Truth

May12012

thepeoplesrecord:

The nation’s largest private prison company, the Corrections Corporation of America, is on a buying spree. With a war chest of $250 million, the corporation, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, earlier this year sent letters to 48 states, offering to buy their prisons outright. To ensure their profitability, the corporation insists that it be guaranteed that the prisons be kept at least 90 percent full. Plus, the corporate jailers demand a 20-year management contract, on top of the profits they expect to extract by spending less money per prisoner. - Private Prison Corporations are Modern-day Slave Traders

The nation’s largest private prison company, the Corrections Corporation of America, is on a buying spree. With a war chest of $250 million, the corporation, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, earlier this year sent letters to 48 states, offering to buy their prisons outright. To ensure their profitability, the corporation insists that it be guaranteed that the prisons be kept at least 90 percent full. Plus, the corporate jailers demand a 20-year management contract, on top of the profits they expect to extract by spending less money per prisoner. - Private Prison Corporations are Modern-day Slave Traders

(Source: thepeoplesrecord)

Prisons for Profit Corrections Corporation of America

April252012

“Corrections Corporation of America, 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.” Creating a Prison-Corporate Complex (via socialuprooting)

(via pintu)

Prisons Corrections Corporation of America

March262012

With well over 2 million people in jail - the U.S. has the world’s biggest prison population.

But some are seeing the inside of a cell because dodgy judges are getting payback from the private sector.

Russia Today’s Gayane Chichakyan reports on those dishing out justice for a fee.

(4 minute video)

(Source: youtube.com)

Prisons for Profit Corrections Corporation of America jail Incarceration

January262012

“Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities… . The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any 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.”

Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison operator in America, statement to stockholders, 2005.

In other words: ending the Drug War and eliminating federal mandatory minimum sentences is bad for business. Adam Gopnik notes that CCA “spends millions lobbying legislators.” presumably, inter alia, to keep harsh sentencing laws on the books.

source

(via letterstomycountry)

Private prison industry? What private prison industry?

(via excitablehonky)

Prison Corrections Corporation of America prisons for profit drugs

December212011

The Shocking Ways the Corporate Prison Industry Games the System

The United States, with just 5 percent of the world’s population, currently holds 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, and for the last 30 years America’s business entrepreneurs have found a lucrative way to cash in on the incarceration surplus: private for-profit prisons.

While the implications of an industry that locks human beings in cages for profit is an old story, there is an important part of the history of private prisons that often goes untold.

Just a decade ago, private prisons were a dying industry awash in corruption and mired in lawsuits, particularly Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest private prison operator. Today, these companies are booming once again, yet the lawsuits and scandals continue to pile up. Meanwhile, more and more evidence shows that compared to publicly run prisons, private jails are filthier, more violent, less accountable, and contrary to what privatization advocates peddle as truth, do not save money. In fact, more recent findings suggest that private prisons could be more costly.

So why are they still in business? […]

Prisons for Profit incarceration Corrections Corporation of America Evil

September42011

Sheriff Saves $1 Million By De-Privatizing County Jail | Crooks and Liars

Privatization has nothing to do with saving money and everything to do with giving kickbacks to politically connected contractors like Corrections Corporation of America:

Sheriff Michael Page of Hernando County, Florida, is the latest in a line of Sheriffs to inherit the headache that is the county jail. After being operated by CCA for 22 years, the facility had fallen into exceptional disrepair, after CCA had neglected to perform millions of dollars worth of required maintenance. The county took over the facility a little more than a year ago and started the long process of upgrading the security, staff, and conditions of the jail.

Initial projections by then-Sheriff Richard Nugent hypothesized that the county could save up to $200,000 compared to what CCA would have charged. It turns out that de-privatizing the jail has actually saved Hernando County taxpayers more than $1,000,000 this year. Maybe Ric Scott and JD Alexander ought to reconsider their bullheaded push to privatize half the state’s prison system.

(Source: sarahlee310)

Florida politics privatization Corrections Corporation of America jails