Prison Industrial Complex Series - Part Two - Welcome to the Machine

Prison Industrial Complex Series
Part II

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Welcome to the Machine

As I touched on in my previous post there are many players in the Game of Corrections, Reform and Rehabilitation.

For starters let’s take a look at the makeup and differences between the types of incarceration/correctional facilities.

Jails Vs. Prisons

Jails are locally-operated, short term facilities; mainly used for detaining inmates awaiting trial or sentencing and can also (depending on the state) house inmates who have been sentenced for less than a year.

Prisons are state or federally operated, long term facilities, used after sentencing, where inmates are housed for more than a year. Sentencing guidelines vary by state - six states have integrated corrections systems for jails and prisons.

Federal Vs. State

Federal prisons are under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), a subsidiary of the Department of Justice. If the crime the prisoner committed is federal, they will likely end up in federal prison. The federal prison system was started with the Three Prisons Act of 1891. The law created the first three federal prisons at Leavenworth, Kansas, Atlanta, Georgia, and McNeil Island, Washington.

The exception is violent crimes, which are usually dealt with by state prisons. State prisons are more numerous than federal prisons. Each state determines how its correctional system will function.

The main difference besides offence between state and federal prison is the amount time served of a sentence. Federal prisons prohibit parole, so the amount of time served is significantly higher than the average time served in a state prison.

Minimum, Medium, Maximum Security Facilities

Both Federal and State prisons classify their prison based on security levels.

• Minimum security prisons are usually reserved for white collar criminals who have committed acts such as embezzlement or fraud.
  EX: Federal Prison Camps

• Medium security facilities are the standard facilities used to house most criminals. They feature cage-style housing, armed guards, and a much more regimented daily routine than minimum security.

• Maximum security prisons are for more violent offenses. These prisons include far more guards and very little freedom. Each person is considered to be a high-risk individual.
  EX: “Federal Penitentiaries”

Psychiatric Prisons

Obvious as is seems psychiatric prisons are for criminals who are deemed mentally unfit to serve their sentences out in a normal prison. These facilities are set up more like hospitals and have a strong focus on rehabilitation. These are not merely for any disorder, most “criminals” suffer from one or more mental illness - these facilities are for those who claim insanity and are proven to be so far gone that it would be impossible to control them in an average jail or prison.

Military Prisons

I’m not going to touch much on the Military Prison system in this series as it is a huge and mysterious production that spans over a variety of branches and countries. If you have any knowledge of military prisons I would be very interested in hearing about it in the comments!

Juvenile Detention Centers

I will touch on this monstrosity later in the series - these facilities are growing not only in population but also in number of centers. How we punish children for making bad decisions when they're brains literally have not formed the decision making areas is beyond my common sense understanding.

In a later segment I will dive in the Preschool to Prison Pipeline.
And NO I did not coin this phrase; this is a REAL, DOCUMENTED line of social engineering.

Family Detention Centers

An extension of the prison system that many do not even realize exists. Yet that is a real term "Family Detention Center" and these prisons hold entire families. Mostly illegal immigrants and "terrorists". I will include this topic in my segment about immigration and prison at a later date. These prison camps have had numerous law suits filed against them and have been pushed by lobbyists paid directly by GEO and/or CCA. Of course you know they endorsed and light a fire under Trump's Make American Great Again campaign. Interested? you can read an article about these family detention centers here: https://apnews.com/adbd71efcfaf4b9a96c379face79fbe9/private-prison-company-struggles-get-license-family

The Private Prison Industrial Complex

source pixabay

From Wikipedia

“Prior to the 1980s, private prisons did not exist in the U.S. During the 1980s, as a result of the War on Drugs by the Reagan Administration, the number of people incarcerated rose. This created a demand for more prison space. The result was the development of privatization and the for-profit prison industry.[138][139][140]”

The Private Prison industry or Corporate Correctional companies as they call themselves are a multi-Billion (yes Billion) dollar industry. How do they even get that big you might ask? How do hotel chains like the Hilton or Four Seasons dominate the vacation industry - filling the rooms and then doing everything in their power to ensure those customers will come back as well as tell their friends/relatives about the hotel. Do you see the bottom line - do you see the commonalities.

Now you may be saying to yourself “well no one would recommend their friends or family go to prison.” But this is where marketing and the genius of social engineering comes into play.

Entire factions of our American population are constantly shown and told that in this world it’s money over everything, it’s survival of the fittest - only the coldest, most heartless businessman will make it to the top - well who can blame poor, broke down children with no hope of going to college from still trying to make it in the businesses they see all round them? Don’t be deceived or turn a blind eye to this very real section of business : sex, drugs, stolen items, “the black market” is the only market these children grow up frequenting.

Stolen goods are sold on street corners, mothers sell themselves right in front of their children, kids run drugs for dealers for a few dollars. It is seen as the only way out or to survive at all - what would you do if you were in their shoes?

It’s high time the entirety of the US population starts asking themselves this question - then maybe we can stop blaming the poor for failing in a system which is designed for failure.

Private Prisons have Mandated Occupancy Clauses

The state governments pay these privatized prisons to operate in their state. These are legally binding contracts between state and corporation. Why in the world would any state agree to occupancy percents upwards of 80% full? How can they guarantee offenders at that rate? Well, it starts with Corporations and State working together via lobbyists to enforce new, more strict laws and sentencing.

62 contracts for private prisons operating around the country at the local and state level. In the Public Interest found that 41 of those contracts included occupancy requirements mandating that local or state government keep those facilities between 80 and 100 percent full. In other words, whether crime is rising or falling, the state must keep those beds full.

Private Prisons have their own Lobbyists and pay exorbitant amounts to get their laws passed.

Please read this article to find out more about how corrections lobbying is the fastest growing group here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/how-for-profit-prisons-have-become-the-biggest-lobby-no-one-is-talking-about/?utm_term=.e221ca4480be

Quick stats :

[GEO and CCA] "have funneled more than $10 million to candidates since 1989 and have spent nearly $25 million on lobbying efforts."

"reports have documented instances when private-prison companies have indirectly supported policies that put more Americans and immigrants behind bars –<strong< such as California’s three-strikes rule and Arizona’s highly controversial anti-illegal immigration law– by donating to politicians who support them, attending meetings with officials who back them, and lobbying for funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement."

Now that we have a small idea of where and how these private prisons are filling their empty beds let’s take a look at who/what the corporations are all about.

Major Corporate Players

source pixabay

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) AKA CoreCivic

Check out their wikipedia page here to read their preapproved explanation of themselves. But I just want to highlight this portion for my readers:

As of 2016, the company is the second largest private corrections company in the United States. CoreCivic manages more than 65 state and federal correctional and detention facilities with a capacity of more than 90,000 beds in 19 states and the District of Columbia.[4] The company's revenue in 2012 exceeded $1.7 billion. By 2015, its contracts with federal correctional and detention authorities generated up to 51% of its revenues. It operated 22 federal facilities with the capacity for 25,851 prisoners. By 2016, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) along with GEO Group were running "more than 170 prisons and detention centres". CCA's revenues in 2015 were $1.79bn.

Those numbers are staggering. So for anyone wondering where the money to made in corrections, prisons and repeat offenders is..well there is your answer.

And if you’re wondering who is paying into this corporation well some of their biggest investors listed on Wikipedia are Fidelity Investments, BlackRock, and The Vanguard Group. Now I recognize these names.. I’ve paid into Fidelity through a city hospital job for 10 years, I was supporting this conglomerate without even knowing it - so many of us are.

The GEO Group

To be fair here’s their wikipedia page as well.

Here’s an interesting piece of information from Wikipedia:

The company has been the subject of civil suits in the United States by prisoners and families of prisoners for injuries due to riots and poor treatment at prisons and immigrant detention facilities which it has operated. In addition, due to settlement of a class-action suit in 2012 for its management of Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in Mississippi, the GEO Group lost its contract for this and two other Mississippi prisons (which it had been operating since 2010). Related federal investigations of kickback and bribery schemes associated with nearly $1 billion in Mississippi state contracts for prisons and related services have resulted in the criminal prosecution of several public officials in the state. In February 2017, the state attorney general announced a civil suit for damages, to recover monies from contracts completed in the period of corruption.

What to see what kind of money GEO is making? Check these staggering numbers out:

In 2005, the GEO Group acquired Correctional Services Corporation (CSC) for US$62 million in cash, and assumed $124 million of that company's debt.

GEO sold CSC's juvenile services division in 2005 to James Slattery, CSC's former CEO, for $3.75 million. Slattery renamed this business as Slattery's Youth Services International.

On August 12, 2010, the GEO Group acquired Cornell Companies, formerly Cornell Corrections, for $730 million in stock and cash.

GEO announced the closing of its $360 million cash purchase of Community Education Centers on April 4, 2017. CEC owned and/or managed more than 12,000 beds in the U.S.

Private Prisons Shell Out Cash to Keep Eyes Off Them

GEO and CoreCivic, each donated $250,000 supporting Trump's inaugural festivities, according to the corporations' spokesmen. GEO gave $275,00 to the pro-Trump super PAC Rebuilding America Now, according to FEC filings. A $100,000 donation had been made only a day after Sally Yates, at the Department of Justice, announced it would be phasing out its for-profit prison and detention contracts*. wiki source

*You can check out the original Washington Post article about the DOJ "claiming they will close private prisons back in 2016 right here

From the article:

Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced the decision on Thursday in a memo that instructs officials to either decline to renew the contracts for private prison operators when they expire or “substantially reduce” the contracts’ scope. The goal, Yates wrote, is “reducing — and ultimately ending — our use of privately operated prisons.”

2016 was supposed to be an epic turning point...

The Private Prison Industry was in decline after world record highs in 2008.

As 2016 was coming to close many people were praising the Obama administration for the decline - yet with the election coming up many were questioning how this might affect the prison systems. Check out this article to see what the stocks were looking like and what the stockholders were saying back in 2016.

Here's some quick quotes from the article:

“the CEO of Corrections Corporation of America assured investors that "I think we’ll be just fine" regardless of who wins the White House in November.
I think about the next president, whoever that is, if it’s Hillary Clinton or if it’s Donald Trump, there’s going to be so many things that he or she are going to have to deal with next year or next administration, both nationally and internationally, that I think having a view on our business, our industry is going to be really, really low on the priority list,” CEO Damon Hininger said at the time.

• Obama administration was phasing out private prisons - Trump lights it back up with his immigration acts -
  http://www.newsweek.com/geo-group-private-prisons-immigration-detention-trump-596505

I will hit on this topic in depth later in the series but couldn't help dropping that link to get people started.

Next up in the series:

A look into state and federal runs prisons and the infamous BOP (Board of Prisons) and DOJ (Dept of Justice).
I will examine my home state of Massachusetts as an example but also highlight some other states and their practices.

If you are interested in learning more about this topic:

Sources for this article & Resource Links

• https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Corrections_Corporation_of_America

• https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/famous-prisons-incarceration/types-of-prisons/

• https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mvpzkp/whos-getting-rich-off-the-prison-industrial-complex

• https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2013/09/private-prisons-occupancy-quota-cca-crime/

• General OLD history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_prison_systems

• Newer incarceration wiki : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

Other articles from my Prison Industrial Complex Series

Warm up to the series
Part One - Just the Tip of the Iceberg