 million in revenue from the facility’s operation.
Low Pay for Guards Leads to High Turnover, More Violence
Dangers in private prisons may reflect, at least in part, financial incentives to minimize costs and thereby maximize profits, according to an ACLU report. Indeed, according to one scholar, “there is a much stronger incentive for private [prison] companies to save costs, not for the public’s benefit, but for their own profit.” In particular, low pay for private prison staff may result in a higher level of staff turnover. As stated in one study, “private operators are running prisons with workers who are generally paid less than their public-sector counterparts,” and “privately operated prisons … had much higher separation rates for correctional officers.” Since such a high percentage of operating expenses are related to staffing, that is where private prison firms cut costs to generate profit. On average, they employ fewer staff members than comparable public prisons; they pay less than in the public sector; they offer fewer (or less costly) benefits; and they provide less training. According to the last self-reported data from the private prison industry, published in the 2000 Corrections Yearbook, the average turnover rate at privately operated facilities was 53 percent. The average rate in public prisons was 16 percent.
In Arizona, Inexperienced Staff Led to Horrific Escape
The infamous escape of three prisoners, including convicted murderer Tracy Province, from a private prison in Kingman, Arizona, on July 30, 2010, provides a tragic illustration of the dangers created in one private prison — and the use of inexperienced correctional officers, according to the ACLU. The escapees were charged with allegedly murdering, while on the run, an elderly Oklahoma couple vacationing in New Mexico, and setting fire to their camper.
One of the prisoners was recaptured only after a chase in which he fired bullets at a police car; another was caught while hitchhiking with a pistol. The director of the Arizona Department of Corrections described the prison break as the state’s worst escape in 30 years. The escape is all the more tragic because security lapses may have been a contributing factor. Although alarms went off as the prisoners escaped, state officials would later report that private prison guards ignored the alarms, deeming them false. In August 2010, shortly after the escape, the Arizona Department of Corrections produced a scathing security assessment of the private prison, finding, among numerous other problems, that the private prison’s staff lacked experience and routinely ignored alarms.
More Recidivism at Private Prisons
Private prison operators have limited incentives to reduce future crime. While the empirical evidence is mixed, individuals released from private prisons may be more likely to commit future crimes than people released from publicly operated prisons. According to a 2008 study of Oklahoma prisons, “private prison inmate groups had a greater hazard of recidivism than did public inmate groups.” Not only is there little incentive to spend money on rehabilitation, but crime, at least in one sense, is good for private prisons: the more crimes that are committed, and the more individuals who are sent to prison, the more money private prisons stand to make. Increased recidivism gives private prisons a steady clientele but has negative consequences for the public — more crime, and more money spent re-incarcerating former prisoners.
No comments:
Post a Comment