Corporate Greed and Private Prisons

Here's a good article I found on private prisons with some interesting links...

Using cheap prison labor to build profits

• Follow the Prison Money Trail ..to elected officials (In These Times, 09-04-2006)
• The Prison Industrial Complex: Crisis and Control (CorpWatch, 1999)
• Private Prisons for Dummies (Paul's Justice Page)

LOS ANGELES (FinalCall.com) - The Prison Industrial Complex is a growing industry comprised of a number of American corporations which develop household and business products, but human rights groups condemn them for netting profits which roll off the backs of prison inmates they claim are unjustly paid cents on the dollar.

At issue, they charge, is a criminal justice system which herds primarily Black youth into the hands of private prison enterprises to work illegally under a modern-day slave system called involuntary servitude, disguised as prison work release programs.

According to a 2006 Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin, approximately 8 percent of Black males between 25 and 29 were incarcerated in 2005, compared to 2.2 percent Latinos and 1.1 percent Whites. Black males in general accounted for nearly 550,000 of the 1.4 million federal and state prison inmate population, and Black females almost 30,000.

Overall, the 2005 prison labor pool derived from the more than 2.3 million people incarcerated in the U.S., which included federal, state and territorial prisons; local jails; immigration, customs enforcement and military facilities; Indian Country jails; and juvenile facilities.

Because of this herding, private companies like Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) (New York Stock Exchange symbol: CXW) one of the nation's largest prison builders, owners and operators reaps major benefits. In 2006, CCA earned $1.3 billion and its 2006 Annual Report indicates these numbers will increase based upon the Pew Charitable Trusts Public Safety, Public Spending Forecasting America's Prison Population 2007-2011 report, which anticipates that by 2011, federal and state prison populations will climb by more than 192,000 new inmates.

Read the Article here