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The Prison Industrial Complex


TwiceHorn

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Every time there's a criminal-justice-reform related post, seems like people bring up private prisons.  Stumbled across this article examining all of the "stakeholders" in the current state of US incarceration.  There's more to it than private prisons of course.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58e127cb1b10e31ed45b20f4/t/5ade0281f950b7ab293c86a6/1524499083424/The+Prison+Industrial+Complex+-+Mapping+Private+Sector+Players+(April+2018).pdf

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Today, more than half of the $80 billion spent on incarceration annually in the U.S. is used to pay the thousands of vendors that serve the criminal legal system. They are healthcare providers, food suppliers, commissary merchants, and more. Focused on their bottom line and advantaged by an obscure and often monopolistic environment, the private, for-profit corporations that operate in the prison industrial complex raise particular concerns for the incarcerated population, vulnerable to corporate abuse.

This report exposes over 3,100 corporations that profit from the devastating mass incarceration of our nation’s marginalized communities. It serves as the largest lens into the prison industrial complex ever published. While this report still far from covers all the private sector companies in this space, it captures all the major players.

It is published by an outfit with a clear agenda. Nonetheless, much of the material is factual and thought-provoking.

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I think this topic doesn't get enough attention, especially here in Texas. In my hometown out in West Texas, GEO Group, is one of the largest employers in town with 500+ employees.

 

I don't mean to CR this topic but in the fall of 2016 when DOJ said they weren't going to be renewing contracts, city leaders were ready to panic (especially with the then recent oil bust). And everyone was giddy when the Trump administration reversed that decision.

 

They liked their devil's bargain and all the problems being a prison town brought. You know, they say there's a fine line between the prisoners and those watching them.

 

But this dependence on the prison-industrial complex isn't just confined to my hometown where the Census counts 15% of the population as prisoners. Small towns all over West Texas are dependent on both private and state prisons. The proliferation of the latter were treated as major competitive economic development projects throughout the 1990s.

 

Just off the top of my head, I can name the following West Texas towns where the local private or state-run prison is one of the largest employers: Fort Stockton, Pecos, Lamesa, Snyder, Big Spring, Brownfield, Plainview, Pampa, Dalhart, and Childress.

 

One of the weird side benefits of having a prison in your town is that the Census counts prisoners as residents and are included in the population numbers. Of course, we know that having inflated population figures help with all sorts of federal funding formulas in addition to redistricting. Helluva a racket if you ask me.

 

Recently, I've heard talk that prison populations are declining as crime rates remain at historic lows. It'll be interesting to watch the hard politicking involved in protecting hometown prisons from closure. Just last year, Eden lost theirs, and that town is about ready to blow away now - actually, for quite a while.

 

 

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1 hour ago, bolverk said:

I think this topic doesn't get enough attention, especially here in Texas. In my hometown out in West Texas, GEO Group, is one of the largest employers in town with 500+ employees.

 

I don't mean to CR this topic but in the fall of 2016 when DOJ said they weren't going to be renewing contracts, city leaders were ready to panic (especially with the then recent oil bust). And everyone was giddy when the Trump administration reversed that decision.

 

They liked their devil's bargain and all the problems being a prison town brought. You know, they say there's a fine line between the prisoners and those watching them.

 

But this dependence on the prison-industrial complex isn't just confined to my hometown where the Census counts 15% of the population as prisoners. Small towns all over West Texas are dependent on both private and state prisons. The proliferation of the latter were treated as major competitive economic development projects throughout the 1990s.

 

Just off the top of my head, I can name the following West Texas towns where the local private or state-run prison is one of the largest employers: Fort Stockton, Pecos, Lamesa, Snyder, Big Spring, Brownfield, Plainview, Pampa, Dalhart, and Childress.

 

One of the weird side benefits of having a prison in your town is that the Census counts prisoners as residents and are included in the population numbers. Of course, we know that having inflated population figures help with all sorts of federal funding formulas in addition to redistricting. Helluva a racket if you ask me.

 

Recently, I've heard talk that prison populations are declining as crime rates remain at historic lows. It'll be interesting to watch the hard politicking involved in protecting hometown prisons from closure. Just last year, Eden lost theirs, and that town is about ready to blow away now - actually, for quite a while.

 

 

Texas state incarceration rates are dropping and have been for a couple of decades, partly as a result of the "uncrime wave" and partly because Texas is actually regarded as being at the vanguard of prison reform.

The federal incarceration rate or number of prisoners (what I really meant), was declining slightly under some of the policies of the Obama administration, which was not nearly as progressive on crime as some of the rhetoric might have you believe, but seems to be accelerating a bit under Sessions.  As I recall, your home town is Big Spring, and I don't think it's going anywhere soon.  As far as I know, most federal prisons are running about 150-200% over designed capacity, so even a  pretty significant reduction in prisoners does not necessarily mean a concomitant reduction in staff/employment.

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Seems like a good place to post this:

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Man shackled for days in prisoner transport van files suit

man-shackled-days-prisoner-transport-van-files-suit-184412018.html

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McLEAN, Va. (AP) — Edward Kovari's 18-day ordeal began Sept. 12, 2016, when some guys in a van showed up to take him from a jail in Virginia to Texas, where he was wanted on charges that he had stolen a car.

But the trip from Winchester, Virginia, to Houston took more than two weeks in a crowded van where inmates had to urinate in bottles and take turns sleeping on the van's floor, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday by Kovari. The private company that contracted with the jail to transport Kovari, 39, kept him shackled in the back of that van for 18 days as it wound through the country picking up inmates in an effort at cost efficiency.

The charge on which Kovari was brought to Texas was later dismissed.

The company that transferred him, Nashville-based Prisoner Transportation Services, bills itself as the nation's largest prisoner extradition company. It did not respond Tuesday to messages seeking comment.

The lawsuit, filed by civil rights lawyers Jia Cobb, Glenn Schlactus and Orly May, alleges Prisoner Transportation Services prioritizes "transporting as many detainees, with as few stops for rest or care, as possible over their obligation to safely transport those in their custody."

In Kovari's case, that meant 18 days, most of which he spent in shackles. On only two or three nights did the van actually stop at a jail where prisoners were allowed to get out and spend the night in a bed.

Inside the van, no provisions were made for restroom stops, and inmates urinated into bottles which spilled and sloshed on the floor of the van. In one case, a prisoner defecated on the van floor, and in another instance, a prisoner vomited. The lawsuit alleges that nothing was done to clean the mess. "He spent the duration of the transport sitting in human waste and filth," the lawyers wrote.

...

 

edit to add that Winchester, Virginia, to Houston Texas is 1350 miles...

Edited by SDG
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