Private prisons

[brassmonkey]

funny how they titled the article. im starting to see why they want them to stay

US Immigrants prove big business for prison companies

MIAMI (AP) ? The U.S. is locking up more illegal immigrants than ever, generating lucrative profits for the nation's largest prison companies, and an Associated Press review shows the businesses have spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying lawmakers and contributing to campaigns.

The cost to American taxpayers is on track to top $2 billion for this year, and the companies are expecting their biggest cut of that yet in the next few years thanks to government plans for new facilities to house the 400,000 immigrants detained annually.

After a decade of expansion, the sprawling, private system runs detention centers everywhere from a Denver suburb to an industrial area flanking Newark's airport, and is largely controlled by just three companies.

The growth is far from over, despite the sheer drop in illegal immigration in recent years. In 2011, nearly half the beds in the nation's civil detention system were in private facilities with little federal oversight, up from just 10 percent a decade ago.

The companies also have raked in cash from subsidiaries that provide health care and transportation. And they are holding more immigrants convicted of federal crimes in their privately-run prisons. The financial boom, which has helped save some of these companies from the brink of bankruptcy, has occurred even though federal officials acknowledge privatization isn't necessarily cheaper.

This seismic shift toward a privatized system happened quietly. While Congress' unsuccessful efforts to overhaul immigration laws drew headlines and sparked massive demonstrations, lawmakers' negotiations to boost detention dollars received far less attention.

The industry's giants ? Corrections Corporation of America, The GEO Group, and Management and Training Corp. ? have spent at least $45 million combined on campaign donations and lobbyists at the state and federal level in the last decade, the AP found.

CCA and GEO, who manage most private detention centers, insist they aren't trying to influence immigration policy to make more money, and their lobbying and campaign donations have been legal. "As a matter of long-standing corporate policy, CCA does not lobby on issues that would determine the basis for an individual's detention or incarceration," CCA spokesman Steve Owen said in an email to the AP. The company has a website dedicated to debunking such allegations.

GEO, which was part of The Wackenhut Corp. security firm until 2003, and Management and Training Corp. declined repeated interview requests. Advocates for immigrants are skeptical of claims that the lobbying is not meant to influence policy.

"That's a lot of money to listen quietly," said Peter Cervantes-Gautschi, who has helped lead a campaign to encourage large banks and mutual funds to divest from the prison companies. The detention centers are located in cities and remote areas alike, often in low-slung buildings surrounded by chain-link fences and razor wire. U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents detain men, women and children suspected of violating civil immigration laws at these facilities. Most of those held at the 250 sites nationwide are illegal immigrants awaiting deportation, but some green card holders, asylum seekers and others are also there.

The total average nightly cost to taxpayers to detain an illegal immigrant, including health care and guards' salaries, is about $166, ICE confirmed only after the AP calculated that figure and presented it to the agency.

That's up from $80 in 2004. ICE said the $80 didn't include all of the same costs but declined to provide details. Pedro Guzman is among those who have passed through the private detention centers. He was brought to the U.S. by his Guatemalan mother at age 8. He was working and living here legally under temporary protected status but was detained after missing an appearance for an asylum application his mother had filed for him. Officials ordered him deported.

Although he was married to a U.S. citizen, ICE considered him a flight risk and locked him up in 2009: first at a private detention facility run by CCA in Gainesville, Ga., and eventually at CCA's Stewart Detention Center, south of Atlanta. Guzman spent 19 months in Stewart until he was finally granted legal permanent residency.

"It's a millionaire's business, and they are living off profits from each one of the people who go through there every single night," said Guzman, now a cable installer in Durham, N.C. "It's our money that we earn as taxpayers every day that goes to finance this."

The federal government stepped up detentions of illegal immigrants in the 1990s, as the number of people crossing the border soared. In 1996, Congress passed a law requiring many more illegal immigrants be locked up. But it wasn't until 2005 ? as the corrections companies' lobbying efforts reached their zenith ? that ICE got a major boost. Between 2005 and 2007, the agency's budget jumped from $3.5 billion to $4.7 billion, adding more than $5 million for custody operations.

Dora Schriro, who in 2009 reviewed the nation's detention system at the request of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, said nearly every aspect had been outsourced. "ICE was always relying on others for responsibilities that are fundamentally those of the government," said Schriro, now the New York City Correction Commissioner. "If you don't have the competency to know what is a fair price to ask and negotiate the most favorable rates for the best service, then the likelihood that you are going to overspend is greater."

Private companies argue they can save Americans money by running the centers more cheaply. Pablo Paez, a spokesman for Boca Raton, Fla.-based GEO, said in an email his company supports public-private partnerships which "have been demonstrated to achieve significant cost savings for the taxpayers." He declined to answer specific questions.

But ICE Executive Associate Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations Gary Mead said the government has never studied whether privatizing immigrant detention saves money. "They are not our most expensive, they are not our cheapest" facilities, he said. "At some point cost cannot be the only factor."

One fundamental difference between private detention facilities and their publicly-run counterparts is transparency. The private ones don't have to follow the same public records and access requirements.

President Barack Obama has asked for less detention money this year and encouraged the agency to look at alternatives to locking people up. He also ordered DHS to stop deporting young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally, which could reduce the number behind bars. Congress, however, can approve more detention spending than DHS requests.

Beyond civil detention centers, private companies are also making more money locking up non-citizens who commit federal crimes. To deter illegal border crossers, federal prosecutors are increasingly charging immigrants with felonies for repeatedly entering the country without papers. That has led thousands of people convicted of illegal re-entry, as well as more serious federal offenses, to serve time in private prisons built just for them.

A decade ago, more than 3,300 criminal immigrants were sent to private prisons under two 10-year contracts the Federal Bureau of Prisons signed with CCA worth $760 million. Now, the agency is paying the private companies $5.1 billion to hold more than 23,000 criminal immigrants through 13 contracts of varying lengths.

CCA was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2000 due to lawsuits, management problems and dwindling contracts. Last year, the company reaped $162 million in net income. Federal contracts made up 43 percent of its total revenues, in part thanks to rising immigrant detention.

GEO, which cites the immigration agency as its largest client, saw its net income jump from $16.9 million to $78.6 million since 2000. "Another factor driving growth ... for the private sector is in the area of immigration and illegal immigration specifically," Chief Financial Officer Brian Evans told investors in GEO's 2011 3rd quarter earnings call.

CCA warned in its 2011 annual earnings report that federal policy changes in "illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them."

Utah-based Management and Training is not publicly held, so it does not post earnings. At just the federal level, these companies, their political action committees and their employees have spent more than $32 million on lobbying and on campaign contributions since 2000 ? with the national political parties getting the largest campaign contributions.

An AP review of Federal Election Commission data found the prison companies and their employees gave to key congressional leaders who control how much money goes to run the nation's detention centers and who influence how many contracts go to the private sector.

James Thurber, head of American University's Center for Congressional & Presidential Studies, said amid the heated national debate over immigration, the companies have been savvy not to donate heavily to those sponsoring legislation, which could spark backlash.

full article...

[papill0n]

In the state if Texas the single biggest industry is locking people up. That's right, the biggest industry in Texas is prisons.

Living in America ? You might want to think about that little fact

[theking]

Originally Posted by papill0n

In the state if Texas the single biggest industry is locking people up. That's right, the biggest industry in Texas is prisons.

Living in America ? You might want to think about that little fact

I live in America and I doubt that "fact" but even if it is true for Texas...why do I need to think about it?

[brassmonkey]

Originally Posted by papill0n

In the state if Texas the single biggest industry is locking people up. That's right, the biggest industry in Texas is prisons.

Living in America ? You might want to think about that little fact

your right! maybe i should get some money together and open up a prison! happy valley prison

[DWB]

- The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners.

- The United States leads the world in producing prisoners.

- Prisoners in the United States are incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.

- The United States has 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation. Communist China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison.

[pornguy]

One of the worst parts about the prisons for profits is that they are building new ones for immigrants only. And instead of sending these people back, they hold them for 3 months to a year or more before they decide what to do with them.

[L-Pink]

Lol, I first read that as "Favorite prisons" and was ready to give you some shit.

.

[SuckOnThis]

Thank Ronald Reagan for selling America out to the private prison contractors.

[Rochard]

Originally Posted by papill0n

Living in America ? You might want to think about that little fact

Sure, I live in fear every day.

[u-Bob]

Don't blame those building the prisons. Blame those who are putting people who don't belong in prison in prison.

If people want to put drugs into their own bodies, that's their choice. I think they're stupid for doing so, but it's still their choice. No reason to put them in prison.

They're now sending people to prison for buying too many sinus pills, for importing lobsters in the wrong type of container, for speeding, for prostitution, for assisting with euthanasia, for producing video content others consider obscene, for being born in a different geographic location and not having certain types of papers, for growing certain plants, for feeding the homeless without a permit, for refusing to stop selling lemonade without a permit, for dancing in public, for providing free medicals services without a license,...

If memory serves me right, over 85% of all people incarcerated or under some other kind of correctional supervision in the US are so because they committed a victimless crime.

It's simple. No victim, no crime.

Murder, rape, theft, extortion, arson,... Those are crimes. Those things should be dealt with.

Peaceful transaction between individuals are not crimes and people shouldn't be sent to prison for them.

[brassmonkey]

Originally Posted by L-Pink

Lol, I first read that as "Favorite prisons" and was ready to give you some shit.

.

next time put your glasses on b4 surfing gfy

[Barry-xlovecam]

Incarceration for profit is ripe for abuses -- scary thing ...

[brassmonkey]

Originally Posted by Barry-xlovecam

Incarceration for profit is ripe for abuses -- scary thing ...

what about the stuff they put in food like the pink slime or steroids? its dirty stuff but someone has to do it.

[brassmonkey]

Originally Posted by u-Bob

Don't blame those building the prisons. Blame those who are putting people who don't belong in prison in prison.

If people want to put drugs into their own bodies, that's their choice. I think they're stupid for doing so, but it's still their choice. No reason to put them in prison.

They're now sending people to prison for buying too many sinus pills, for importing lobsters in the wrong type of container, for speeding, for prostitution, for assisting with euthanasia, for producing video content others consider obscene, for being born in a different geographic location and not having certain types of papers, for growing certain plants, for feeding the homeless without a permit, for refusing to stop selling lemonade without a permit, for dancing in public, for providing free medicals services without a license,...

If memory serves me right, over 85% of all people incarcerated or under some other kind of correctional supervision in the US are so because they committed a victimless crime.

It's simple. No victim, no crime.

Murder, rape, theft, extortion, arson,... Those are crimes. Those things should be dealt with.

Peaceful transaction between individuals are not crimes and people shouldn't be sent to prison for them.

are you kidding? im guessing you've never known someone doing H crank or crack

[ThunderBalls]

Originally Posted by brassmonkey

are you kidding? im guessing you've never known someone doing H crank or crack

So you think people that do crack should be locked in a cage for a decade?

[mikesouth]

The "War on Drugs" is responsible for most of the prisoners, most of them are non violent offenders who are incarcerated because of mandatory drug sentencing minimums. The war on drugs is really much more a war on freedom, it is incomprehensible to me that this country incarcerates more people than any country on earth no matter what metric you use....Be it per capita, or just total number of people in jail, then its compounded by the fact that once this non violent offender goes into the prison system the odds are 66% that he will return AS A VIOLENT OFFENDER.

We need some common sense on this whole drug issue.

[brassmonkey]

Originally Posted by ThunderBalls

So you think people that do crack should be locked in a cage for a decade?

sometimes depends on what they do.

[DTK]

Originally Posted by u-Bob

Don't blame those building the prisons. Blame those who are putting people who don't belong in prison in prison.

The problem there is that the fuckfaces building the prisons also spend shitloads of money lobbying for longer sentences, making more shit illegal etc...

as always, follow the money.

[papill0n]

Originally Posted by theking

I live in America and I doubt that "fact" but even if it is true for Texas...why do I need to think about it?

slow are ya ? if you cant see a problem with the biggest single business in a single state being locking people up then you need help

[kazbalah]

Well you heard about that judge, who was paid by private prison companies to send children to prison, from which they profited from.

He is now in jail, hopefully getting fucked up the ass.

Goes to show what happens when private companies can profit from things like this, motivation becomes profit, not protecting people.

[papill0n]

Originally Posted by kazbalah

Well you heard about that judge, who was paid by private prison companies to send children to prison, from which they profited from.

He is now in jail, hopefully getting fucked up the ass.

Goes to show what happens when private companies can profit from things like this, motivation becomes profit, not protecting people.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...t=va&aid=29109

private prisons = big big business with massive implications
for all citizens in the land of the free