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We'll buy your prisons and keep 'em orderly and clean, so as long you keep the prisoners coming in.
Tomgram: Fraser and Freeman, Creating a Prison-Corporate Complex
Posted by Steve Fraser and Joshua Freeman at 9:28am, April 19, 2012.
As cash-starved state governments scrape their way through this so-called recovery, they might as well hang signs with this message on their capitals: "Everything must go." States are hemorrhaging workers and selling off assets at a startling rate as they grapple with anemic tax revenues and dwindling federal dollars. So dire are the states' economic woes that, in recent years, they've begun offloading a more unusual type of property: prisons.
That's right -- states are so broke they've resorted to selling off their correctional facilities (with the prisoners inside) as a way to cut costs and make ends meet. In 2011, for instance, Ohio sold one of its prisons for $73 million to the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison company in the country. And make no mistake: CCA and its ilk are eager buyers. As the Huffington Post reported in February, CCA sent a letter to 48 governors offering to buy -- not just manage, but acquire entirely -- prisons in their states. The company said it had earmarked $250 million for buying and running state-owned prisons as part of a "corrections investment initiative."
But CCA, to borrow a trope from journalism, buried the "lede" in the governors' letter. The real head-snapping revelation appeared in the third-to-last paragraph: in exchange for buying a state's prison, CCA required that the state prison agency ensure that the prison remained at least 90% full. Translation: We'll buy your prisons and keep 'em orderly and clean, so as long you keep the prisoners coming in.
This is just the latest episode in the decades-long takeover of the prison industry by private interests. Reagan's "tough on crime" policies, as Michelle Alexander has written, caused spiraling incarceration rates, which in turn spawned a cottage industry of prison management companies looking to make a buck off the influx of inmates. CCA, for instance, has watched revenues grow by 500% in the past two decade
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175531/tomgram:_fraser_and_freeman,_creating_a_prison-corporate_complex/
Posted by Steve Fraser and Joshua Freeman at 9:28am, April 19, 2012.
As cash-starved state governments scrape their way through this so-called recovery, they might as well hang signs with this message on their capitals: "Everything must go." States are hemorrhaging workers and selling off assets at a startling rate as they grapple with anemic tax revenues and dwindling federal dollars. So dire are the states' economic woes that, in recent years, they've begun offloading a more unusual type of property: prisons.
That's right -- states are so broke they've resorted to selling off their correctional facilities (with the prisoners inside) as a way to cut costs and make ends meet. In 2011, for instance, Ohio sold one of its prisons for $73 million to the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison company in the country. And make no mistake: CCA and its ilk are eager buyers. As the Huffington Post reported in February, CCA sent a letter to 48 governors offering to buy -- not just manage, but acquire entirely -- prisons in their states. The company said it had earmarked $250 million for buying and running state-owned prisons as part of a "corrections investment initiative."
But CCA, to borrow a trope from journalism, buried the "lede" in the governors' letter. The real head-snapping revelation appeared in the third-to-last paragraph: in exchange for buying a state's prison, CCA required that the state prison agency ensure that the prison remained at least 90% full. Translation: We'll buy your prisons and keep 'em orderly and clean, so as long you keep the prisoners coming in.
This is just the latest episode in the decades-long takeover of the prison industry by private interests. Reagan's "tough on crime" policies, as Michelle Alexander has written, caused spiraling incarceration rates, which in turn spawned a cottage industry of prison management companies looking to make a buck off the influx of inmates. CCA, for instance, has watched revenues grow by 500% in the past two decade
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175531/tomgram:_fraser_and_freeman,_creating_a_prison-corporate_complex/
21 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
They've got obligations to fulfil for their corporate masters.
So much for ending the war on drugs.
Non-violent inmates...just what the private prisons love, eh? Private corps have an unlimited supply of cheap labor... all funded by the unsuspecting taxpayer.
This is just of many corrupt fucking practices that arise when you don't tax the über wealthy and bankrupt your government in the process. 
I've said it before and I will say it again, for profit prisons should be outlawed, plain and simple.
Nothing good can come from them, just misery for the American People as we return to slavery's sibling to sustain the worshipers of the golden calf.
Considering the history of this undead, unholy and immoral national malignancy I believe we will need to pass a Constitutional Amendment doing so, or it will come back.
Thanks for the thread, MrScorpio. 