Corrections Corp of Am CCA

11/16 capt

primary, see core civic

https://time.com/5405158/the-true-history-of-americas-private-prison-industry/

The True History of America's Private Prison Industry

Inmates at Louisiana State Prison in Angola, La., march down a dusty trail on May 30, 1977, en route to working in the fields. cop/cowboy on horse]

BY SHANE BAUER SEPTEMBER 25, 2018

Before founding the Corrections Corporation of America, a $1.8 billion private prison corporation now known as CoreCivic, Terrell Don Hutto ran a cotton plantation the size of Manhattan. There, mostly black convicts were forced to pick cotton from dawn to dusk for no pay. It was 1967 and the Beatles’ “All you need is love” was a hit, but the men in the fields sang songs with lyrics like “Old Master don’t you whip me, I’ll give you half a dollar.” Hutto’s family lived on the plantation and even had a “house boy,” an unpaid convict who served them.

At the time, most prisons in the South were plantations. In some states, certain inmates were given guns and even whips, and empowered to torture those who didn’t meet labor quotas. Hutto did such a good job in Texas that Arkansas would hire him to run their entire prison system–made entirely of plantations–which he would run at a profit to the state. His ability to run a prison that put money into state coffers would later attract the attention of two businessmen with a new idea: to found a corporation that would run prisons and sell shares on the stock market.

Prisons had been privatized before. Louisiana first privatized its penitentiary in 1844, just nine years after it opened. The company, McHatton, Pratt, and Ward ran it as a factory, using inmates to produce cheap clothes for enslaved people. One prisoner wrote in his memoir that, as soon as the prison was privatized, his jailers “laid aside all objects of reformation and re-instated the most cruel tyranny, to eke out the dollar and cents of human misery.” Much like CoreCivic’s shareholder reports today, Louisiana’s annual penitentiary reports from the time give no information about prison violence, rehabilitation efforts, or anything about security. Instead, they deal almost exclusively with the profitability of the prison.

Like private prisons today, profit rather than rehabilitation was the guiding principle of early penitentiaries throughout the South. “If a profit of several thousand dollars can be made on the labor of twenty slaves,” posited the Telegraph and Texas Register in the mid-19th century, “why may not a similar profit be made on the labor of twenty convicts?”The head of a Texas jail suggested the state open a penitentiary as an instrument of Southern industrialization, allowing the state to push against the “over-grown monopolies” of the North. Five years after Texas opened its first penitentiary, it was the state’s largest factory. It quickly became the main Southern supplier of textiles west of the Mississippi.

Prison privatization accelerated after the Civil War.The reason for turning penitentiaries over to companies was similar to states’ justifications for using private prisons today: prison populations were soaring, and they couldn’t afford to run their penitentiaries themselves. The 13th amendment had abolished slavery “except as punishment for a crime” so, until the early 20th century, Southern prisoners were kept on private plantations and on company-run labor camps where they laid railroad tracks, built levees, and mined coal.

Former slaveholders built empires that were bigger than those of most slave owners before the war. Nathan Bedford Forrest, first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, controlled all convicts in Mississippi for a period. US Steel, the world’s first billion-dollar company, forced thousands of prisoners to slave in its coal mines. Lessees went to extreme lengths to extract profits. In 1871, Tennessee lessee Thomas O’Conner forced convicts to work in mines and went as far as collecting their urine to sell to local tanneries. When they died from exhaustion or disease, he sold their bodies to the Medical School at Nashville for students to practice on.

Companies liked using convicts in part because, unlike free workers, they could be driven by torture. One common form of punishment was “watering” in which a prisoner was strapped down, a funnel forced into his mouth, and water poured in so as to distend the stomach to such a degree that it put pressure on the heart, making the prisoner feel that he was going to die. Another punishment was “stringing up” in which a cord was wrapped around the men’s thumbs, flung over a tree limb, and tightened until the men hung suspended, sometimes for hours. Whipping was common. An Alabama government inspection showed that in a two-week period in 1889, 165 prisoners were flogged. Arkansas didn’t ban the lash until 1967.

Lessees gave a cut of the profits to the states, ensuring that the system would endure. Between 1880 and 1904, Alabama’s profits from leasing state convicts made up 10 percent of the state’s budget. By 1886 the US commissioner of labor reported that, where leasing was practiced, the average revenues were nearly four times the cost of running prisons. Writer George Washington Cable, in an 1885 analysis of convict leasing, wrote the system “springs primarily from the idea that the possession of a convict’s person is an opportunity for the State to make money; that the amount to be made is whatever can be wrung from him…and that, without regard to moral or mortal consequences, the penitentiary whose annual report shows the largest case balance paid into the State’s treasury is the best penitentiary.”

This maniacal drive for profits managed to create a system that was more deadly than slavery. Between 1870 and 1901, some three thousand Louisiana convicts, most of whom were black, died under the lease of a man named Samuel Lawrence James. Before the Civil War, only a handful of planters owned more than a thousand convicts, and there is no record of anyone allowing three thousand valuable human chattel to die.Throughout the South, annual convict death rates ranged from 16 percent to 25 percent, a mortality rate that would rival the Soviet gulags to come. There was simply no incentive for lessees to avoid working people to death. In 1883, one Southern man told the National Conference of Charities and Correction: “Before the war, we owned the negroes. If a man had a good negro, he could afford to take care of him: if he was sick get a doctor…But these convicts: we don’t own ‘em. One dies, get another.”

States became jealous of the profits private companies were making, so in the early 20th century, they bought plantations of their own and eventually stopped leasing to private companies. Ten years after abolishing convict leasing, Mississippi was making $600,000 ($14.7 million in 2018 dollars) from prison labor. It was in this world that a man named Terrell Don Hutto would learn how to run a prison as a business.

CoreCivic prisons aren’t nearly as brutal labor camps under convict leasing or the early 20th century state-run plantations, but they still go to grotesque lengths to make a dollar. I saw this first hand when, in2014, I went undercover as a prison guard in a CoreCivic prison in Louisiana. There, I met a man who lost his legs to gangrene after begging for months for medical care. CoreCivic was often resistant to sending prisoners to the hospital: their contract required that outside medical visits be funded by the company. Educational programs were axed to save money.

To keep costs low, guards were paid $9 an hour and oftentimes there were no more than 24 on duty, armed with nothing but radios, to run a prison of more than 1,500 inmates. The prison was incredibly violent as a result. In a four-month period in 2015, the company reported finding some 200 weapons, 23 times more than the state’s maximum security prison. I knew one inmate who committed suicide after repeatedly going on hunger strike to demand mental health services in a prison with only one part-time psychologist. When he died, he weighed 71 pounds.

Private prisons, according to a 2016 Department of Justice Study, are consistently more violent that their already-dismal public counterparts. Yet while we went through training to become guards, we were taught that, if we saw inmates stab each other, we were not to intervene. “We are not going to pay you that much,” our instructor told us. Our job was simply to shout the words “stop fighting,” thus protecting the company’s liability and avoiding any potentially costly harm to ourselves. Our job, after all, was to “deliver value to our shareholders.” “If them fools want to cut each other,” the instructor said, “well, happy cutting.”

In May 2017, I bought a single share in the company in order to attend their annual shareholder meeting. As I sat and watched Terrell Don Hutto and other corporate executives discuss how their company’s objective was to “serve the public good,” I wondered how many times such meetings had been held throughout American history. How many times had men, be they private prison executives or convict lessees, gotten together to perform this ritual? They sit in company headquarters or legislative offices, far from their prisons or labor camps, and craft stories that soothe their consciences. They convince themselves, with remarkable ease, that they are in the business of punishment because it makes the world better, not because it makes them rich.

Adapted from AMERICAN PRISON: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment by Shane Bauer.

https://news.littlesis.org/2019/08/14/private-prisons-now-face-87-4-financing-gap-as-banks-continue-to-flee-industry

As of August 2019, eight banks – JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, SunTrust, BNP Paribas, Fifth Third Bancorp, Barclays, and PNC– have publicly committed to ending their future financing relationships with the private prison industry, including CoreCivic and GEO Group. Together these eight banks represent an estimated $2.35 billion – or 87.4% – of the credit lines and term loans that are central to these companies’ operations.

Notably, all of the banks that provide credit and term loans to GEO Group have committed to end their future financing relationships with the industry. These commitments are the result of ongoing campaigns from #FamiliesBelongTogether and #BackersOfHate to end Wall Street’s financing and profiting off of the private prison industry.

This mass exodus of banks has had a cascading effect on the industry. Fitch Ratings, one of the three premier credit rating agencies, recently downgraded CoreCivic from BB+ to BB. This downgrade will make it more difficult for CoreCivic to secure the plentiful, cheap credit and loans they have accessed in the past.

Moreover, California’s $356 billion pension fund, CalPERS, is now considering divesting from the industry due to “egregious activities” at the border and the increased riskiness as banks continue to flee. Finally, CBS MoneyWatch reported that stock values forCoreCivic (CXW) and GEO Group (GEO) have been cut in half since April 2017.

Estimated Impact on CoreCivic and GEO Group’s Future Financing

As shown in the chart below, these eight banks provide an estimated combined $2.352 billion of GEO and CoreCivic’s financing, or 87.4% of the total financing currently available to these private prison companies. Given the eight banks’ commitments to provide no new financing, GEO Group and CoreCivic will potentially face a $2.352 billion shortfall when the current agreements expire.

omg bizarre confluence of MIC and PIC!

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/06/zero-tolerance-immigration-is-big-money-for-contractors-nonprofits/

no lnx

‘Zero-tolerance’ immigration policy is big money for contractors, nonprofits

June 21, 2018 | President Trump’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy under the direction of Attorney General Jeff Sessions is big business for U.S. companies — from private prison and tech firms to defense and security contractors — as well as nonprofits.

...Under bipartisan pressure, Trump signed an executive order Wednesday ending the administration’s controversial child-separation policy. But Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy, in which individuals who enter the U.S. illegally are prosecuted, will continue.

All this comes as the country grapples with harrowing images of babies stripped from their mothers’ arms and children playing soccer on the grounds of abandoned Walmart stores along the Southwest border.

Trump defended his policy in a campaign speech Wednesday in Minnesota. That came a day after the raid of an Ohio meat plant in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 146 employees accused of being in the country illegally. It was the largest workforce raid in recent history, according to the agency.

ICE, which enforces the administration’s immigration policy, has allocated billions in federal contracts to private companies for software, consulting and manpower. Overall, the federal government has spent $4 billion since October 2016 — the start of 2017 fiscal year — on contracts and grants to counter illegal immigration.

OpenSecrets analyzed the money going to these often high-profile, publicly traded companies as well as their political spending and lobbying, along with the nonprofits commissioned to care for minors.

Private Prisons and Security

Trump’s hardline approach to illegal immigration is a boon for private prisons and security companies.

In 2016, the Department of Justice under the Obama administration began phasing out for-profit prisons for federal inmates following a DOJ report that found poor management practices at one private facility contributed to an inmate riot that killed a prison guard in 2012.

The Trump administration, however, has embraced them — particularly as a solution for the high cost of detaining people who crossed the border illegally.

The 2012 inmate riot occurred inside a prison owned and operated by CoreCivic, formerly Corrections Corporation of America.Since 2017, CoreCivic has received $225 million in ICE funding to manage immigrant detention facilities, according to USASpending.gov data.

A subsidiary of the Tennessee-based company donated $250,000 toward Trump’s inaugural festivities last year.

Another $250,000 Trump inaugural donor —GEO Group — is the country’s largest for-profit prison operator and amultimillion-dollar beneficiary of the administration’s aggressive immigration policy.

The Florida-based company and its subsidiaries, which also gave $225,000 to a pro-Trump super PAC during the 2016 presidential election, have been paid $560 million over the last two fiscal years for contracts they hold with ICE.

GEO Group and its subsidiaries oversee a number of ICE detention facilities and have aggressively lobbied to secure contracts and influence the nation’s immigration policy. In 2017, the company spent $1.7 million on lobbying, the highest amount on record for a private prison contractor.

Aside from lobbying, the company has a prolificpolitical action committee and a number of big-donor employees. So far in 2018, the company’s PAC and employees have contributed$727,000 to candidates — a total that is on track to continue the upward contribution trend.

The top three recipients are Texas House members — Republicans John Culberson and John Carter and Democrat Henry Cuellar, each having received at least $31,000 dollars.

While GEO certainly profits off keeping immigrants detained, they also make money once they’re released. A large share of ICE’s payments to GEO last year went to BI Inc., a subsidiary that provides ankle bracelets and monitoring services to track those awaiting trial for immigration violations.

BI first received an ICE contract in 2008 and was paid $10 million that year. Payments have grown steadily since then, topping out at $115 million in the 2017 fiscal year. 2018 totals are on track to surpass that.

MVM Inc., a Virginia-based private security contractor, has earned $115 million since 2017 through immigration-related ICE contracts. The company provided “security guards and patrol services” for $53.7 million, according to the contract description.

In 2017, the company was sued for workplace discrimination and had a lucrative CIA contract canceled for failing to provide enough security guards.

The company does not appear in lobbying disclosures. Company founder Dario Marquez Jr. is an active political donor, however. Since 1990, Marquez has given $212,321, including donations to Virginia Democrats Tim Kaine ($51,340) and Gerry Connolly ($29,100).

Tech Firms

...

AN msnbc

STEPHANIE RUHLE (HOST): In today's money, power, politics: private prisons. They are cashing in on President Trump's get-tough policies at the border. Since 1997, the Federal Bureau of Prison has paid private companies to build and operate prisons to ease capacity at government-run facilities. The share of federal prisoners nationwide held in private prisons has surged from just 3 percent in the late 90's to more than 20 percent today. The biggest factor fueling growth is, you guessed it, immigration detention centers.

Who are these companies? CoreCivic, also known as CCA; Management and Training Corporation, known as MTC; and the GEO Group are three of the biggest players in the private prison business. Together, they operate some 14 federal facilities nationwide, providing 27,000 beds for federal inmates, and that is growing.

That growth was under threat when the Obama administration attempted to phase out all contracts with private prisons. The big three players decided to take action, and theyspent big on the 2016 campaign. Guess how. GEO donated $1.1 million to Republican candidates and political action committees. CoreCivic spent another $1.1 million on lobbying efforts. And MTC spent nearly half a million bucks to do the same. And those efforts, they certainly paid off.

When President Trump reversed the phase out decision early in his administration, that is despite a2014 lawsuit accusing GEO of forcing immigration detainees to work for little or no pay by threatening them with solitary confinement. Sounds like slavery, doesn't it?Critics say the private business model encourages cost-cutting and even slavery to boost its bottom line profits. And guess what? It's working.

Since President Trump's election, shares for GEO have shot up 25 percent, while CoreCivic stock is 12 percent higher. MTC is not publicly traded, but its revenues are said to be robust. I want to point out some of the larger shareholders, if you want to check your 401(k), BlackRock and Vanguard, and granted, they may own them as part of an index, but they choose to do them.

https://boingboing.net/2017/12/28/corrections-corporation-of-ame.html

see guard uk link

The new GOP tax plan slashes the taxes on real estate investment trusts (REITS) by a quarter, dropping the rate from 39.6% down to 29.6% -- a move that will put tens of millions of dollars in the pockets of investors in America's notorious private prisons.

Companies like Corecivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America/CCA) and Geo Group are structured as REITS, a tax-dodge that has already made the companies millions -- Corecivic was able to lower its effective tax rate from 36% to 3% by restructuring as a REIT, and now that rate is going down by 25%.

The Trump administration reversed the Obama ban on the use of private prison contractors, and has also stepped up the use of private prisons to detain migrants awaiting immigration hearings.

Oregon Democratic senator Ron Wyden, a ranking member on the finance committee, has called the use of the reit structure by prisons “unfair” and “unjust”. In 2016, after being pressed by Enlace, he introduced legislation to end such practices. The bill was reintroduced this year but it has yet to make it out of committee and is not likely to do so any time soon.

A CoreCivic representative told the Guardian that, in their view, “there are far more pressing matters for Congress to pursue” than the reit tax classifications. The Geo Group added they are “treated exactly the same as other real estate investment trusts without any special tax treatments or loopholes.” The point that activists make, though, is that treating prisons as real estate is a loophole.

https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/no-tax-breaks-for-private 2013?

The Joint Committee on Taxation must end tax breaks for private prisons by revoking private prisons’ REIT Status.

In 2013, GEO and CCA received Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) status, which creates a loophole for them and their investors to make billions in profit from incarcerating people of color and immigrants TAX-FREE! In the first year of their REIT status, CCA and GEO received almost $100 million in tax breaks. That $100 million should be reinvested in our communities, not sent to corporate prison CEOs and prison industry shareholders.

https://www.alternet.org/human-rights/trumps-first-year-has-been-private-prison-industrys-best

Exactly 17 months ago, in August of 2016 -- back when most election polls had Hillary Clinton clinching the 2016 presidential election -- the Obama administration announced that it would end the Justice Department’s (DOJ) reliance on private prisons. The announcement came seven days after the DOJ’s inspector general (IG) called on the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to more rigorously oversee its contracts with private prison companies. The IG’s report found that private prisons at the federal level consistently fail to measure up to federal standards in preventing dangerous conditions, intercepting contraband, and ensuring internal accountability for staff misconduct.

Shares of the private prison titans tanked.

CoreCivic and GEO Group’s stocks both ended the day down more than 35 percent and 39 percent, respectively -- an indication that the nation’s largest for-profit prison corporations' profitability might be on the wane. The day after the announcement, GEO Group CEO George Zoley stated in a conference call, “There’s been an overreaction to the news about the contracts. We think, in time, this will correct itself.” Even George Zoley couldn’t have predicted today’s turnaround.

With the election of Donald Trump to the White House a few months later, Zoley’s prescient statement of an “overreaction” made him look like a fortune teller.

On Nov. 7, 2016, when the closing bell of the American Stock Exchange rang and before any sense of who the 45th president of the United States would be, CoreCivic traded at 14.36 and GEO Group stood at 15.93. Following Trump's electoral victory, private prison company stocks skyrocketed. Today,CoreCivic is trading at 23.19 (a 61 percent increase)and GEO Group is trading at 23.03 (a 45 percent increase). And for good reason. The Trump administration is a godsend for the private prison industry.

First, there is the dangerous and misguided rhetoric that President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions constantly spew -- despite evidence to the contrary -- about how the nation’s violent crime rate is rising and America’s streets are filled with carnage. Second, along with this bombastic language are their calls for harsher sentencing and draconian enforcement of drug and immigration offenses. Third, federal spending on private prisons has remained steady, despite Republican support for across-the-board budget cuts to other federal programs. Trump’s proposed fiscal year 2018 budget calls for $1.2 billion in new spending on detention, transportation and deportation of undocumented immigrants to expand detention capacity to more than 48,000 beds a day. Finally, in February of 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions revoked the Obama-era initiative to phase out the use of private contractors to run federal prisons, delivering the industry its biggest victory yet.

Private prison corporations have publicly expressed enthusiasm for the current administration’s aggressive stance on crime and immigration. In a 2017 third-quarter earnings call, a GEO official noted that the government’s need for additional detention space should benefit company revenues.

Here is how the private prison industry fared during Trump’s first year. Today, 65 percent of detainees held by the Department of Homeland Security are housed in privately run facilities. With the administration’s plans to increase the capacity to hold undocumented immigrants behind bars, the private prison industry’s revenues will surely follow suit. And in an unprecedented move, in late 2017, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) asked for information from contractors who can provide additional immigration detention space in the interior of the nation, in major cities such as Salt Lake City, Chicago, Detroit and St. Paul, along with an expected request for information on contractors who can provide additional capacity along the southern U.S. border in Texas.

CoreCivic’s CEO Damon Hininger publicly touted the administration’s move as a source of potential revenue to his company, noting in an August’s earnings call with investors, “ICE expects the average length of stay for detainees to increase as a result of increased interior enforcement. While immigrants arrested at the border typically are detained for 27 days, those arrested in the interior of the country are detained for roughly 52 days.” More days behind bars in their detention centers translates into more profits for the company.

The current administration and the private prison industry are also doing more than just merely talking. In April, ICE awarded GEO Group with a $110 million contract to build a new immigration detention center in Conroe, Texas, 40 miles north of Houston. At the time, the Associated Press reported that this contract award took many by surprise because GEO had “a surplus of 3,000 beds across its nationwide network of prisons.” And in December,CoreCivic filed plans with government officials in Elkhart County, Indiana, to construct an approximately $100 million detention facility.The move sparked candlelight vigils from area residents distraught by the development. CoreCivic has not yet received final approval from the Elkhart County Commissioners or ICE.

In April, the administration -- sticking to the message from Attorney General Sessions’ one-paragraph memo to the BOP reversing the Obama administration’s intent to reduce reliance on private prisons -- posted a notice requesting proposals from private prison companies to house prisoners in Criminal Alien Requirement (CAR) facilities. CAR prisons are privately managed prisons. There are 11 CAR prisons across the country run by three companies: GEO Group, CoreCivic and Management & Training Corp. The solicitation signaled a planned increase of 1,607 beds over BOP’s then-current population of privately imprisoned people -- 21,287 in total, as of May 2017. And on May 26, GEO Group announced that it had been awarded renewed contracts with the BOP for CAR facilities at the company’s prison complex in Big Spring, Texas. The 10-year agreement for 3,532 beds is worth up to $664 million.

My new book, "Inside Private Prisons: An American Dilemma in the Age of Mass Incarceration," notes that given today’s political realities, the private prison industry is not disappearing any time soon. Given the current administration’s penchant for privatizing government services -- including increasing its reliance on private prisons -- we owe the thousands of people who cycle into and out of private prisons and immigration detention centers a duty to constantly monitor their conditions and ensure that private entities that perform public functions should be subject to the same transparency, accountability and oversight as public entities. And for those worried about the private prison industry’s lack of transparency and accountability (in just one example, private prisons at the federal level are not subject to Freedom of Information Act Requests), if the first year of the Trump administration reflects the next three years, we need to act quickly to ensure that the ever-growing number of people behind bars in private prisons and immigration detention centers are the beneficiaries of improved conditions of confinement and better transparency. How? We need to ensure that state and federal laws are changed to require these corporations to comply with open records requests. And state and federal governments need to rewrite contracts with the private prison industry to require better programming, transparency, accountability and conditions of confinement.

While most of the coverage on private prisons has focused on the federal contracts, the administration’s rhetoric on reviving the war on drugs is starting to have a domino effect at the state level. Most recently, in Kentucky, the state signed a contract with CoreCivic to reopen a shuttered prison -- the Lee Adjustment Center in Beattyville -- and move about 800 inmates there. The opioid crisis in Kentucky pushed state policymakers to draft more draconian drug penalties that played a role in increasing its prison population to a record high of more than 24,000 inmates. With full prisons and jails, Kentucky felt it had no choice but to contract with CoreCivic to house almost 1,000 men it doesn’t have room to keep behind bars.

...

http://www.alternet.org/economy/how-jp-morgan-chase-cashing-private-prisons

JPMorgan Chase, like so many corporations, is trying to have its cake and eat it under the Trump administration. In the last few weeks, it has invested time, public relations' efforts and money in presenting itself as a defender of human rights. But the$2 million Chase pledged to fight racism is a drop in the ocean compared to the potential yield from its massive investment in the private prison system: one of the starkest manifestations of racial injustice in the U.S. today, profiting primarily from the detention of immigrants seeking a new life in the U.S. The DACA cancellation last week will only further boost the huge profit to be made from keeping yet more people under lock and key.

Now Trump has canceled DACA, JPMorgan Chase must decide how serious it really is about this newly discovered sense of social consciousness. For its stance on human rights to have real meaning, the corporation must divest from the private prison system. Taking a real public position might hurt profits, but may help convince critics that the company means business when it comes to standing up for racial justice.

Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is increasingly vocal in public about his newfound ethical concerns. He made a very public statement distancing himself from President Trump over Trump’s failure to condemn white supremacy in Charlottesville, Virginia. He has also described himself as “pro-immigrant”: an opinion that is hard to square away against his roles as a financier, underwriter and bond-holder of private prison corporations like GEO Group and Core Civic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America). Both corporations oversee Immigrant Detention Centers throughout the U.S., many of which house undocumented migrants.

JPMorgan Chase’s investments in private prisons certainly make economic sense: the private prison industry is worth about $5 billion, and the election of Donald Trump has caused the profits of the sector to balloon further. Almost immediately after Trump’s inauguration, the Department of Justice rescinded the Obama administration’s order to phase out federal private prisons from the criminal justice system.

In fact, the day after Trump won the election, the stock price of Core Civic, one of the largest private detention centers in the U.S., jumped 43 percent as investors clamored to capitalize on the sector’s reversal of fortune after the Obama administration’s sustained attempts to stifle the private prison industry. Perhaps JPMorgan Chase was wringing its hands in the face of such a clear backwards step on human rights in private, but its investments in the sector suggest otherwise.

It’s also important to note that investors like JPMorgan Chase are not simply passive beneficiaries of a grossly unjust immigration system. Their financing actively encourages the private prison sector to grow. Private prison corporations rely on debt financing from banks like JPMorgan Chase to expand their control of the criminal justice and immigration enforcement systems. In turn, the banks generate revenue from collecting interest and fees on CCA’s and GEO Group’s debts.

Not unusual for one of Trump’s corporate cronies, Jamie Dimon is considerably bolder with his words than his actions. Despite being "pro immigrant" and his recent attempts to distance himself from Trump, Dimon served on Trump’s business advisory council, even after Trump’s disparaging statements about immigrants throughout his presidential campaign. Dimon will certainly have been aware of the egregiously offensive rhetoric President Trump used on the campaign trail, and since taking office, the president has been overtly hostile to immigration in almost every form, leading to increases in immigrant detention throughout the U.S.

His reversal of DACA takes this attitude to new heights of inhumanity, as thousands of young undocumented Americans face deportation from the country where they were raised and in which they belong. JPMorgan Chase’s $2 million donation to charity seems a rather anemic response to millions of lives disrupted and families fragmented as a result of a campaign promise made in the spirit of venal self-promotion and self-interest.

Dimon’s behavior suggests that he believes the public and the press can be distracted from his profiteering from human rights abuses through large donations that are frankly minuscule compared to the personal wealth of most JPMorgan Chase senior employees, let alone the corporation itself.

SumOfUs members are working together to demonstrate that Dimon is mistaken. Earlier this year, the former CEO of Uber and the CEOs of Tesla and Disney were forced to step down from Trump’s Business Advisory Council after immense public pressure, including a 100,000 signature SumOfUs petition. Chase is the largest consumer bank in the United States, which means it is particularly susceptible to consumer pressure. If people make their voices heard through public pressure, including shareholder advocacy and grassroots organizing, Dimon will be forced to address these issues in public.

The private prisons industry is a horrifying manifestation of some of the worst injustices in the U.S., and in the rest of the world; it destroys lives, shatters families and sacrifices fundamental principles of human dignity in deference to favorable entries on a balance sheet. It is an often-repeated tenet of human rights theory and practice that when the rights of one person or group of people are diminished, ultimately we are all diminished. Perhaps it is this insight that has inspired JPMorgan Chase’s toe-dip into the water of human rights advocacy. Until it really puts its money where its mouth is, we will have no way of knowing.

http://www.alternet.org/human-rights/private-prison-demands-new-mexico-and-feds-find-300-more-prisoners-60-days-or-it-will

The nation’s second-largest private prison corporation is holding New Mexico politicians hostage by threatening to close unless the state or federal authorities find 300 more prisoners to be warehoused there, according to local news reports.

“The company that has operated a private prison in Estancia for nearly three decades has announced it will close the Torrance County Detention Facility and lay off more than 200 employees unless it can find 300 state or federal inmates to fill empty beds within the next 60 days,” the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper reported last week.

The paper said that county officials issued a statement citing the threatened closure and emphasized that every virtually every politician in the region, from county officials to state officials to congressmen, were scurrying to save jobs—as opposed to shutting a privatized prison by an operator that has been sued many times for sexual harassment, sexual assault, deaths, use of force, physical assaults, medical care, injuries and civil rights violations.

“This is a big issue for us,” Torrance County manager Belinda Garland told the Santa Fe newspaper.

It quoted Jonathan Burns, a spokesman for CoreCivic—formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America—as saying, while, “The city of Estancia and the surrounding community have been a great partner to CoreCivic for the last 27 years… a declining detainee population in general has forced us to make difficult decisions in order to maximize utilization of our resources.”

This is a perfect snapshot of what’s upside-down with privatization: the lack of economic opportunities and politicians who genuflect at providing jobs, regardless of the larger social implications, pushing law enforcement into the dirty business of ramping up arrests and convictions so private firms and shareholders can make more money.

The statement by county officials said that most of the 700-bed facility’s prisoners were federal inmates. Company officials in local meetings said federal sentencing reforms has led to a shrinking prisoner population.

The paper reported, “‘The company told the county it has been holding fewer federal detainees for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Garland said. ‘We’re reaching out to anybody that can help us… We hate to see this facility close.’”

CoreCivic’s 2016 corporate annual report said its revenues had fallen slightly in the final years of the Obama administration.

“State revenues from contracts at correctional, detention, and residential reentry facilities that we operate constituted 38%, 40%, and 46% of our total revenue during 2016, 2015, and 2014, respectively, and decreased 2.0% from $725.1 million during 2015 to $710.4 million during 2016,” it reported. “We own approximately 58% of all privately owned prison beds in the United States, manage nearly 41% of all privately managed prison beds in the United States, and are currently the second largest private owner and provider of community corrections services in the nation.”

The elected officials who have been asked to find more prisoners include New Mexico Democrats, U.S. Sen. Tom Udall and Rep. Michelle Lujan-Grisham. The county said the town of Estancia would annually lose $700,000 in commerce and the county would lose $300,000 in tax revenues if the prison closed in late September, the New Mexican reported.

Steven Rosenfeld

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-10-25/ice-seeks-to-reopen-private-prisons-shuttered-by-justice-department

http://www.wsj.com/articles/private-prison-firm-cca-to-rename-itself-corecivic-1477666800

http://www.acluohio.org/blog-posts/blog-titledoj-end-its-use-of-private-prisons-but-what-about-ohio

8/16

week, the Department of Justice announced an end to using private prisons to hold federal prisoners. This decision followed a scathing report which highlighted that private prisons are less safe, provide less services and programs, and do not substantially save on costs. This is a major victory for those who have fought to end prison privatization.

But don’t write off private prisons just yet.

The process will happen gradually over the next five years, as the DOJ advises the Federal Bureau of Prisons to decline contract renewals or substantially reduce the scope of contracts. Plus, this decision only affects federal prisoners.

At its highest capacity, the Federal Bureau of Prisons used private prisons to house approximately 15 percent of its population, just under 30,000 prisoners.

What Does This Mean For Ohio?

08.23.16

The DOJ Is Ending Its Use of Private Prisons: But What About Ohio?

By Jocelyn Rosnick

Last week, the Department of Justice announced an end to using private prisons to hold federal prisoners. This decision followed a scathing report which highlighted that private prisons are less safe, provide less services and programs, and do not substantially save on costs. This is a major victory for those who have fought to end prison privatization.

But don’t write off private prisons just yet.

At its highest capacity, the Federal Bureau of Prisons used private prisons to house approximately 15 percent of its population, just under 30,000 prisoners.

What Does This Mean For Ohio?

While the DOJ’s announcement is a clear warning to all states using private prison operators, it only goes so far. The policy change does not apply to immigration detention centers run by the Department of Homeland Security, or to state prisons with private operators or owners.

In Ohio, the Bureau of Prisons had already declined to renew its contract with the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) for the privately-owned Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown, Ohio. This decision wasn’t surprising―the facility had been riddled with problems since it opened in 1997. Within the first 14 months, the facility experienced 13 stabbings, two murders, and six escapes. Youngstown officials even sued CCA for its mismanagement of the facility. As a result, it temporarily shut down, only to later re-open again under CCA control. In 2014, the BOP decided not to renew its contract with CCA after multiple protests at the facility objecting to unsanitary food conditions, inadequate access to programming, and lack of medical care. Unfortunately, the U.S. Marshal Service still pays CCA to hold hundreds of detainees at this prison.

Ohio’s Failed Experiment with Prison Privatization

Ohio was the first, and is still, the only state to sell a prison to a private operator. Privatization was seen as a way to cut costs for our bloated prison system.

Ohio prisons hold over 50,000 people in a system built for less than 38,000.

Simply put – the experiment failed. The first 18 months that Lake Erie Correctional Institution was under CCA control were a failure. Drug use was rampant throughout the facility, contraband was being tossed over the perimeter fence, violence increased, and medical care deteriorated. It’s taken years for the facility to stabilize, and there are still problems.

Privatization is only in the best interest of those who make a profit. It does not benefit the staff, prisoners, local community members, or the state. The DOJ voiced these concerns loud and clear when it announced it will no longer contract with private prison operators.

So why is Ohio on a dangerous path to sell another prison to a for-profit company?

Ending Prison Privatization in Ohio

Ohio now plans to sell a second prison to a private company. Last year, in a legislative sleight of hand, the sale of the North Central Correctional Complex in Marion, Ohio was inserted into an unrelated bill right before summer recess. Concerned citizens were given no opportunity to submit testimony or engage in public discussion, and the bill passed with little media coverage at the time.

2011

Beyerlein

and Laura A. Bischoff

Staff Writers

An escape from a privatized prison in Kingman, Ariz., last year left two people dead and raised questions among some whether the same nightmare scenario could happen in Ohio.

The company that operates the Arizona State Prison Complex at Kingman is Utah-based Management and Training Corp., one of three for-profit corrections companies seeking to buy and operate five Ohio facilities under Gov. John Kasich’s prison privatization plan.

Escapes can and do happen at publicly operated prisons too. But a stunning lack of administrative oversight before the July 30, 2010, escape at Kingman has opponents of the Ohio plan calling it a textbook example of what can go wrong when private companies operate public corrections institutions.

Alarms blared at the Arizona State Prison Complex after three convicts escaped, but an investigation found that guards ignored them: The alarm system had been malfunctioning for two and a half years, sometimes going off 200 to 300 times per shift.

Before they were captured, authorities say, two of the fugitives and an accomplice kidnapped a retired couple vacationing in New Mexico, killed them at a remote ranch, then doused their camper with liquor and set it ablaze, burning their bodies beyond recognition.

The Oklahoma couple’s survivors are suing the state and the company for $40 million.

Ohio is joining Texas, Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma and Mississippi as one of the top states using the $3 billion private prison industry to house convicts. Terms of the bids are secret, but Ohio is to announce Sept. 1 whether MTC, Corrections Corp. of America, the GEO Group or a combination of two or all three will buy and run the five prisons under contract with the state.

When the deal is completed, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction will confine at least 5,900 of its nearly 51,000 prisoners in privately run cells. People on both sides of the debate say privatization is unlikely to stop at five prisons. “If it’s making sense and working, let’s keep going,” said Matt Mayer, executive director of the conservative Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions.

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction’s January 2011 Institutional Census indicates there were 885 prisoners from Clark County in the state system and another 227 from Champaign County. Figures are released annually.

State officials hope the sale of the five prisons will generate $200 million — $75 million of which will go to shore up the $3.1 billion two-year Corrections budget — and they say the privatization of operations will save at least 5 percent, or $6.6 million per year.

The companies, according to Kasich administration officials, generally have good track records for safety, and MTC has safely operated two Ohio-owned prisons for 10 years for less money than comparable state-run prisons.

However, Ohio’s early experience with private prisons was troubled. In 1998, six inmates — five of them killers — escaped in broad daylight from a CCA prison in Youngstown that housed inmates from the District of Columbia. Like the Kingman inmates, they had cut through perimeter fences. At the time, state legislators complained that CCA officials wouldn’t answer their questions about the escape.

In a separate instance, the state didn’t renew the contract of CiviGenics Corp. as operator of an early private prison for Ohio inmates in 2001, saying the company failed to meet expectations.

Prisons spokesman Carlo LoParo said Ohio’s oversight policies, including state approval rights over the companies’ wardens, will prevent another Kingman from happening here.

“Anything can happen in a correctional facility if you don’t have the proper procedures in place,” LoParo said. “There has to be constant vigilance from the Department of Corrections to make sure safeguards are in place. That (Kingman) situation will never happen in Ohio because of our policies and procedures.”

Safety records

Like MTC, which is privately held, the publicly traded CCA and GEO also have made national headlines in recent months because of safety and security problems in some of the prisons they operate. For example:

• In November, the Associated Press published a video showing at least three guards watching as an inmate of a CCA prison in Boise, Idaho, beat another prisoner so badly he sustained brain damage. The video triggered an FBI investigation.

• The Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union are suing the GEO Group, formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections Corp., alleging it allowed widespread brutality and sexual abuse against juveniles by staff and other inmates at a private youth prison in Mississippi. And in 2009, an appeals court upheld a $42.5 million civil verdict against GEO in the death of a Texas inmate who was days away from release on a minor drug conviction when he was beaten to death with padlocks that inmates had purchased from the prison and stuffed into socks. The case led to a murder indictment against GEO by a Texas grand jury.

• In June, Florida Corrections inspectors conducted a surprise drug sweep at a GEO prison in Palm Beach County and found no guard at the front gate. No one answered a door bell, and no one responded when inspectors shined a flashlight into a security camera to attract attention. State officials are auditing the prison.

LoParo said expanded privatization is necessary to make up for cuts that were needed to balance the budget and the end of federal stimulus funding that had been used to pay state salaries. Without it, he said, the state would have to close prisons.

“Privatization is a way to save Ohio jobs, operate safe and secure facilities and prevent the state from further overcrowding our inmates,” he said.

Two privately run prisons have operated in Ohio for more than a decade. Kasich’s plan will not only expand the number of private prisons to five, but also sell the publicly financed prison buildings to private companies. The state also plans to sell a closed juvenile detention center in Scioto County, perhaps to house federal prisoners or immigration detainees.

Administration officials say privatization is a good deal for taxpayers. Critics say it’s a bonanza for an industry with close ties to Kasich.

“In Arizona, Florida and Ohio, industry lobbyists have very close connections with the governors,” said Ken Kopczynski, executive director of the anti-privatization Private Corrections Working Group of Tallahassee, Fla. “What you’re seeing is basically a political payback for them. Governors like Kasich, they should be required to wear like a NASCAR jacket. You know, ‘This governor is brought to you by....’

“This is sort of a new phenomenon: Let’s sell the state assets. It’s basically a feeding frenzy. (The corporations) got a bunch of people elected and now they’ve got to make the best of it.”

Debate over costs

Research results vary on whether private prisons are as safe as state-operated prisons or truly save money in the long run. But critics say the profit motive causes corporations to scrimp on safety and security spending to boost their bottom lines. They say when problems do occur, corporations aren’t as accountable to the public as government. And they worry that the injection of corporate cash into the system will lead to more scandals such as the “kids for cash” conspiracy in Luzerne County, Pa., in which two juvenile judges pleaded guilty in 2009 to taking $2.6 million in kickbacks for sentencing juveniles with minor offenses to detention centers operated by Mid Atlantic Youth Services Corp.

“I simply can’t believe private corporations running a prison for a profit won’t cut corners,” said U.S. District Judge Walter H. Rice of Dayton. “A private owner is far less likely to respond (to public concerns) than a political entity.”

Additionally, at a time when many governments are seeking ways to reduce burgeoning prison populations to save taxpayer money, critics accuse the major corrections companies of supporting political candidates who favor locking up more criminal and immigration offenders.

Activists have called on investors to divest themselves of corporate corrections stock because of corporate efforts to influence incarceration policies.

MTC and GEO Group officials declined to be interviewed for this story, but CCA spokesman Steve Owen said such concerns are “unfounded. We’re not in the business of public policy. We don’t grow our business by impacting crime and sentencing laws. We grow our business by providing safe, secure facilities.”

CCA, the largest corrections company with record revenues of $1.7 billion in 2010, was also the first modern industry player. It was politically well-connected from the start, cofounded in 1983 by then-Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Tom Beasley. It now confines more than 75,000 male, female and juvenile inmates in 66 prisons serving 19 states, the District of Columbia, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. Marshal’s Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Owen said the company helps governments save money by using economies of scale in the purchasing of goods and services, and in negotiating with providers for employee benefits. He said the company offers competitive pay, based on the standards of the prisons’ host communities. That translates to lower pay for guards than that offered to unionized state employees.

“We’ve been able to deliver on the value proposition,” Owen said. “Marry that with the oversight and accountability of government, (and you get) the best of both worlds.

“At the end of the day, from a business standpoint, if we’re not operating safe and secure facilities, there’s no reason for government to partner with us.”

Political connections

Privatization foes say there are other reasons that politicians engage corrections companies: Campaign contributions, lobbying and other personal connections.

Soon after Ohio dipped its toe into the private prison waters, money started flowing into campaign coffers, campaign finance records show. Since 2001, when it began running Ohio’s two private prisons, MTC has contributed a total of $103,000 to legislative and state candidate and political parties. In just the last two years, MTC donated $42,000.

In December, CCA and GEO — the other two dominant players in the private prison industry — each contributed $10,000, the maximum allowed by law, to Kasich’s transition fund that pays for inaugural parties and other expenses.

Each of the three vendors hired well-connected Columbus lobbyists to advance their interests. In CCA’s corner is Donald Thibaut, who served as Kasich’s chief of staff in Congress for nearly 20 years. GEO contracted with Doug Preisse and Bob Klaffky, who both served as political advisors to the Kasich campaign. MTC hired Dan Jones, who went on a Florida fishing trip with then House Speaker Jon Husted in the midst of the 2006 budget negotiations.

After being elected governor last year, Kasich hired former CCA employee Gary Mohr as his corrections director and announced plans to privatize the five prisons. Mohr handed oversight of the deal to his chief of staff to avoid a conflict of interest.

MTC also hired former Ohio Corrections Director Terry Collins as a paid consultant. CCA announced in June it hired newly retired Federal Bureau of Prisons director Harley G. Lappin as its chief corrections officer and executive vice president.

According to OpenSecrets.org, which tracks campaign giving and lobbying influence, CCA and GEO have contributed a combined $20.9 million to federal candidates in the last decade. CCA and GEO spent a combined $19.6 million to lobby federal officials since 2000. Since 2002, GEO and CCA contributed $1 million to the Democratic Governors Association and $1.8 million to the Republican Governors Association, according to OpenSecrets.

State Rep. Mike Foley, D-Cleveland, said Ohio’s privatizations are “giveaways to corporate America, friends of John Kasich. It raises real questions about pay to play and basically buying influence to obtain state resources.”

Ohio Corrections officials deny political motivations, saying the privatization plan is one means of solving the state’s budget crisis. LoParo said the selection process is being done by an adminstration team in “a very transparent, very professional manner, far removed from the political process.”

Next steps

MTC currently runs the minimum-security North Coast Correctional Treatment Facility in Grafton and the medium-security Lake Erie Correctional Institution in Conneaut in the northeastern tip of Ohio near Pennsylvania.

LoParo said the MTC-run prisons have had fewer incidents of inmate-on-staff and inmate-on-inmate violence than comparable state-run prisons. And Corrections budget chief Kevin Stockdale said MTC’s prisons have come in six to 16 percent cheaper than comparable state-run prisons.

The five private prisons will house only minimum- and medium-security inmates, LoParo said. Higher-security inmates will be held only in state-run prisons and “that will not change.” He acknowledged that murderers and other violent criminals can achieve medium-security status with good behavior.

Critics worry that in practice the state would be slow to punish troubled vendors or hold the line on per-diem charges, especially when the vendors own the prison buildings. Some studies have shown that initial savings evaporate because vendors renegotiate for higher fees.

“Once the assets are sold ... the camel’s nose is under the tent,” Kopczynski said. “The vendors have (state officials) over a barrel.”

Financial concerns aside, Kopczynski said it’s just improper to use for-profit companies to deprive people of their liberty.

“It goes to the heart of the American system of jurisprudence,” he said. “The next question is, if you can save money privatizing the prisons, can you save money privatizing the cops? The courts? What is the basic function of government?”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2264 or tbeyerlein@DaytonDailyNews.com.

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/6/27/my_four_months_as_a_private

Between 2009 and 2011, Shane Bauer spent nearly two years locked up in an Iranian prison as one of the jailed American hikers. Last year, he went back to jail—this time as an undercover journalist working as a guard at a private prison in Louisiana. In a stunning new exposé for Mother Jones, Bauer chronicles the four months he spent undercover last year as a guard at Louisiana’s Winn Correctional Facility. Winn is the oldest privately operated medium-security prison in the country and sits in the state that holds the distinction as having the world’s highest incarceration rate—more than 800 prisoners per 100,000 residents. During Bauer’s investigation, Winn was run by the Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s second-largest private prison operator. Bauer’s story offers a never-before-seen look at the for-profit prison industry, exposing conditions that include violence among inmates, poor medical and mental healthcare for even the sickest prisoners, mismanagement and lack of training for staff.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/private-prison-companies-openly-boast-about-soaring-profits-locking-children-and

The largest private prison companies in the United States are assuring their shareholders that profits are up, thanks in part to the windfall from locking up women and children in controversial “family detention centers.”

"We are pleased with our first quarter financial performance, which exceeded our first quarter guidance despite incremental startup expenses incurred during the operational ramp of our Trousdale Turner Correctional Center," said Damon Hininger, chief executive officer of the private prison behemoth Corrections Corporation of America, in a press statement issued earlier this month. "Our financial performance was driven primarily by stronger than anticipated demand from our federal partners, most notably Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

According to the company’s assessment, the spike in revenue was “primarily attributable to a contract at the South Texas Family Residential Center,” which brought in over $70 million during the first quarter of 2016 alone—roughly double levels seen in the first quarter of 2015.

The prison-like facility is located in Dilley, Texas and holds up to 2,400 women and children. Atlanticmagazine writer J. Weston Phippen reports that more than half of the people incarcerated there are children whose average age is nine.

Remarkably, the company’s statement came the same day a judge imposed a two-week restraining order on the facility to temporarily prevent the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services from implementing a childcare license for the prison. The advocacy organization Grassroots Leadership has vigorously opposed such licensing, arguing that the facilities are prisons, not childcare accommodations.

“We’re talking about prison-like conditions, in that people are locked up with their kids in these facilities,” said Bob Libal, executive director of Grassroots Leadership, in an interview with AlterNet. “When you talk to the moms there, they say that their kids are really suffering in detention.”

Meanwhile, Brian Evans, senior vice president and chief financial officer of the private prison giant GEO Group, reported in a late April conference call with shareholders, “Our revenues for the first quarter 2016 increased to approximately $510 million from $427 million a year ago.” This was attributed, in part, to the “activation of the 626-bed expansion of the Karnes residential center in December 2015.”

The Karnes camp, also located in Texas, has been the site of repeated hunger strikes over inhumane conditions, including nearly free labor, lack of legal representation and contaminated drinking water. In 2014, some women detained at the prison alleged that guards sexually assaulted them.

“The conditions in which our children find themselves, are not good. Our children are not eating well and every day they are losing weight,” dozens of women at the camp declared last year in a joint statement. “In the name of the mothers, residents of the Center for Detentions in Karnes City, we are writing this petition whereby we ask to be set free with our children. There are mothers here who have been locked in this place for as long as 10 months.”...

3/15 DN

, these are run by — the facility in Karnes is run by the GEO Group, the facility in Dilley is run by the Corrections Corporation of America, the Corrections Corporation of America is same facility that ran Hutto the last iteration of family detention that I actually did litigate, where children were held in — babies in prison uniforms, and these corporations thought that was acceptable. The women and the children have no control over their lives. Everything is regimented. What time they get up. What they eat. The food is very bad. The medical care is substandard. Guards, just like when we litigated at Hutto, as I said, which was the last version of family detention, women have told us that they have been threatened that if their children misbehave they will be reported to the immigration judge, that it can negatively affect their case. Children who get out of line — and of course, these are young children. How can you have children running around that do not stay in line? We had a mother with a baby that was learning to crawl, and that baby was not allowed on the ground because the guards at GEO said that that was unsafe. She was forced to carry the baby around, which, of course, has terrible developmental affects for a child who is trying to learn to crawl and walk

open secrets

Police Unions. Public Safety First itself, however, is largely funded by a different industry that’s unhappy about the legalization of marijuana: law enforcement. The revenue from waging the war on drugs has become a significant source of financial support for local law enforcement. Federal and state funding of the drug war — as well as the property police forces seize as a part of drug raids — have become significant financial supplements to local forces’ budgets. While these unions exert more influence at the local level (what state or local candidate doesn’t want the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police?), they have a presence in Washington as well. Every year since 2008 the National Fraternal Order of Police has spent at least $220,000 on lobbying efforts; the National Association of Police Organizations, $160,000; the International Union of Police Associations, $80,000; and the International Association of Chiefs of Police, $80,000.
Private Prison Corporations. Private prisons are in the business of filling their jails’ beds, and they make millions by incarcerating nonviolent drug users, such as those convicted for marijuana use and possession, along with violent felons and white-collar criminals. The private prison company GEO is particularly successful at this. In its 2012 annual report, GEO noted that it had filled 65,949 out of 73,000 beds in its 96 facilities; on average the company had a facility occupancy rate of 95.7% for 2012. One of the largest for-profit prison companies, Corrections Corporation of America, even stated in a regulatory filing that keeping the drug war alive is essential to its success as a business: “[A]ny changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.” Since 2008, the Corrections Corporation of America has spent at least $970,000 a year on lobbying. GEO has been less consistent in its lobbying efforts and has spent anywhere between $240,000 to $660,000 a year on lobbying since 2008.
Prison Guard Unions. Similar to for-profit prison companies, prison guard unions also have a vested interest in keeping nonviolent drug offenders behind bars. TheCalifornia Correctional Peace Officers Association for example gave $1 million to the successful 2008 campaign against Proposition 5, which would have “reduce[d] the parole terms of nonviolent [drug] offenders” while emphasizing drug treatment and rehabilitation programs. At the national level, many prison guards are represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), one of the most politically active labor unions. In the 2012 campaign cycle AFSCME gave more than $13 million to candidates, parties and committees at the federal level. In 2013, AFSCME spent almost $2.7 million on lobbying efforts.

Last November, CCA’s top management in Tennessee contributed the largest block of out-of-state campaign contributions received by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.[1] CCA, which already has several detention facilities in Arizona and hopes of expanding its immigrant prison business in that state, is expected to gain a huge increase in revenues with the implementation of SB 1070. Currently, Latinos driving out of the city of Tucson in any direction are being stopped at checkpoints, where they are asked to show their papers.

GEO and CCA are now heavily involved in the governor and state legislative races in states where they plan to expand their respective shares of the prison and incarceration market. GEO, for example, backed first-term Republican Governor, Bob McDonnell, in Virginia last year, and has contributed heavily to the Republican Governor’s Association and to the Florida Republican Party. In addition to Jan Brewer in Arizona, CCA is contributing to the campaigns ofboth, Republican Meg Whitman, and Democrat Jerry Brown, for governor in California. CCA is also giving money to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, even though Jindal isn’t currently facing an election, and to the Republican Governors Association, which has contributed over $1.5 million to state races this year.[2]

April 19, 2012 |

To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the*latest updates from TomDispatch.com here.* [4]

Sweatshop labor is back with a vengeance. It can be found across broad stretches of the American economy and around the world. Penitentiaries have become a niche market for such work. The privatization of prisons [5] in recent years has meant the creation of a small army of workers too coerced and right-less to complain.

Prisoners, whose ranks increasingly consist of those for whom the legitimate economy has found no use, now make up a virtual brigade within the reserve army of the unemployed [6] whose ranks have ballooned along with the U.S. incarceration rate. The Corrections Corporation of America[7] and G4S [8] (formerly Wackenhut), two prison privatizers, sell inmate labor [9] at subminimum wages to Fortune 500 corporations like Chevron, Bank of America, AT&T, and IBM.

These companies can, in most states, lease factories in prisons or prisoners to work on the outside. All told, nearly a million prisoners are now making office furniture, working in call centers, fabricating body armor, taking hotel reservations, working in slaughterhouses, or manufacturing textiles, shoes, and clothing, while getting paid [10] somewhere between 93 cents and $4.73 per day.....[long]

http://www.alternet.org/story/155061/getting_paid_93_cents_a_day_in_america_corporations_bring_back_the_19th_century

http://www.prisonpolicy.org/prisonindex/prisonlabor.html

holy cow: Julie Myers went after susan mcDougal, ICE, KBR got 385m$ to build 4 prisons over the 23 existing, meatplant sweep, some arrestees wnt to taylor Tx jail owned by CCA (cheney son in law lobbied before DHS); kids got uniforms and # at the T Don Hutto res ctr (jm went to party fotoa w/ guy in blackface

:{http://www.texasprisonbidness.org/facility/t-don-hutto-residential-center

Corrections Corporation of America Used in Drug Sweeps of Public School Students

by Beau Hodai — November 27, 2012 - 8:00am

Topics: Children, Corporations, Education

Projects: ALEC Exposed

Trick or Treat

At 9 a.m. on the morning of October 31, 2012, students at Vista Grande High School in Casa Grande were settling in to their daily routine when something unusual occurred.

Vista Grande High School Principal Tim Hamilton ordered the school -- with a student population of 1,776 -- on "lock down," kicking off the first "drug sweep" in the school's four-year history. According to Hamilton, "lock down" is a state in which, "everybody is locked in the room they are in, and nobody leaves -- nobody leaves the school, nobody comes into the school."

"Everybody is locked in, and then they bring the dogs in, and they are teamed with an administrator and go in and out of classrooms. They go to a classroom and they have the kids come out and line up against a wall. The dog goes in and they close the door behind, and then the dog does its thing, and if it gets a hit, it sits on a bag and won't move."

While such "drug sweeps" have become a routine matter in many of the nation's schools, along with the use of metal detectors and zero-tolerance policies, one feature of this raid was unusual. According to Casa Grande Police Department (CGPD) Public Information Officer Thomas Anderson, four "law enforcement agencies" took part in the operation: CGPD (which served as the lead agency and operation coordinator), the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Gila River Indian Community Police Department, and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

It is the involvement of CCA -- the nation's largest private, for-profit prison corporation -- that causes this high school "drug sweep" to stand out as unusual; CCA is not, despite CGPD's evident opinion to the contrary, a law enforcement agency.

"To invite for-profit prison guards to conduct law enforcement actions in a high school is perhaps the most direct expression of the 'schools-to-prison pipeline' I've ever seen," said Caroline Isaacs, program director of the Tucson office of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker social justice organization that advocates for criminal justice reform.

"All the research shows that CCA doesn't properly train its staff to do the jobs they actually have. They most certainly do not have anywhere near the training and experience--to say nothing of the legal authority--to conduct a drug raid on a high school," Isaacs added. "It is chilling to think that any school official would be willing to put vulnerable students at risk this way."

Welcome to Prison Town, U.S.A.

Eloy Detention Center (Source: CCA)CCA, the nation's largest for-profit prison/immigrant detention center operator, with more than 92,000 prison and immigrant detention "beds" in 20 states and the District of Columbia, reported $1.7 billion in gross revenue last year. This revenue is derived almost exclusively from tax payer-funded government (county, state, federal) contracts through which the corporation is paid per-diem, per-prisoner rates for the warehousing of prisoners and immigrant detainees.

And, CCA has a substantial presence in Casa Grande and throughout Arizona's Pinal County (Casa Grande is the largest town in Pinal County). The corporation owns and operates a total of six correctional/detention facilities in the county, distributed through the towns of Florence and Eloy.

These facilities hold a mixture of prisoners from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Hawaii Department of Public Safety Division of Corrections, TransCor (a detainee/prisoner transportation subsidiary of CCA), the Pascua Yaqi Tribe, the U.S. Air Force, the Vermont Department of Corrections, and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. In September of this year, CCA was awarded a contract with the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) to house 1,000 medium security prisoners at the corporation's Red Rock Correctional Center in Eloy.

In 2009, the Central Arizona Regional Economic Development Foundation listed CCA as the largest non-governmental employer in Pinal County. To boot, CCA is a "Board Level" member of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a powerful trade/lobby organization, and is active in the Eloy, Florence, and Casa Grande chambers of commerce. (For more on CCA's political influence in Arizona, see "Brownskins and Greenbacks," DBA Press, June 2010.)

This CCA presence, coupled with the location of two correctional facilities operated by GEO Group (the nation's second largest for-profit prison/immigrant detention center contractor) in the county, as well as two ADC-run prison complexes, makes Pinal County -- which once cited mining and agriculture as its economic bedrock -- a de facto prison industry community.

Despite the obvious differences between CCA and actual law enforcement agencies, those involved in the Vista Grande High School drug sweep seem unable to differentiate between CCA employees and law enforcement officers.

"CCA is like a skip and a hop away from us-- as far as the one in Florence," said Anderson. "We work pretty closely with all surrounding agencies, whatever kind of law enforcement they are-- be they police, or immigration and naturalization, or the prison systems. So, yeah, this seems pretty regular to me."

For his part, Hamilton seems equally unable to differentiate between law enforcement officers and employees of a for-profit prison corporation.

"To be honest with you, I couldn't tell if they were Casa Grande Police, Pinal County police, Gila River, the sheriff's department-- they all look the same," said Hamilton.

Questions of Legality

But they are not the same.

Aside from the fact that CCA is a private corporation that derives its profits from the incarceration of human beings-- such as minimum and medium security drug offenders -- Arizona Administrative Code provides that, in order for any individual to engage in the duties of a "peace officer," that individual must obtain certification from the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Board. Arizona Revised Statutes defines "peace officer" to include such law enforcement personnel as: municipal police officers, constables, marshals, Department of Public Safety personnel, and community college/university police.

The POST Board is comprised of the Arizona Attorney General, the director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, the director of the Arizona Department of Public Safety, municipal police department chiefs, county sheriffs, state university personnel, and other public safety/law enforcement personnel. POST's essential purpose, as defined by Arizona law is to "prescribe reasonable minimum qualifications for officers to be appointed to enforce the laws of this state and the political subdivisions of this state and certify officers in compliance with these qualifications."

And, Arizona Administrative Code is very clear on this point: "a person who is not certified by the Board or whose certified status is inactive shall not function as a peace officer or be assigned the duties of a peace officer by an agency ... "

According to POST Executive Director Lyle Mann, POST provides two types of certification: standards and training certification for "peace officers," and standards and training certification for correctional officers. Arizona Administrative Code mandates that ADC officers be POST certified. However, according to Mann, employees of private prison contractors are exempt from this standards and training requirements. As such, said Mann, no CCA employee is POST certified -- as either a "peace officer" or a correctional officer.

It is important to note that Arizona Administrative Code explicitly states that non-regular "peace officers" -- secondary parties engaging in certain limited aspects of law enforcement under the command/supervision of regular peace officers -- must also be POST certified.

According to Arizona Administrative Code, a "limited-authority peace officer" is defined as "a peace officer who is certified to perform the duties of a peace officer only in the presence and under the supervision of a full-authority peace officer." The Code goes on to state that duties which may be performed by a "limited-authority peace officer" in the presence of a "full-authority peace officer" include: "investigative activities performed to detect, prevent, or suppress crime, or to enforce criminal or traffic laws of the state, county, or municipality."

This definition seems to fit the description -- with the exception that CCA employees aiding CGPD "peace officers" are not POST certified -- of what occurred at Vista Grande High School on the morning of October 31, 2012.

According to Officer Anderson and Principal Hamilton, the raid was organized and conducted at Hamilton's request.

"We need to keep drugs off our campus," said Hamilton when asked why he requested the raid. "We wanted to make sure our campus ... we wanted to send a message to kids that we don't want that stuff on our campus."

Hamilton stated that, outside from this desire to send a "message to kids," he had no knowledge of any particular drug use problem on his school's campus.

CGPD then issued a request for assistance to what it considered to be other local law enforcement agencies -- including CCA.

According to Anderson, CCA provided two canine units (handlers and dogs) to aid in the high school "drug sweep." These CCA canine units worked under the command of the lead CGPD canine unit.

According to Anderson, there is no contract or formal agreement for such services extant between CGPD and CCA. Rather, said Anderson, CCA simply agreed to participate in the raid when approached by CGPD "K-9" officers. Anderson stated that he does not know whether CGPD ever contacted POST-certified correctional canine units at either of the two nearby ADC-operated prisons.

As to the general role canine units play in such school "drug sweeps," Anderson stated that the dogs and their handlers are typically utilized to detect the presence of illicit materials in classrooms and school parking lots.

This activity, as was conducted by CCA employees, would seem to fall squarely under the Arizona Administrative Code description of duties performed by "limited-authority peace officers" -- officers who may perform "investigative activities" for the purpose of detecting, preventing, or suppressing criminal activity, and who are only authorized to do so while in the presence of "full-authority peace officers," such as CGPD. Such "limited-authority peace officers" are required to be POST certified.

Regardless, according to both Anderson and Hamilton, this type of activity has been going on for years in Pinal County.

According to Anderson, a similar "drug sweep" -- utilizing CCA canine units -- was conducted at Casa Grande's Union High School in 2011. Anderson has been unable to provide further details relating to this event.

According to Anderson, the Vista Grande High School raid is unlikely to be the last instance of CCA partnership with local law enforcement, as he assumed CGPD would use the corporation's canine teams again, if needed.

And, according to Hamilton, he requested and had executed "drug sweeps" utilizing CCA canine units "two or three times a year," while serving as principal at Coolidge High School in Coolidge, Arizona -- also located in Pinal County, roughly ten miles from the private prison mecca of Florence. Hamilton was principal at Coolidge High School from 2003 through 2007.

CCA did not respond to multiple requests for comment regarding their involvement in law enforcement operations at public schools in Pinal County.

Conflict of Interest: From the Cradle to the Cell

According to Anderson, three students were arrested as a result of the October 31 Vista Grande raid: two female students, ages 15 and 17, as well as one 15-year-old male. According to Anderson, the 15-year-old female was found in possession of .10 grams of marijuana; the 15-year-old male student was found in possession of .50 grams of marijuana; and the 17-year-old female was found in possession of 10 ounces of marijuana. According to Anderson, this last quantity was "individually packaged."

According to Anderson, the students were referred to the juvenile division of Pinal County Superior Court. All students were then released to their parents/legal guardians.

According to Hamilton, the school will commence expulsion hearings against all students arrested.

It is worth noting that, while (as of November 12, 2012) charges have yet to be filed against students arrested in the October 31 Vista Grande drug raid, it is possible, under Arizona law, for the 17-year-old female allegedly found to be in possession of 10 ounces of "individually packaged" marijuana to be sentenced as an adult if charged with possession with intent to distribute -- a felony which would could carry a prison sentence.

In addition, it is important to note that, under Arizona law, individuals arrested for illicit activity/possession of illicit substances on or near school grounds may face "drug-free school zone" sentencing enhancements. Those convicted of drug (including marijuana) offenses in Arizona courts, and sentenced through the stringent criteria of "drug-free school zone" sentencing enhancements, lose the possibility of sentence suspension, parole, or probation (which would rule out the possibility of a deferral or diversion). This sentencing enhancement also adds a mandatory year to any prison sentence handed down by the court.

While the recently-awarded 1,000 CCA Arizona prison beds have yet to come into operation, it is exactly this kind of low risk, minimum to medium security prisoner that corporations such as CCA derive much of their profit from.

Furthermore, according to Anderson, the Vista Grande High School marijuana arrests have sparked a broader, ongoing investigation.

Given the fact that such high school raids may serve as the foundation for larger narcotics investigations which may net additional adult offenders -- and given the tremendous pressure for information a prosecutor may exert on a student through discretionary use of "drug-free school zone" sentencing enhancements -- concerned citizens say that CCA's involvement in such raids constitutes a clear conflict of interest.

"They're [CCA] not the criminal justice system. They are benefactors of the criminal justice system," said correctional specialist and prison reform advocate, Carl Toersbijns.

Toersbijns, now retired (he retired in 2010), served as a deputy warden of operations at ADC-operated Arizona State Prison (ASP) Eyeman, as a deputy warden of operations at ASP Safford, as a deputy warden of operations at New Mexico Department of Corrections-operated Western New Mexico Correctional Facility (Grants, New Mexico), and as an associate warden at the Central New Mexico Correctional Facility (at Los Lunas, New Mexico). Collectively, Toersbijns' career in corrections has spanned over 25 years in both Arizona and New Mexico. Such work, said Toersbijns, has entailed everything from details with prison canine units, to prison gang units.

"They [CCA] use the criminal justice system as a means of making income -- for profit," added Toersbijns. "So, their interest in the criminal justice system is totally opposite of the police officer. The police officer is public safety. The primary interest for CCA and associated entities is profit. So, there most definitely is a conflict of interest."

Profit-Driven Roadmap to the Present: "Tough-on-Crime" Mania and the Introduction of the "War on Drugs" to the Classroom.

As some opponents of prison privatization attest, CCA embodies the worst pitfalls of public-private partnerships, in that the corporation has worked in the past to advance criminal justice legislation that has contributed to both a swell in U.S. prison/detention center populations and, consequently, CCA's bottom line.

For example, CCA was active (both as a co-chair and member) in the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) Public Safety and Elections Task Force (formerly the ALEC Criminal Justice Task Force) through the 1990s, to the end of 2010.

ALEC bills itself as "the nation's largest, non-partisan, individual public-private membership association of state legislators," working toward the advancement of the "Jeffersonian ideals" of limited federal government. In reality, ALEC is almost entirely funded by corporations and sources other than legislative dues, and it is overwhelmingly comprised of Republican state lawmakers and an untold number of large corporations and influential law/lobby firms (although at least 41 companies have announced they have stopped funding ALEC in the wake of public exposure of its activities). ALEC's primary objective is to adopt and disseminate "model legislation," much of which is drafted entirely by its private sector members. ALEC boasts that nearly 20 percent of this "model legislation" introduced in state legislatures nationwide is passed into law annually.

In the wake of reporting outlining CCA's involvement with ALEC and the spread of immigration law based on SB 1070, CCA told the Arizona Republic, in September 2011, that the corporation left ALEC at an undisclosed time in 2010.

Records obtained by DBA Press show the direct sponsorship of both CCA and of Management and Training Corporation ("MTC," currently the nation's third largest for-profit prison/immigrant detention center operator) of the August 2010 ALEC Annual Meeting, as well as the likely involvement of lobbyists employed by both CCA, MTC and GEO Group in the December, 2010 ALEC "States and Nation Policy Summit".

Arizona lobby reports also show clear GEO Group involvement with ALEC during the December, 2009 ALEC States and Nation Policy Summit -- the meeting at which then-Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce introduced legislation (that would later be introduced in the Arizona legislature as SB 1070) for adoption as a piece of ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force "model legislation." Subsequently, copycat legislation similar to this ALEC model bill -- the "No More Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants Act" -- began appearing in state legislatures throughout the nation.

Furthermore, the ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force was instrumental, during the years of CCA's membership and leadership, in proliferating such 'tough-on-crime' legislation as: "three strikes," "truth in sentencing" and "mandatory minimum" sentencing guidelines.

And ALEC also advanced the model "Private Correctional Facilities Act," which allowed private corporations to operate state prisons.

These guidelines and pieces of "model legislation" (including the "Private Correctional Facilities Act") were advanced by ALEC in partnership with CrimeStrike, a division of the National Rifle Association ("NRA," a longtime ALEC private sector member), throughout the first half of the 1990s. Critics of this effort saw CrimeStrike largely as a response to the Clinton administration's desire to strengthen firearms violence prevention laws. As such, the CrimeStrike campaign spawned the saying, "guns don't kill people, people kill people"-- and posited that the solution to crime would be found through the use of greater criminal penalties. This strategy took advantage of, and perpetuated, the "tough-on-crime" sentiments of the day.

Largely as a result of model laws/sentencing guidelines advanced by the ALEC/NRA CrimeStrike partnership, the United States experienced a boom in the number of incarcerated individuals (in state and federal prisons, as well as in jails)-- from just over 1.1 million incarcerated in 1990, to nearly 2.3 million in 2010.

During the years of CCA's Criminal Justice/Public Safety and Elections Task Force involvement, ALEC also advanced and advocated "model legislation" that not only resulted in greater drug law enforcement presence on public school campuses, but that also mandated tough sentencing enhancements for drug offenses committed in "drug-free school zones."

The ALEC "Drug-Free Schools Act" called for the use of federal funds provided through the Drug Free Schools and Communities Act of 1986 for "enhanced apprehension, prevention and education efforts" in joint cooperation between law enforcement agencies and local school districts.

Multiple ALEC publications (including the ALEC "Sourcebook for American State Legislation 1993-94," which lists CCA among the organization's private sector members and advisors), along with the ALEC "Use of a Minor in Drug Operations Act" reference the "model Drug-Free School Zone Act," although it is unclear whether this "model" bill originated with ALEC.

It is clear, however, that the model "Drug-Free School Zone Act," which establishes "drug-free school zones" and carries sentencing enhancements similar to the enhancements codified in Arizona law, was promoted by a broad coalition of public interests groups during the 'tough-on-crime' fervor of the early-to-mid 1990s. The model bill enjoyed such support that the 1992 National Office of Drug Control Policy (NODCP) established federal assistance in establishing "drug-free school zones," as well as mandatory sentencing enhancements nationwide.

Interestingly enough, this NODCP initiative, which was set forth in a report discussing the agency's "national priorities" for 1992, advocated state adoption of several other known pieces of ALEC model legislation, such as the "Use of a Minor in a Drug Operations Act," as well as other ALEC "models" calling for the suspension or revocation of occupational licenses for professionals convicted of drug crimes, the eviction of drug offenders from public housing, and the use of "mandatory minimum" sentencing guidelines.

Not surprisingly, ALEC, along with several other public policy groups, was credited by the NODCP as having been "especially helpful in the formulation of this strategy."

In April of 2012, following widespread criticism and loss of corporate sponsorship due to such pieces of "model legislation" disseminated by the Public Safety and Elections Task Force as the "Stand Your Ground Act," the "Voter ID Act" and the "No More Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants Act," ALEC announced that it would disband the task force (an announcement that PRWatch has critiqued as a "PR" maneuver).

Unfortunately, as the October 31 Vista Grande High School drug raid illustrates, the purported discontinuation of this task force comes only after the damage of two decades of private prison industry influence in the legislative process has taken its toll.

Is Any of this Right?

Vast differences between law enforcement agencies and private, for-profit corrections corporations aside, former ADC deputy warden and corrections specialist Carl Toersbijns said he sees a greater underlying problem in the practice of using any prison -- public or private -- personnel in school drug raids.

The simple fact is this: correctional officers -- people who work on a continual basis around adult criminal offenders-- have a much different mentality than a teacher, principal, or police officer. This mentality, he believes, may not be the most suitable mentality to subject school children to.

"Children are different -- they don't act like adults, and I don't think you ought to use corrections officers around children," said Toersbijns. "It's a different culture, it's a different setting, it's a different approach. It's inappropriate."

For example, the term "lockdown," said Toersbijns, may mean an entirely different thing to a corrections officer than it means to school personnel, students, or police.

"They use that terminology, 'lock down,' in the police department too. When they've got something going on in the neighborhood -- a robbery suspect in the neighborhood -- they lock the schools down [...] If you have a group there, that you've called in to do a job, and some of them are correctional officers, and they hear the words 'lock down,' it has a different meaning -- it has a total different meaning [...] You don't tell a correctional officer 'this school's on lock down,' because the mentality is: 'oh, I can go anywhere I want and tear up anything I want and grab anything that I want. That's the mentality we use in prison. Prisoners don't have rights -- you and I both know that -- when it comes to search and seizure, they don't have no rights. Children have rights."

Thanks to Alex Friedmann, associate editor of Prison Legal News (www.prisonlegalnews.org), for his contribution to this article. CMD staffers Rebekah Wilce and Alex Oberley also contributed to this article. The article is also available at DBA Press, and a shorter version will appear in the December 2012 issue of Prison Legal News.

in these times excerpt;

By 1996, CrimeStrike claimed responsibility for the passage of “three strikes” laws in Washington, California, Georgia, Delaware and North Carolina, as well as truth-in-sentencing laws in Arizona, Mississippi and Virginia.

A contributing factor to the spread of truth-in-sentencing laws was the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. The Act provided millions of federal dollars under the Violent Offender Incarceration and Truth-In-Sentencing (VOI/TIS) Incentive Grant Program to states to build new prisons or contract out beds with private corporations if the states adopted truth-in-sentencing laws for violent offenders.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, by 1998, 27 states and the District of Columbia had adopted federal truth-in-sentencing guidelines and were receiving VOI/TIS funding for corrections expansion. Eleven states had adopted versions of the “three-strikes” legislation.

Several states exceeded the VOI/TIS requirements and imposed broader sentencing guidelines, beyond the realm of violent offenses. Arizona, for example, amended its sentencing laws in a way which would require all prisoners to serve their entire sentences, except that they may be eligible for earned release credits for up to a 15 percent sentence reduction. From 1996 to 2001, Arizona received $57,923,000 in VOI/TIS grants for much-needed prison expansion and operational expenses under the state’s new sentencing guidelines.

According to the Department of Justice, the federal government disbursed $2.7 billion in VOI/TIS grants nationwide during the same five-year period to states that had adopted the guidelines. However, the program was discontinued following fiscal year 2001, leaving states with rapidly-swelling prison populations to foot the bill.

In late 2009 through the first quarter of 2010, several states which had previously espoused the “tough-on-crime” stance promoted through ALEC and CrimeStrike reconsidered and rolled back some of those tough sentencing guidelines in order to slacken the demands wrought on their budgets by overburdened criminal justice systems in the face of massive shortfalls. This, however, has not been the prevailing attitude among Arizona lawmakers—struggling with one of the most severe budgetary crises in the nation—who have stuck by their guns and, instead of revisiting sentencing guidelines, opened nearly their entire prison system to operation by private corrections contractors.

Gov. Brewer signed the Criminal Justice Budget Reconciliation Act (Criminal Justice Act) into law in September 2009. The law required the state to issue requests for proposals (RFPs) for the private operation of up to nine of the state’s 10 prison complexes. This provision of the Criminal Justice Act was quietly repealed by the legislature in March 2010, due primarily to lawmaker concerns that private prison companies were not equipped to handle maximum security facilities. However, the Criminal Justice Act also required the Arizona Department of Corrections to issue RFPs for 5,000 new private medium to minimum-security beds. [Ed. Note: The RFPs for 5,000 additional private prison beds were cancelled by the Department of Corrections in September 2010, though they will be reissued; see: PLN, Sept. 2010, p.42].

The bid for privatization in Arizona was unprecedented. The only other instances of a state legislature even considering opening the state’s entire prison system to private contractors were the Corrections Corporation of America’s failed bids in the mid-80’s and mid-90’s to take over the entire prison system in its home state of Tennessee. During the second bid, CCA projected an additional $100 million annually in state revenues as a result of privatization. Upon review, however, the Tennessee legislature realized that the projections were far from accurate. Interestingly enough, the same $100 million figure was cited by the Arizona state legislature in the Criminal Justice Budget Reconciliation Act—the primary engines of which were Senate President and Arizona State ALEC Chair Bob Burns, as well as Senator Pearce.

Shower in the Desert:  It’s Raining Money

Over the past decade, the private prison industry has increasingly shifted its attention to the burgeoning fields of undocumented and criminal alien detention.

For example, from January 2008 to April 2010, CCA spent $4.4 million lobbying the Department of Homeland Security and ICE, the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee, the Office of Budget Management, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and both houses of Congress. Of the 43 lobbying disclosure reports filed by CCA during this period, only five do not expressly state intent to monitor or influence immigration reform policy or gain Homeland Security or ICE appropriations.

To illustrate the lucrative payoff this activity has had for CCA, the private jailer reported$1.7 billion in gross revenue for 2009, attributing about 40 percent of this business to its federal clients ICE, the BOP and the U.S. Marshals Service, all of which house immigrant detainee populations.

And, according to the story the numbers tell, it is easy to see why the private prison industry is eager to expand its stake in the immigrant detainee market. According to ICE Public Affairs Officer Gillian Brigham, in fiscal year 2009, ICE detained 383,524 individuals with an average daily prisoner population of 32,098 spread across the nation’s 270 immigrant detention centers.

Due to the rising numbers of immigrant detentions in recent years, coupled with the rising tide of economic shortfalls at both the state and federal level (ICE reported a $140 million budget shortfall for fiscal year 2010), ICE has farmed the operations of many of these facilities out to either county operators under inter-governmental service agreements or to private prison contractors that operate the facilities on a per diem, per inmate basis.

Currently, according to Brigham, seven of these facilities are “contract detention facilities” (CDFs) owned and operated by either CCA or GEO Group. However, says Brigham, there are several types of facilities utilized by ICE for immigrant detention which may be operated by private contractors, including facilities such as county or state-owned jails and prisons contracted out by ICE under “inter-government service agreements” (IGSAs), or other “service processing centers,” which are facilities operated by both federal and private detention staff.

An example of one of these IGSA facilities would be the nation’s largest immigrant detention “tent city” facility, the Willacy County Processing Center in Raymondville, TX. This prison, though owned by the county, is operated by Management and Training Corporation (MTC), a private prison firm based in Utah.

Willacy County’s “tent city” facility, consisting of several massive dome-like structures near the Gulf of Mexico, has the capacity to warehouse in excess of 3,000 immigrant detainees awaiting deportation at any given time. [See: PLN, Sept. 2007, p.1].

Unfortunately, according to Brigham, ICE does not keep tabs on who is operating these detention centers at the state or county levels through IGSAs, so it is difficult to assess how many of those prisons are run by private firms.

However, as an indication of what they see to be bountiful times to come, GEO Group and CCA report plans to expand operations or fill thousands of existing immigrant detention bed “inventory surpluses” in Arizona, California, Oklahoma, Texas, Michigan and South Carolina in response to what the corporations refer to as “organic growth opportunities,” chief of which is an anticipated increase in immigrant detentions, coupled with the increased inability of the federal and state governments to meet detention needs due to budgetary constraints.

In May 2010, during the GEO Group’s first quarter investor conference call, an investor asked GEO CEO George Zoley what impact Arizona’s immigration law might have on business.

Zoley responded with levity: “What, they have some new legislation? I never heard about it. I think I’m increasingly convinced of their need for 5,000 new beds.”

Wayne Calabrese, GEO Group’s vice chair and chief operating officer, offered a more straightforward appraisal.

“I can only believe that the opportunities at the federal level are going to continue at pace as a result of what’s happening. I think people understand there is still a relatively low threshold of tolerance for people coming across the border and those laws not being enforced,” said Calabrese. “And that to me at least suggests there are going to be enhanced opportunities for what we do.”

The Ties that Bind

Whether or not private prison companies influenced the drafting of the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act during the month that ALEC’s Public Safety Task Force had to review the bill prior to its introduction to the Arizona legislature may be a moot point.

The private corrections/immigrant detention industry has had ample opportunity—and obvious intent—in recent years to influence the drafting of and smooth the way toward passage of this and similar legislation.

According to Pearce, Kobach and Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman, the Support Our Law Enforcement Act went through a lengthy edit and review process from the months before its introduction at the legislature to the day it was signed by the Governor. This review process—aside from the numerous hearings held in both houses of the state legislature—took place predominantly within the office of the Maricopa County Attorney and in the office of Governor Brewer.

A little over a week after Pearce introduced the Support Our Law Enforcement Act on the floor of the state Senate as SB 1070, CCA enlisted Highground Consulting, one of the most influential lobbying firms in Phoenix, to represent its interests in the state.

Lobby disclosure forms filed with the Arizona Secretary of State indicate that Maricopa County also employed the consulting firm during the time of the bill’s formation.

Highground’s influence extends into Governor Brewer’s office. The firm’s owner and principal is Charles “Chuck” Coughlin, Brewer’s top advisor and campaign manager.

In addition to Coughlin, CCA has further ties to the office of the Governor. State lobby reports reveal that Gov. Brewer’s current spokesman, Senseman, had been lobbying Arizona lawmakers as CCA’s chief lobbyist in the state as an employee of Policy Development Group, Inc., yet another influential Phoenix consulting firm, from 2005 to late 2008. Senseman was appointed as Brewer’s spokesman in January 2009—fresh off the job with CCA. Senseman’s wife, Kathryn, remains employed by Policy Development Group, which still lobbies the state on behalf of CCA.

So, in 2005 and 2006, while Arizona lawmakers—many of them ALEC members—were drafting provisions of what would eventually become the “Breathing While Brown” law (incorporated in HB 2577), Governor Brewer’s current director of communications was lobbying on behalf of the largest private prison company and operator of immigrant detention facilities in the nation.

Additionally, Brewer’s Chief Policy Advisor, Richard Bark—a man mentioned by Senseman, Pearce and Kobach as being directly involved in the drafting of the Support Our Law Enforcement Act—remains listed with the Office of the Secretary of State as an active lobbyist for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI). CCA is a “board level” member of ACCI and is the top employer in Pinal County, located just south of Maricopa County, where CCA operates five detention facilities for both state prisoners and immigrant detainees.

Meanwhile, GEO Group employs Public Policy Partners, a consulting firm which, like Highground, also provides consultation and lobbying services to Maricopa County.

While Public Policy Partners, an Arizona-based company, has over 30 clients in the state, it is worth noting that the firm has only two clients at the federal level: GEO Group (based in Florida) and Ron Sachs Communications, a Florida-based public relations firm which, according to lobby records, promotes issues related to prison privatization. Public Policy Partners, as a firm, also appears to be an advocate for expanded use of private prisons.

Federal lobby records from the first quarter of 2010 show Public Policy Partners’ owner, John Kaites, lobbying on behalf of the firm on issues pertaining to “private correctional detention management.”

CCA has also shown special interest in Arizona through several recent choices in its corporate structuring.

In 2007, CCA hired Brad Regens as “vice president of state partnership relations” for the purpose of cultivating new contracts in Arizona and California. In the two years immediately prior to his employment at CCA, Regens had worked in the Arizona House of Representatives as director of fiscal policy. Before his appointment as director of fiscal policy, Regens spent nine years working in the Arizona legislature in various roles, including assistant director of the Arizona Joint Legislative Budget Committee.

Further, after hiring Regens, CCA elected former U.S. Arizona Senator Dennis DeConcini to its board of directors in February 2008.

propublica

The growth of the private detention industry has long been a subject of scrutiny. A recent eight-part series in the New Orleans Times-Picayune chronicled how more than half of Louisiana’s 40,000 inmates are housed in prisons run by sheriffs or private companies as part of a broader financial incentive scheme. The detention business goes beyond just criminal prisoners.

As a Huffington Post investigation pointed out last month, nearly half of all immigrant detainees are now held in privately run detention facilities. Just this week, the New York Times delved into lax oversight at industrial-sized but privately run halfway houses in New Jersey.

We’ve taken a look at some of the numbers associated with the billion-dollar and wide-ranging for-profit detention industry—and the two companies that dominate the market:

General Statistics:

1.6 million: Total number of state and federal prisoners in the United States as of December 2010, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics

128,195: Number of state and federal prisoners housed in private facilities as of December 2010

37: percent by which number of prisoners in private facilities increased between 2002 and 2009

217,690: Total federal inmate population as of May 2012, according to the Bureau of Prisons

27,970: Number of federal inmates in privately managed facilities within the Bureau of Prisons

33,330: Estimated size of detained immigrant population as of 2011, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Corrections Corporation of America

66: number of facilities owned and operated by Corrections Corporation of America, the country’s largest private prison company based on number of facilities

91,000: number of beds available in CCA facilities across 20 states and the District of Columbia

$1.7 billion: total revenue recorded by CCA in 2011

$17.4 million: lobbying expenditures in the last 10 years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics

$1.9 million: total political contributions from years 2003 to 2012, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics

$3.7 million: executive compensation for CEO Damon T. Hininger in 2011

132: recorded number of inmate-on-inmate assaults at CCA-run Idaho Correctional Center between Sept. 2007 and Sept. 2008

42: recorded number of inmate-on-inmate assaults at the state-run Idaho State Correctional Institution in the same time frame (both prisons at the time held about 1,500 inmates)

The Geo Group, Inc., the U.S.’s second largest private detention company

$1.6 billion: total revenue in year 2011, according to its annual report

65: number of domestic correctional facilities owned and operated by Geo Group, Inc.

65,716: number of beds available in Geo Group, Inc.’s domestic correctional facilities

$2.5 million: lobbying expenditures in the last 8 years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics

$2.9 million: total political contributions from years 2003 to 2012, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics

$5.7 million: executive compensation for CEO George C. Zoley in 2011

$6.5 million: damages awarded in a wrongful death lawsuit against the company last June for the beating death of an inmate by his cellmate at a GEO Group-run Oklahoma prison. An appeal has been filed and is pending.

$1.1 million: fine levied against the company in November 2011 by the New Mexico Department of Corrections for inadequate staffing at one of its prisons

How Wall Street Profits from the Criminalization of Immigrants and Lobbies for More To Be Locked UpBy Peter Cervantes-Gautschi, AlterNet

Posted on October 9, 2010, Printed on June 4, 2012

http://www.alternet.org/story/148442/how_wall_street_profits_from_the_criminalization_of_immigrants_and_lobbies_for_more_to_be_locked_up

Over the past four years roughly a million immigrants have been incarcerated in dangerous detention facilities in our taxpayer-financed private prison system. A growing number of news reports and investigations confirm that for many of the people funneled into this system, it is a living nightmare. Children were abused, women were raped, and men died from lack of basic medical attention.

These facilities are run by two Wall Street-backed companies that actively promote the criminalization and incarceration of immigrants in the United States -the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group.

The T. Don Hutto immigrant detention facility in Taylor, Texas provides a now well-known example of the abuses that take place within private prisons for immigrants. Beginning in May 2006,the Don Hutto prison was used to house children and their parents who were on a path to deportation. Reports began to surface of widespread abusive treatment of immigrant children by staff of Corrections Corporation of America. An ACLU lawsuit filed on the basis of documented cases of abuse finally led to the closing of the Don Hutto facility for housing families in 2008. After the children were excluded, the Don Hutto only held women detainees. But the abuses continued. Evidence has surfaced that a number of women were sexually abused over the past two years in Don Hutto by CCA staff. Sexual abuse, including rape, has been documented in several detention centers.

The other large private prison corporation contracted by the federal government to run immigrant prisons is the GEO Group. The GEO detention facilities have also racked up many reports and complaints of abusive treatment of immigrant detainees and corrupt staff practices that violate the basic human rights of prisoners. Last month we spoke with the sibling of a detainee in a GEO-run facility who was denied basic medical attention for lack of funds to pay. The detainee’s family had to raise funds to get their relative medical attention in the facility from GEO. Other GEOdetainees have died from a lack of medical attention.

Another relative of a GEO detainee told us that prisoners who avoid getting on the wrong side of GEO guards could aspire, at most, to a job in the prison that pays 17 cents an hour for doing office work.

GEO recently agreed to pay restitution for its employees’ physical abuse of prisoners who were strip searched in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Texas, and New Mexico. In another case, GEO was ordered to pay $40 million in the wrongful death of a prisoner in its custody in Raymondville, Texas. GEO has also been sued by seven children who were sexually assaulted by a guard while being held in a GEO facility.

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), based in Nashville, Tennessee, and the GEO Group, a global corporation based in Boca Raton, Florida are the nation’s two largest prison companies. They run highly integrated operations to design, build, finance and operate prisons. GEO rakes in $1.17 billion in annual revenue, and CCA tops that at $1.69 billion. Together these companies are principal moving forces in the behind-the-scenes organization of the current wave of anti-immigrant legislative efforts, which, if successful, would dramatically increase the number of immigrant prisoners in over 20 states.

Following the Money

GEO CEO, George Zoley, was a Bush “Pioneer” who bundled more than $100,000 in contributions for the Bush-Cheney campaigns in 2000 and 2004. In October 2003, GEO was successful in securing the contract to run the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

GEO hired the services of lobbyists who had held influential positions in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Prisons, Office of the Attorney General, and the office of then-Senate Majority Leader, George Mitchell, to lobby their former employers and Congress. Throughout 2005 and leading up to the largest immigration raid in U.S. history in December 2006, GEO and CCA spent a combined total of over $6 million on lobbying efforts.

On May 1, 2006, while millions of people marched in favor of immigrant rights in 102 cities across the country, GEO and CCA were lobbying the federal government for more business. The marchers, despite their historic turnout and broad citizen base, could not block the growing wave of government support of GEO’s and CCA’s business plans.

The December 2006 raid, in which over a thousand men and women employed at Swift meat-packing plants in several states were detained, marked a change in the federal government’s enforcement of the 1995 immigration law. For the first time, many of those picked up were charged with crimes such as falsifying identity documents or identity theft that carry long prison sentences, rather than misuse of a social security number, a misdemeanor.

This single change in enforcement of existing law created a potential “market” of over 10 million new felons almost overnight, multiplying the lucrative incarceration market for the private prison industry and sending a shock wave through immigrant-related communities across the country. At the time of the Swift raid, USA Today quoted the Reverend Clarence Sandoval of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Logan, Utah, as saying, “They are taking mothers and fathers and we’re really concerned about the children. I’m getting calls from mothers saying they don’t know where their husband was taken.”

Through this change in how federal law is enforced, CCA and GEO suddenly had a huge pool of captive clients, and began to rake in millions of dollars in public funds to house, transport, feed and control immigrants.

Predictably, costs to taxpayers skyrocketed. From 2006 to the present, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) budget for the identification, custody, transportation, detention and removal of immigrants has increased 51%. The U.S. Marshall budget for the custody and transportation of immigrants over the same period has increased 15%, and the Bureau of Prisons budget for detention of immigrants over the same period has gone up 9%. The billions of dollars in increased expenditures have provided the primary source for the billions in increased revenue for CCA and GEO.

In addition, currently 625 state, county and municipality law enforcement agencies are providing identification, custody, transportation and detention of immigrants through agreements with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

According to a federal Government Accounting Office study conducted last year the cost of this program to local taxpayers is unknown because 60% of state and local governments do not keep data on their personnel, equipment, supplies and other costs related to these agreements, and therefore are not reimbursed for those costs. Whatever the exact cost, local taxpayers will feel the pinch as this program is expected to expand to all 3,100 state, county and municipal detention jurisdictions in the nation by the end of 2011. Consequently CCA and GEO can expect to increase their revenues as states and counties increasingly subcontract incarceration responsibilities to these companies.

Last year Seeking Alpha, a website of actionable stock market opinion and analysis popular on Wall Street, reported that GEO’s income from prison health care services ending in March of 2009 topped $1.0 billion, a 5.8% profit. Seeking Alpha also stated that CCA’s profit for the same period in 19 states was over $1.6 billion, with a profit margin of 9.4%. In an article entitled “Where Delinquencies Make for Good Business” the same publication noted, “Crime, unfortunately, is a growth industry and GEO Group has proven to be a successful player in the outsourcing trend for governments at many levels.” Pushing criminalization of immigrants to cast a wider net in society has been a key part of that “success.”

Soon after the Bush Administration implemented the change in law enforcement affecting immigrants, Wall Street advisors publically recommended buying stock in private prison companies like CCA and GEO. At the time, Vice President Dick Cheney was heavily invested in Vanguard, one of a handful of major shareholders in GEO.

The lobbying paid off for both companies, in huge revenue increases from government contracts to incarcerate immigrants. From 2005 through 2009, for every dollar that GEO spent lobbying the government, the company received a $662 return in taxpayer-funded contracts, for a total of $996.7 million. CCA received a $34 return in taxpayer-funded contracts for every dollar spent on lobbying the federal government, for a total of $330.4 million. In addition, both companies increased revenues over the same period from detention facility contracts with a number of states.

In 2007, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) conducted 30,407 immigration raids in workplaces, neighborhoods, and public gathering sites such as bus stops and commuter train platforms. The number of raids conducted that year was double the 2006 total. The number of immigrants placed behind bars, for what amounts to the crime of having been born in the wrong place, increased from 256,842 in 2006 to 311,169 in 2007.

As a result of fear induced by the raids and other factors, pro-immigrant May Day marches in 2007 were much smaller than those of the previous year. In mid-2007, while many activists and organizers were focused on legislative reform, public protests, eliminating the raids, and trying to help families and friends of those who had been taken away by ICE and other enforcement agencies, GEO and CCA shareholders reaped a huge profit. Both companies issued 2-for-1 stock splits that roughly doubled the value of their shareholders’ stake.

Although stockholders profited handsomely as revenues from prison contracts rose for both companies, the increase wasn’t large enough to satisfy some of their respective major shareholders. J.P. Morgan Chase, a major owner of GEO, dumped most of its stock and relinquished its leadership position in the company.

One problem for major investors seeking huge gains from the for-profit prison business was that revenue rates couldn’t keep rising because federal agencies didn’t have enough personnel to arrest and process more immigrants than the expanded number they were now handling. It became apparent that the only way to significantly raise revenue through increasing the numbers of people picked up, detained and incarcerated was to hire more law enforcement personnel.

The private prison industry now needed a new source of low-cost licensed law enforcement personnel. CCA and GEO then turned to state governments as the focus of business expansion. Both companies stepped up efforts to acquire contracts with state and local governments that were entering into lucrative agreements with the Department of Homeland Security to detain immigrants in state and local detention and correctional facilities.

The result of this shift in business focus is exemplified by CCA’s role in Arizona’s SB 1070 and both CCA’s and GEO’s roles in other legislative efforts aimed at dramatically increased numbers arrests of undocumented immigrants in over 20 states. Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer, who received substantial campaign financing from top CCA executives in Tennessee and employs two former CCA lobbyists Chuck Coughlin and Paul Sensman, as top aides, signed SB 1070 into law on April 23.

On Friday, July 30, 2010 the Republican Governors Association, which so far this year has received over $160,000 in contributions from CCA and GEO, and their respective lobbyists, sent out a nationwide solicitation written by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer requesting contributions to fund an appeal of the partial injunction issued by a judge against SB 1070.

In addition to funds raised by the partisan appeal, Brewer’s legal effort has been bolstered by supporting briefs filed with the appeals court by three states– Florida, Texas and Virginia–that have contracts with GEO or with both GEO and CCA. The two prison companies are currently ramping up their political involvement in these states and in several others that have anti-immigrant bills moving through their respective legislatures. In all, twenty states are considering SB 1070-inspired bills, which have been endorsed by their respective Republican gubernatorial candidates, financed in large part by the Republican Governor’s Association.

GEO and CCA are now heavily involved in the governor and state legislative races in states where they plan to expand their respective shares of the prison and incarceration market. GEO, for example, backed first-term Republican Governor, Bob McDonnell, in Virginia last year, and has contributed heavily to the Republican Governor’s Association and to the Florida Republican Party. In addition to Jan Brewer in Arizona, CCA is contributing to the campaigns of both, Republican Meg Whitman, and Democrat Jerry Brown, for governor in California. CCA is also giving money to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, even though Jindal isn’t currently facing an election, and to the Republican Governors Association, which has contributed over $1.5 million to state races this year.[2]

Since the change of administration in Washington D.C., GEO has expanded its presence there by adding the services of lobbyists who formerly served in high positions in the Obama presidential campaign, the Clinton White House, and the Senate and House Appropriations committees. Currently, GEO retains the services of three Washington D.C. lobbyists who also work for Wells Fargo, GEO’s top shareholder. One of GEO’s Washington D.C. lobbyists, Barbara Comstock, is also a member of the Virginia state legislature. CCA relies on its officers to do its lobbying in Washington DC,[3] where some board members, such as former Arizona U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcini, are well-connected.

CCA’s and GEO’s share of the taxpayer-funded immigrant incarceration business has grown substantially since 2006. Today, for example, in California, anyone picked up by ICE in Los Angeles is sent to a CCA facility in San Diego, while those picked up by ICE in Seattle or Portland, OR, are sent to a GEO facility in Tacoma, Washington, because detention facilities owned and operated by the federal government are at 137% capacity, with no room to house more prisoners.

Wall Street’s Role

CCA and GEO are owned by major Wall Street institutions, which profit from the immigrant incarceration business as major shareholders.

The most influential investor in CCA is a hedge fund, Pershing Square, which is run by Wall Street investment guru activist investor, Bill Ackman. Ackman also plays a powerful role in Target Corporation and Kraft Foods. Wells Fargo is the most powerful investor in GEO.

Other major investors with the power to influence management in one or the other of the two companies are Vanguard, Lazard, Scopia, Wellington Management, FMR (Fidelity), BlackRock and Bank of America. Each of these major owners is sensitive to public opinion in one way or another. These major investors do not need to rely on either CCA or GEO to make money, since most of their money is invested in enterprises unrelated to private prisons.

By almost any measure, the increased number of deportations of immigrants has not had the desired effects on anyone other than the private prison industry. Unemployment among native-born citizens in the U.S. has skyrocketed as the number of immigrants being deported has risen to over 400,000 a year.

The United States now has more people in prison than any other country on earth. At over 2 million, the U.S. has a half million more people behind bars than China, which has the second highest number of prisoners.

One would like to think that bringing this information to Congress’s attention would be enough to compel them to abandon policies that criminalize immigrants. However, that is not likely to happen soon.

This probable reluctance on the part of Congress to act isn’t merely because of the substantial campaign contributions that Senators and members of Congress receive from the private prison industry. Most members of Congress have personal investments in one or more of CCA’s or GEO’s major shareholders.

While it is true that many people are invested in CCA or GEO through their pensions without knowing it, reports on the personal finances of some key members of Congress suggest some of them have more than a casual interest in the fortunes of CCA or GEO.

One example of a Washington DC powerhouse with a substantial financial interest in CCA is Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi, one of a small group of investors in Pershing Square, a hedge fund that holds the most stock in CCA of any of the company’s shareholders. Senator Enzi, a senior Republican who sits on the Senate Budget Committee, was awarded a 100% approval rating by U.S. Border Control (USBC), which describes itself as “a non-profit, tax-exempt, citizen’s lobby. USBC is dedicated to ending illegal immigration by securing our nation’s borders and reforming our immigration policies.”

As Congress is currently tasked with finding ways to reduce the burgeoning deficit and alleviate the suffering caused by the economic crisis, shifting priorities from programs that benefit prison companies to much-needed programs that benefit taxpayers only makes sense. Compelling Congress to abandon immigrant criminalization policies is probably going to require, among other things, that citizens convince some combination of our pension funds, Wells Fargo, and a key hedge fund or two, to pull out of the private prison industry and to go elsewhere to make money.

We should be able accomplish this. IBM and Ford, when challenged, found themselves unable to justify their investments in apartheid in South Africa. As a result of a swelling movement of students, faith-based organizations, unions and shareholders, these companies divested in 1986, contributing to the fall of the racist apartheid system and a transition to democracy.

Similarly, Wells Fargo, Pershing Square, and other financial giants shall be hard-pressed to justify investments in the massive suffering caused by the criminalization of immigrants, as a movement comes together to expose the harm done to the public good by their current investments in the immigrant prison industry.

Who knows? Some of these financial institutions might even see the wisdom in investing in companies that produce family-wage jobs.

Peter Cervantes-Gautschi is the Director of Enlace, a Portland, OR based organization focused on strategic organizing, campaigns, and training in organizational development around workers’ struggles, and the impacts of multinational corporations in the lives of people in all sectors of society. Peter has been a labor activist since 1965, starting as a young farm worker in Southern California. He is a frequent contributor to the Americas Programwww.cipamericas.org.

Resources:

[1] Arizona campaign contribution reports compiled by the National Institute On Money in State Politics show that CCA’s CEO Damon Hininger, CFO Todd Mullenger, CDO Anthony Grande, and then General Counsel, Gus Puryear, contributed to Jan Brewer’s campaign.

[2] National Institute on Money in State Politics.

[3] Center for Responsive Politics, Open Secrets.org

Peter Cervantes-Gautschi is the director of the Enlace Institute.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/148442/

GEO is not the largest private for-profit prison group. Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is. It owns and manages over 60 facilities here in the U.S. and rakes in the cash while doing so. These corporations and their officers are part of the 1 percent. Damon T. Hininger, CEO of CCA, will certainly never have to worry about being poor.

[

Total Annual Cash Compensation	$1,923,201
Total Short Term Compensation	$627,693
Other Long Term Compensation	$922,881
Total Calculated Compensation	$3,696,798 ]

Total Annual Cash Compensation

$1,923,201

Total Short Term Compensation

$627,693

Other Long Term Compensation

$922,881

Total Calculated Compensation

$3,696,798

]

Check to see if your mutual or pension fund owns stock in any of them. They are openly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. They have a massive well-funded lobby.

Read about the efforts being made by one shareholder to stop rape in for profit prisons.

Stop ALEC. They fund voter suppression and voter incarceration. If they can't stop us from voting while on the outside, they want us locked up to ensure we can't vote, and in many cases will never be able to vote.

Other resources:

Just Detention International

The Engaged Zen Foundation

dialykos

Another member is the billion-dollar Corrections Corporation of America — the largest private prison company in the country.

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, runs over 60 prisons in about 20 U.S. states plus Washington, DC. CCA has contracts with federal, state, and local governments to run the prisons. The company owns most of the facilities and provides rehabilitation services for inmates. Begun in 1983, it is the largest prison corporation in the U.S. Only the federal government and three states have larger prison systems. The company trades on the New York Stock Exchange with the symbol CXW. In 2006, revenue was $1.3 billion with profits of $105 million. ^{[1]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Corrections_Corporation_of_America#cite_note-0) ^{[2]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Corrections_Corporation_of_America#cite_note-1)

^=^

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Corrections_Corporation_of_America

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, is the largest for-profit prison corporation in the U.S. ^[1] CCA runs over 60 prisons in about 20 U.S. states plus Washington, DC. CCA has contracts with all three federal corrections agencies (Federal Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. Marshals Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement), nearly half of all states and more than a dozen local municipalities.^[1] It is the fifth-largest corrections system in the U.S., with only the federal government and three states having larger prison systems.^[1] The company trades on the New York Stock Exchange with the symbol CXW. In 2006, revenue was $1.3 billion with profits of $105 million.^[2][1]

In May, 2011, Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Harley Lappin was hired as Executive Vice President and Chief Corrections Officer of CCA. ^[3][4]

Contents[hide]

Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council

CCA has long been a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Laurie Shanblum, the Senior Director of Partnership Development for CCA, has been a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) since 2003 and is currently on the Public Safety and Elections Task Force as a member of its Executive Committee.^[5] She is also on that task force's Homeland Security Subcommittee.^[6]

ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) They fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. It might be right. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door. Learn more at ALECexposed.org.

"Corporate-Sponsored Crime Laws"

In 2002, American Radio Works aired a report on ALEC, CCA, and crime laws.^[7] The report notes that the Public Safety and Elections Task Force, of which CCA is a member:

. . . writes the group's "model" bills on crime and punishment. Until recently, a CCA official even co-chaired the task force. For years, ALEC's criminal justice committee has promoted state laws letting private prison companies operate. And at least since the early 1990s, it has pushed a tough-on-crime agenda. ALEC officials say proudly that lawmakers on the group's crime task force led the drive for more incarceration in the states — "and really took the forefront in promoting those ideals and then taking them into their states and talking to their colleagues and getting their colleagues to understand that if, you know, we want to reduce crime we have to get these guys off the streets," says ALEC staffer and Criminal Justice Task Force director Andrew LeFevre.

Among ALEC's model bills: mandatory minimum sentences; Three Strikes laws, giving repeat offenders 25 years to life in prison; and "truth-in-sentencing," which requires inmates to serve most or all of their time without a chance for parole. ALEC didn't invent any of these ideas but has played a pivotal role in making them law in the states, says Bender of the National Institute on Money in State Politics. "By ALEC's own admission in its 1995 Model Legislation Scorecard, they were very successful. They had introduced 199 bills [that year]. The Truth-in-Sentencing Act had become law in 25 states, so that right there is fairly significant."

By the late 1990s, about forty states had passed versions of truth-in sentencing similar to ALEC's model bill. Because of truth-in-sentencing and other tough sentencing measures, state prison populations grew by half a million inmates in the 1990s even while crime rates fell dramatically.

The result: more demand for private prison companies like CCA.^[7]

The American Radio Works report goes on to discuss a case study in Wisconsin:

In Wisconsin, a group of lawmakers led passage of truth-in-sentencing in 1998.

"Many of us, myself included, were part of ALEC," says the bill's author, Republican state representative Scott Walker.

"Clearly ALEC had proposed model legislation," Walker recalls. "And probably more important than just the model legislation, [ALEC] had actually put together reports and such that showed the benefits of truth-in-sentencing and showed the successes in other states. And those sorts of statistics were very helpful to us when we pushed it through, when we passed the final legislation."

But a former head of Wisconsin's prison system, Walter Dickey — now a University of Wisconsin Law Professor — says he finds it "shocking" that lawmakers would write sentencing policy with help from ALEC, a group that gets funding and, supposedly, expertise, from a private prison corporation.

"I don't know that they know anything about sentencing," Dickey says. "They know how to build prisons, presumably, since that's the business they're in. They don't know anything about probation and parole. They don't know about the development of alternatives. They don't know about how public safety might be created and defended in communities in this state and other states."^[7]

Alleged Connections to Arizona's Anti-Immigrant Law

A National Public Radio (NPR) report from October 2010 suggested that CCA, through ALEC, was also responsible for Arizona's infamous anti-immigrant law SB1070. ^[8]

Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce says the bill was his idea. He says it's not about prisons. It's about what's best for the country. . . But instead of taking his idea to the Arizona statehouse floor, Pearce first took it to a hotel conference room.

It was last December at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. Inside, there was a meeting of a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Insiders call it ALEC.

It's a membership organization of state legislators and powerful corporations and associations, such as the tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., ExxonMobil and the National Rifle Association. Another member is the billion-dollar Corrections Corporation of America — the largest private prison company in the country.

It was there that Pearce's idea took shape."^[8]

The report continued:

The 50 or so people in the room included officials of the Corrections Corporation of America, according to two sources who were there.

Pearce and the Corrections Corporation of America have been coming to these meetings for years. Both have seats on one of several of ALEC's boards.

And this bill was an important one for the company. According to Corrections Corporation of America reports reviewed by NPR, executives believe immigrant detention is their next big market. Last year, they wrote that they expect to bring in "a significant portion of our revenues" from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that detains illegal immigrants.

In the conference room, the group decided they would turn the immigration idea into a model bill. They discussed and debated language. Then, they voted on it.

"There were no 'no' votes," Pearce said. "I never had one person speak up in objection to this model legislation."

Four months later, that model legislation became, almost word for word, Arizona's immigration law.^[8]

The report also mentions that the same week Pearce's bill was introduced, CCA hired a new lobbyist for the capitol, and that thirty of the 36 bill co-sponsors received donations over the next six months, from prison lobbyists or prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America, Management and Training Corporation and The Geo Group.^[8]

CCA denied ever lobbying on immigration law.^[citation ^needed]

Lobbying

CCA spent $970,000 for federal lobbying in 2010. In-house lobbyists and four outside lobbying firms were used.^[9] This was a decline from the years 2004-2007, when lobbying expenditures were between $2 and $3 million per year.^[9]

In the first quarter of 2011, CCA spent $290,000 on lobbying, employing what the Center for Responsive Politics calls "32 well-connected federal lobbyists." ^[10]

Political contributions

Corrections Corporation of America gave $68,750 to federal candidates in the 2010 election cycle through its political action committee - 56% to Republicans and 44% to Democrats.^[11]

Its contributions to state candidates was concentrated in California, Florida, and to lesser degree, Georgia; according to a Justice Policy Institute Report, CCA gave $1 million in these three states between 2003 and 2010 accounting for 2/3 of its total state-level giving.^[12]

Personnel

Key people: ^[13]

John D. Ferguson, Chairman
Damon Hininger, President, CEO and Director
Todd Mullenger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Officers:^[14]

Damon Hininger, President and Chief Executive Officer
Dennis Bradby, Vice President, Inmate Programs, formerly with the Virginia Department of Corrections in a variety of management positions
Steven Conry, Vice President, Facility Operations, Business Unit 3
David Garfinkle, Vice President, Finance and Controller, former Senior Manager at KPMG Peat Marwick LLP
Louise Grant, Vice President, Communications
Lucibeth Mayberry, Vice President and Deputy Chief Development Officer
Natasha Metcalf, Vice President, Partnership Development
John Pfeiffer, Vice President, Technology and Chief Information Officer
J. Michael Quinlan, Senior Vice President
Brad Regens, Vice President, Partnership Relations
Herb Spiwak, Vice President, Health Services
Daren Swensen, Vice President, Facility Operations, Business Unit 2
Patrick Swindle, Vice President, Treasury
Ron Thompson, Vice President, Facility Operations, Business Unit 1
Jimmy Turner, Vice President, Facility Human Resources
Bart VerHulst, Vice President, Partnership Relations

Board of Directors:^[15]

John D. Ferguson, Chairman of Board, Former Commissioner of Finance and Administration for the State of Tennessee
Donna M. Alvarado, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense
William F. Andrews, Chairman of Executive Committee
John D. Correnti, Member of Audit Committee, CEO of SteelCorr, Inc.
Dennis DeConcini, former U.S. Senator from Arizona
Damon Hininger, President and Chief Executive Officer
John R. Horne, Board of Trustees of Manufacturer's Alliance/MAPI
C. Michael Jacobi, Former President and Chief Executive Officer of Timex Corporation
Thurgood Marshall, Jr., son of the historic Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, former Cabinet Secretary to President Clinton
Charles L. Overby, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Freedom Forum
John R. Prann, Jr., Former President and CEO of Katy Industries, Inc.
Joseph V. Russell, President and CFO of Elan-Polo, Inc.
Henri L. Wedell, Private investor in Memphis, Tenn.

Contact

10 Burton Hills Boulevard

Nashville, TN 37215

Phone: (615) 263-3000; (800) 624-2931

Fax: (615) 263-3140

Web: http://www.cca.com

Resources and articles

External articles

Barry Yeoman, "Steel-Town Lockdown", Mother Jones, May/June 2000.
Ken Silverstein, "America's Private Gulag", Prison Legal News/CorpWatch, June 1, 2000.
Graduate Employees and Students Organization at Yale, [http://www.yaleunions.org/geso/reports/CCAreport.pdf Endowing Injustice: YALE UNIVERSITY’S INVESTMENT IN

CORRECTIONS CORPORATION OF AMERICA] (pdf)

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 ^1.3 Corrections Corporation of America, "About" page, corporate website, accessed July 8, 2011.
↑ CCA Profile, Hoovers, accessed September 2007
↑ Corrections Corporation of America, CCA Announces Hiring of Harley G. Lappin as Chief Corrections Officer, corporate press release, June 1, 2011, accessed July 8, 2011
↑ Ryan J. Reilly, Report: Private Prisons Love Mass Incarceration and Want Politicians to Love it Too, TPM Muckraker, June 24, 2011
↑ Corrections Corporation of America, Partner Relations, corporate website, accessed July 8, 2011
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Private Sector Executive Committee, organization website, accessed June 2, 2011
↑ ^7.0 ^7.1 ^7.2 John Biewen, Corporate-Sponsored Crime Laws, American Radio Works, Apr 2002, accessed July 8, 2011
↑ ^8.0 ^8.1 ^8.2 ^8.3 Laura Sullivan Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law, National Public Radio, October 28, 2010
↑ ^9.0 ^9.1 Center for Responsive Politics, "Corrections Corp of America: 2010 Total Lobbying Expenditures," OpenSecrets.com, online database, accessed June 27, 2011
↑ Michael Beckel, Shareholder Battle for Transparency Continues, Open Secrets blog/ Center for Responsive Politics, Jun 7, 2011, accessed July 8, 2011.
↑ Center for Responsive Politics, 2006 Corrections Corp of America: 2010 PAC Summary Data, OpenSecrets.com, online database, accessed June 27, 2011
↑ Justice Policy Institute, Gaming the System, JPI, June 2011, accessed July 8, 2011.
↑ Key People, Hoovers, accessed June 2011.
↑ Corrections Corporation of America, Officers, corporation website, accessed June 27, 2011
↑ Corrections Corporation of America, Board of Directors, corporation website, accessed June 27, 2011

http://whyihatecca.blogspot.com/2012/01/private-prisons-dont-save-money-in.html

The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is the industry leader in private prisons. It was the brainchild of a West Point cadet and Harvard Business School grad who received backing from the same investment firm that gave us Kentucky Fried Chicken. During the 1980s, with crime on the rise and 'get tough' well into its second decade, a prison franchise sounded like a good idea in what the business world calls a 'rapidly expanding sector'.

private prisons don't save money, even though 73% of the private prisons in a recent study received a 'development incentive' totaling $628 million in tax free bonds, low cost construction financing, property tax abatements - which means less money for local schools - and infrastructure subsidies (water, sewer, utility hookups or access roads). See Ch 3 of Jail Breaks: Economic Development Subsidies Given to Private Prisons.

Their stock had been trading for $45 in '98, but bottomed out at $0.18 a share, leading an analyst to comment "the company has taken a dive that would make a dot-com blush" However, the same report indicates that "we expect the industry to have more growth opportunities in difficult economic times."

College campuses boycotted **Sodexho-Marriott** because its "close ties to the scandal-ridden Corrections Corporation of America make it an unfit provider of campus dining services". Yes, that's the Marriott as in hotels and food service because private prisons work on an occupancy rate basis (higher vacancies, less profit) and they have thousands of people who require regular feeding. The campus movement pressured Sodexho-Mariott to divest itself of CCA, but they have retained an operating interest in British & Australian private prisons. [MORE]

Corrections Corporation Of America: A Critical Look At Its First Twenty Years

**Corporate-Sponsored Crime Laws**~ Private Corrections Institute

The Private-Prison Industry and Political Giving in the South- an analysis of $1.1 million in political campaign contributions given in southern states during the 2000 elections

Corrections: documentary video about the story of justice turned to profit(click on the activism links)

Corrections Corporation Of America A Critical Look At Its First Twenty Years