The US prison industry

Corrections Corporation of America Wants to Buy State Owned Prisons and Then Get States to Commit to Keeping Them Full of Prisoners

Cryptogon, 

23 February, 2012

Via: ACLU:

Recently we learned that the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison company in the country, sent a letter to 48 state governors offering to buy up their state-owned and operated prisons and put them under CCA control. If offering cash-strapped states a quick infusion of money by taking control of prisons off their hands sounds too good to be true, that’s because it probably is.

See, to take CCA up on its offer to buy a prison, a state would have to sign a 20-year contract and promise a 90 percent occupancy rate over that period. In other words, CCA is asking states to commit to maintaining prisons filled to capacity. This makes sense, since CCA is a for-profit business whose success depends on keeping prisons full, something CCA freely admits. In fact, in a 2010 Annual Report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, CCA stated: “The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by…leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices.” In other words, CCA has much to gain from policies that lock up more people for more time.

Research Credit: noncompliant