Many years ago, the elected officials of Marion County, Iowa held meeting with the citizens. They were propaganda sessions disguised as town halls. They didn’t ask us about what we wanted but told us what we should be thinking.
One of the elected ones, Senator McKinley, had two things he liked to push. One was something obscure about a valve on gas tanks that demonstrated how ridiculous regulations were. The other was private prisons.
He was all for the prisons and called them a growth industry. Senator McKinley has faded from the news, although his wife posts conservative stuff on Facebook from time to time. Perhaps he is busy counting his money because across the USA, we’re approaching peak private prison. Instead of paying scientists to cure cancer or funding weather prediction and reports, we are paying the private prison industry to lock people up. Yes, imprisoning people is big business and we taxpayers are the ones losing out. Look at it this way: Every time a Republican finds an enemy, a privatizer gets a payout. And you get a DOGE cut to your services and perks of being a citizen.
There were over 60,000 people in 186 ICE detention facilities this year. It’s estimated that 70% of these people committed no crime at all, not even a misdemeanor.
Here is a map of the facilities and ones being built. (Thank you Mother Jones and yes, I did renew my subscription.)
An important thing for us taxpayers to know is who is making bank from these lock-ups?
Core Civic and GEO Group are among the possibly familiar names. As Senator McKinnley alluded to, these companies are not new.
One reason given for using them was to reduce government waste. However, it doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict what happens when public prisons are used for incarceration: lax security, poor rehabilitation, and enhanced incentive to imprison people were all common before the Obama Administration cut back on their use.
The cutbacks didn’t sit well with the private prison profiteers. They poured money into getting Trump elected. With their candidate back in, the profits of these companies has gone through the roof. So has the stock price. GEO has even expanded into the ankle bracelet market. Who will be paying for these ankle bracelets? That’s right, the taxpayers.
Another profiteer, Core Civic, is reopening closed prisons in Oklahoma and New Jersey, and several other states, banking on more prisoners and more money thanks to the renewed ICE funding.
Least you forget the so called border crisis, you should know that there is an annual event just for those who want to make a buck off of it.
Here’s a description from Huffington Post in May:
In early April, hundreds of military and tech companies exhibited their products at the Border Security Expo, which brought “government leaders, law enforcement officials, and industry innovators” together. During the two-day event in Phoenix, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons said he would like ICE to operate more like a business: “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.” He added that “the badge and guns” should do “the badge-and-gun stuff, everything else, let’s contract out.”
Let it sink in: Amazon Prime but with human beings. And you are paying the monthly rate.
Crime is down across the US, although people have the perception that crime is rising. Governors and politicians on the take are promoting this tough on crime stance.
What IS rising is pocket lining and contracts for private prisons. GEO group has raised profits by 13%. CoreCivic has an 18% profit margin over last year. And it’s only the beginning. Unless you help get the word out. Most of us are paying the price of lost services for this.
Catherine Haustein 