6 Shocking Revelations About How Private Prisons Make Their Money

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/6-shocking-revelations-about-how-private-prisons-make-their-money



***SNIP

Here are six of the most shocking facts about prison privatization and corporatization, from the report.

1. 65 percent of the private prison contracts ITPI received and analyzed included occupancy guarantees in the form of quotas or required payments for empty prison cells (a “low-crime tax”). These quotas and low-crime taxes put taxpayers on the hook for guaranteeing profits for private prison corporations.

2. Occupancy guarantee clauses in private prison contracts range between 80% and 100%, with 90% as the most frequent occupancy guarantee requirement.

3. Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Virginia are locked in contracts with the highest occupancy guarantee requirements, with all quotas requiring between 95% and 100% occupancy.

4. Though crime has dropped by a third in the past decade, an occupancy requirement covering three for-profit prisons has forced taxpayers in Colorado to pay an additional $2 million.

5. Three Arizona for-profit prison contracts have a staggering 100% quota, even though a 2012 analysis from Tucson Citizen shows that the company’s per-day charge for each prisoner has increased an average of 13.9% over the life of the contracts.

6. A 20-year deal to privately operate the Lake Erie Correctional Institution in Ohio includes a 90% quota, and has contributed to cutting corners on safety, including overcrowding, areas without secure doors and an increase in crime both inside the prison and in the surrounding community.

[DrDan]

1. it is staggering at how effective the "privatizers" have been into tapping our tax $$$$

every aspect of our lives is subject to their greedy efforts - schools, prisons, etc etc etc.

Nothing is off limits when it comes to profit. Our lives are up for grabs and we are being sold out by those on both sides of the aisle.

[Scuba]

2. Private prisons are a shameful blotch on America.

[Heidi]

3. Kick, kick, kick!!!

And furthermore: !

[xchrom]

4. dah-ling!!! happy fall, Mabon to you and all who come to visit under the car port

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. ooohh..I am liking that pic!

[marmar]

5. K&R

[Jefferson23]

7. Words just fail. Talk about criminal conduct. Highly recommend. n/t

[Th1onein]

8. You forgot the slave labor.