By the Numbers: The Growing For-Profit Detention Industry

[xchrom]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/prison-profit-industry-corporation-money-jail



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.

***SNIP

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 US 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 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 September 2007 and September 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)


*** more at link

[morningfog]

1. Recommend.

[RKP5637]

2. USA, Inc. Anything for a profit. Sponsored by your Local, State and

Federal Corporately Owned Government.

[CrispyQ]

3. Draconian drug laws to enforce the War on Some Drugs, is an easy way to feed the system. -nt

[woo me with science]

5. So is a surveillance state that watches everything we do and collects

every single electronic communication for combing through or editing whenever the government feels like it.

[snot]

4. K&R'd.

[spanone]

6. when prisons become a for profit industry, it's all about growing the business...crime pays

[woo me with science]

7. This cannot be stated enough.

The business model REQUIRES growth. This should be against the law.

[citizen blues]

8. Exactly!!!!

The rise of the for-profit prison system coincides with ALEC infiltrating state legislatures and increasingly influencing legislation. This includes even more for-profit prisons, three-strikes-you're-out and mandatory sentencing laws.

At this point we have more young men incarcerated than we have attending college. With a track record like that, what do you think this country going to look like in 20 years?