Fortress America - Denver Post

They are the new carpetbaggers and with the promise of thousands of new customers the private prison industry is absolutely giddy these days. Stock prices have skyrocketed for such companies as GEO and CCA as they promise to build prisons across the country to hold immigrants. These companies prey on human lives and they have to answer to stockholders, so they are required to make a profit, no matter what the cost is to the people and communities that they are holding prisoner.

PRISON BOOM

John Ferguson, chief executive of Corrections Corporation of America, certainly does. And for private prison companies like his, these are giddy days.

Over the past year, the stock price of Ferguson's company has climbed 86 percent. The stock of its main competitor, Geo Group Inc., has done even better, rising 155 percent.

The prosecution offensive by U.S. attorneys on the border has meant a boom in demand for rented detention space by the U.S. Marshals Service, most of which will go to companies like his, Ferguson noted in an optimistic conference call to investors in February 2006.

More important, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mi chael Chertoff announced in August an ambitious plan to remedy one of the border's long-standing problems: There aren't enough beds to hold everyone the Border Patrol catches.

Immigrant detainees held in Raymondville are confined in the windowless super-tents for 23 hours a day, with no partitions closing off toilets or showers, according to immigration attorneys who have visited the facility. Lights are on day and night, and prisoners complain of insufficient clothing and spoiled food.

"I still have clients who complain about rancid milk being served to them and people vomiting," said Jodi Goodwin, a Harlingen immigration attorney who visited the facility several times before officials began limiting access to many areas two and a half months ago.

"There are no windows, so there's very little direct light. The detainees sleep, live and stay in the same space for 23 hours a day," she said.

While officials for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement say all facilities meet federal standards, critics say problems are likely to grow because of the government's reliance on companies with a motive to skim services and increase profits.

"It's almost like a futures market. You have private prison companies gambling on expansion of the immigrant detention system, and basically prison speculators who are convincing communities to do this," said Bob Libal, an organizer with South Texans Opposing Private Prisons (STOPP).

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