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Government Still Trying to Force Private Prisons in Florida

WhyIHateCCA — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:45:42 +0000

(photo: anythreewords/flickr)

Florida’s politicians really just can’t take a hint. After they failed to force widespread privatization on the state’s prison system, against the wishes of the director of their DOC (but at the behest of companies that spent a million dollars lobbying the legislature), the asshats in the state legislature are back at it, this time with a vengeance. Even the fact that the GEO Group is under FBI investigation over a deal that brought a private prison to the state, and the state’s Circuit Court ruling the initial push unconstitutional, have failed to slow down the push to privatize.

The state Senate introduced a stand-alone bill that mirrors the one that previously failed. On January 18th, the law that would force nearly 4,000 government employees out of jobs (of course, this comes from the Republicans, the party of “job creators,” or so we’re told) passed a rules committee and went before the full Senate for consideration. A separate bill would even exempt the state from a requirement to perform a cost/benefit analysis of the proposed privatization until after a contract is signed. In a state where the two biggest private prison companies have been found to have cheated the state out of almost $13 million within the past 7 years. The state ought to perform a more thorough analysis of the potential risks and benefits of privatization before committing so many taxpayer dollars to such a risky venture. Because otherwise, this is just about as blatant a handout to corporate special interests as I could conceive, a gateway to giving millions of taxpayer dollars to companies that, if they weren’t subsidized by desperate governments, would utterly fail on the free market. Then again, Republicans don’t actually like free markets, they just like markets rigged in the favor of the wealthy, but that’s a different story altogether.

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, the state seems to be assisting the industry that has failed to demonstrate any significant cost savings, ever, by removing the most costly prisoners from the facilities intended to be privatized. The industry is notorious for cherry-picking the cheapest inmates, but I can’t remember an instance in which a state preemptively took the most expensive prisoners for itself. This whole thing reeks so badly of corruption that a conservative-leaning newspaper in Florida has opined that the state’s legislators “seem to be drawn to secrecy and backroom deal-making at the expense of good government and public trust.” I’ll say. [cont'd.]

In fact, some politicians seem downright hell-bent on getting this privatization passed, despite the substantial opposition coming from pretty much everyone BUT Republicans in the state government and the industry. Senate Republicans have fast-tracked the two bills by putting them before just one committee, a committee that really has never had any responsibility in determining correctional needs. Thankfully, there is at least one Republican in the state with some sense, Mike Fasano, who has voiced his opposition to the way the bills are being handled and called upon his colleagues to refer the bill that would privatize half the prison system to the committee that oversees the state prison system. Revolutionary thinking, I know.

So Haridopolous, the bill’s sponsor, said he’ll also refer it to the Budget Committee. As in, not the criminal justice committee. As in, the same committee that hid the original privatization proviso as a last-minute amendment, prompting the circuit court to rule its actions unconstitutional. As in, the committee headed up by JD Alexander, who has pushed for privatization for years, starting with the deal that the GEO Group is currently under investigation for.

More than two hours of testimony from state employees who would likely lose their jobs if the plan moves forward failed to sway the opinions of the republicans who are just determined to destroy state jobs for the sake of giving hundreds of millions of dollars to corporations that lobby them. JD Alexander remains convinced, based on evidence no has has seen but him apparently, that the state can save $45 million per year by privatizing its prisons. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that, should those fantasy numbers ever materialize, that it will come directly at the expense of the prisoners who find themselves in private lockups. The bill then passed a house appropriations subcommittee, where the legislators are seemingly unaware of the other bill that would allow for contracts to be signed with private prison operators absent any demonstration of cost-savings. In what I guess is supposed to be some conciliatory gesture towards the thousands of state employees who will be out of work, the bill requires they get the first shot at jobs at the new private facilities. Those would be jobs that pay significantly less in wages and benefits, where they would be surrounded by green staff without proper training, and where they would likely be routinely subjected to working with a short staff, which creates a dangerous environment for employees and prisoners alike. What a great deal!

Or, more accurately, what a fucking mess.

Private Prisons Don’t Save Money in Arizona

WhyIHateCCA — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:15:01 +0000

(image: publik15, flickr)

Arizona sure loves it some privatization. Facing extreme budget shortfalls, the state attempted to sell off and then re-lease its state house in 2009 to earn some extra money, along with privatizing its entire prison system. But while that plan failed, the state’s thirst for privatization never waned. Though it already had multiple private prisons holding prisoners from other states and the federal government, a prominent republican in the state legislature introduced and helped pass SB1070, the now-infamous “Breathing While Brown” law. This law, as pointed out in an investigative report by NPR, was written by ALEC, a conservative legislation front group that has longed worked with the major players in the private prison industry and promoted privatization across the board. They’re also the ones behind attacks on global warming, voting rights, and unions, but that’s a different story.

So, the state basically gave a handout to private prison operators, who would undoubtedly benefit from stronger enforcement of federal immigration laws and increased detention. This came after the industry donated heavily in the 2010 election cycle, to candidates, political parties, and ballot initiatives favored by republicans. Then, even after 3 prisoners escaped from a private prison found to have numerous security deficiencies and went on a murderous rampage, state officials still pushed for more private prisons. They re-initiated a request for proposals from private companies to construct 5,000 prison beds.

Thankfully, people began to take notice. An advocacy organization filed alawsuit trying to block the RFP, which was dismissed on a technicality. But the substantive issue in the lawsuit wasn’t resolved; namely, that the state, by law, is required to conduct performance audits of its existing private facilities every two years, including cost-comparisons with public institutions. So the state began its audit late last year to compare public and private prisons, and the request for proposals was put on hold until the state could evaluate whether or not it would save money by turning to for-profit incarceration. [cont'd.]

Now, common sense would tell you that there’s no way to improve services in a not-for-profit venture without raising the budget for that given venture. Private prison companies don’t make money by generating more revenue; they make it by cutting costs, in things like maintenance, security, and medical care provided to prisoners. So private prisons simply don’t offer better or even equivalent services and conditions compared to state-run facilities. But the findings of the audit may surprise those who aren’t familiar with this blog or the industry: the state wouldn’t actually save any money by privatizing its prisons. That’s right; even though they pay less, offer less benefits, cherry-pick the cheapest prisoners, and cut corners in every area of operations, private prisons cost just about as much to operate in Arizona as state-run facilities.

As a result, Arizona has cancelled its request for proposals for new beds, and the plan to further privatize the system is on hold for now. This is a smart move for many reasons, including the fact that the state’s rate of prison population growth slowed dramatically over the past few years. And when one looks at the numbers a little deeper, the myth of cost-savings offered by private prison operators becomes even more apparent. For medium-security prisoners, it cost the state of Arizona $5 less per prisoner, per day to house than a private prison would. If say half of the state’s 6,400 privately-housed prisoners are medium security, that means the state paid private prison companies $5,840,000 more than it would have cost them to just house those prisoners itself. In just 2010. For minimum-security prisoners, private companies offered a whopping $0.03 in savings per prisoner per day. And that’s for the cheapest possible population! Delving even further into the numbers, the audit seemed to show that private prison facilities’ value depreciates at an exorbitantly higher rate than public facilities (probably because they don’t perform regular maintenance, as a way to increase the bottom line). For example; state-run facilities depreciated at a rate of about $1.40 per prisoner, per day. Private facilities in the state depreciate at a rate of $12 per prisoner, per day. That’s around eight times as fast as government-run facilities.

The full report of the Arizona DOC can be found here.

LA County Jails Consistently Imprisoning the Wrong People

David Dayen — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 01:30:18 +0000

Sheriff Lee Baca (photo: David Markland/flickr)

Here in my backyard of sunny (sorry!) Los Angeles, our county sheriff is suffering through the worst performance record in the country outside of noted racist Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Arizona. First, Sheriff Lee Baca had to endure credible allegations of mistreatment of prisoners in county lockups. Now, he has a new scandal on his hands:

Hundreds of people have been wrongly imprisoned inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department jails in recent years, with some spending weeks behind bars before authorities realized those arrested were mistaken for wanted criminals, a Times investigation has found.

The wrongful incarcerations occurred more than 1,480 times in the last five years. They were the result of a variety of factors, including officials’ overlooking fingerprint evidence and working off incomplete records.

The errors are so common that in some years people were jailed because of mistaken identity an average of once a day.

Many of those wrongly held inside the county’s lockups had the same names as criminals or had their identities stolen — problems that took days or weeks for authorities to sort out.

In one case, a mechanic held for nine days in 1989 on a warrant meant for someone else was detained again 20 years later on the same warrant. He was jailed for more than a month the second time before the error was discovered.

The other stories in the article are similarly nightmarish. What emerges is a picture of a county incarceration system just totally unequipped to handle prisoners. And with California transferring many convicts from the state to the county level, this is bound to get worse with the same degree of incompetent leadership. Indeed, this is an indictment of not only the sheriff’s office, but the police department and the court system.

I would add that this is what happens when you chronically underfund the structures of government. You end up with a government that simply doesn’t have the capacity to carry out its basic functions. For all the talk of corruption, sometimes it’s that simple. The effort to defund government over the last 30 years, largely successful in many parts of the country, manifests itself in abominations like this.

Baca is doing damage control, announcing a task force to minimize these errors. But with sheriff an elected position in LA County, I think his career is pretty much over after this spate of scandals.

Nearly 12,000 Prisoners Join California Hunger Strike to End Torture Conditions

Jeff Kaye — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:40:31 +0000

According to an October 1 article at Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity (PHSS), the Federal receiver’s office has indicated that “nearly 12,000 prisoners were on hunger strike, including California prisoners who are housed in out of state prisons in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma.”

This is the second hunger strike in less than four months, with prisoners at the Supermax Pelican Bay Prison and other California state prisons protesting the use of long-term solitary confinement, in addition to four other main demands, including provision of adequate and nutritious food, an end to administrative abuses (such as group punishments), and expansion, and in some cases provision, of “Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates.”

But besides an end to state-sanctioned isolation, which amounts to torture, the most salient demand is an end to the hated “debriefing” system, which places inmates in solitary if prison officials determine they are “gang members.” As I noted in an article last July, determination of “gang” status includes “acquisition or exchange of personal or state property amounting to more than $50…. tattooing or possession of tattoo paraphenalia…. possession of $5 or more without authorization…. [and] refusal to work or participate in a program as assigned,” among others. Indeed, even refusal to submit to “debriefing,” i.e., interrogation of prisoners to get them to “snitch,” or give names of other “gang” members, is reason to label someone a gang member and put them in solitary indefinitely. The prisoners call this “snitch, parole, or die.”

Both isolation and forced confessions are illegal forms of incarceration. The 2006 Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons, co-chaired by former Chief Judge of U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, John Gibbons and former Attorney General Nicholas de B. Katzenbach, called for an end to isolation in U.S. prisons. (See summary of findings and recommendations, PDF.) [cont'd]

A Fight for Dignity, Justice, and Humanity

California prisons are a stinking mess, a scandal of gigantic proportions. The health care component of the California prison system has been in federal receivership for years because of the awful, insufficient care provided to the sick and mentally ill. As reported in a McClatchy article last May, the U.S. Supreme Court “cited ‘serious constitutional violations’ in California’s overcrowded prisons and ordered the state to abide by aggressive plans to fix the problem.” The court rejected state pleas to put off the necessary changes, and ordered the prison system to lower its population by approximately 37,000. (A plan to implement the changes is meeting some skepticism.)

According to the McClatchy article:

One hundred and twelve California prison inmates died unnecessarily because of inadequate medical care in 2008 and 2009, analysts found. Acutely ill patients have been held in “cages, supply closets and laundry rooms” because of overcrowding, investigators found. Suicides by California inmates have been double the national average.

No wonder the prisoners’ hunger strike is gaining so much support in California prisons, where inmates are held like animals. The overcrowding is largely due to long-time incarceration for drug charges, including simple possession, and California’s onerous Three Strikes law.

The prisoners have indicated they will conduct “rolling” hunger strikes, allowing prisoners to come off strike to regain their strength. They indicated they have resumed their strike after changes promised after the July hunger strike by the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation (CDCR) failed to materialize, in particular “demands related to solitary confinement and gang validation.”

Meanwhile, CDCR has indicated they will punish strikers. Two attorneys representing prisoners in mediation talks with the CDCR have been “banned from all prisons pending an investigation into whether or not they had ‘jeopardized the safety and security of CDCR’ institutions.”

According to an article at the PHSS website, “The CDCR has delivered memos to prisoners at each state prison threatening that any participation or support for the hunger strike will result in disciplinary actions, such as placement in Ad-Seg/ASU [Administrative Segregation Unit] or SHUs [Security Housing Units] (for prisoners currently in General Population), increased destructive cell searches, removal of canteen items, and worse. We know that a number of prisoners lost their jobs as added punishment for supporting the strike in July.”

International Support

The renewed strike has gotten support from Palestinian hunger strikers protesting the use of isolation in the imprisonment of Palestinian leaders such as Ahmad Sa’adat. The use of isolation to punish and break prisoners is not limited to California or U.S. prisons, but cases involving American prisoners have made the news in recent months, including the incarceration of Bradley Manning, and the ongoing refusal to release the last British resident prisoner at Guantanamo, Shaker Aamer, who is also on a hunger strike to protest the conditions he is held under.

As thousands muster at protests across the country, such as the Occupy Wall Street protests covered here at The Dissenter, in the deepest, darkest holes of misery this country people are fighting with their lives for basic humanity and just treatment by a system that treats its victims — whether they are prisoners, or whether they are impoverished unemployed, thrown on the trash heap by financiers and indifferent politicians — with indifference at best, or sadistic animus at worst.

The prisoners cannot win their battle without public support. The public must see that the fate of the men and women thrown into American prisons is part of their own struggle, as the methods and attitudes fostered by the prison establishment are turned increasingly on the U.S. population as a whole, just as surveillance, mass round-ups, torture, and economic shock treatment has metastasized from imperialist foreign policy to a domestic program of immiserating working Americans to pay for Wall Street’s follies and the Pentagon’s wars.

Treatment of Prisoners by Guards in Private Prisons

WhyIHateCCA — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 22:26:08 +0000

"Prison Guard" by sonofgroucho

[Today we open a new chapter in WhyIHateCCA's illustrious history; our first guest author! So without further ado, I present this article by Allison Gamble of Forensicpsychology.net.]

Prisons have begun to become more privatized over the last few decades. One reason for this increase in privatization is the explosion of the prison population, which has undermined states’ ability to address the construction and maintenance of public prisons. Another factor is the emerging belief that a free market system with private owners will perform better than public institutions. However, issues with how these private prisons run are a public concern and fuel a particularly strong debate.

One recent example further illustrates this point. In Hawaii, prisoners were beaten and abused by employees of the Corrections Corporation of America, a private company that contracts guards for prison facilities. In July 2010, five prisoners were threatened with death, kicked, and beaten by the guards. This single example highlights starkly the issues with private prisons, specifically with the professionalism of privately contracted guards.

In terms of forensic psychology, why do these abuses occur? Jenni Gainsborough, director of Penal Reform International, says many corporations take shortcuts in training prison guards. Prisons are no place for novice security workers, but require well-trained staff that are highly educated to respond to the types of situations common in a prison. Workers need to understand prisoner’s rights, appropriate self-defense procedures, and need to be able to communicate with prisoners in a fair and effective manner. [cont'd.]

In addition, private guards are often paid poorly and lack the power of a union to protect them from labor abuse. Private prisons tend to be understaffed, so guards must work longer hours to boot. This saves private prison corporations money, but also pushes inexperienced guards to psychological and financial extremes while on the job. Any worker who has to work over 40 hours per week for relatively low pay in a tough environment like a prison stands a fair chance of reacting inappropriately to prisoners.

However, this issue isn’t simply one with guards’ shortcomings.David Miller makes the argument that when they are well trained, private prison guards are able to attend to the needs of prisoners quite effectively, even reducing prison violence more effectively than their publicly-employed counterparts.

Miller cites research that shows private prisons have more liberty to choose who they want to have as inmates. Although choosing prisoners may seem like an odd concept, as private entities these prisons can reject potential inmates if they don’t fit charter or contract stipulations. A public prison must accept any inmate the state assigns, a major cause of overcrowding and an intensely violent atmosphere. Miller’s conclusion is that the lower populations of private prisons and better-trained guards lead to more satisfied and cooperative prisoners. In short, a private prison may be able to provide more for prisoners.

However, other facts counter this assessment, specifically the rate of private prison guard satisfaction and violence in private prisons. Private guards have a turnover rateof over 40 percent, more than twice that of public prison guards. Prisoner-on-prisoner assaults are 54 percent higher in private prisons than in public prisons, and prisoner-on-staff assaults are 49 percent higher.

The efficiency of private prisons is also questionable. An audit by the state of Arizona found the state’s private prisons were spending only $2.75 less per prisoner per day than public institutions. This, despite private prisons’ low wages and other cost-cutting techniques and billions of dollars in contract earnings. If private prisons do not save the government money, are they worth it, especially considering the controversy surrounding them?

Even when similar conditions are found in prison quality and guard experience, opponents of private prisons argue the privatization of a public good goes against the value of a facility that is supposed to rehabilitate or put away dangerous criminals. These institutions are meant to be controlled directly by the public through the states, not by a private company with shareholders and a profit motive. The issue of privatization will not be resolved any time soon. The public debate will continue over matters of justice and what belongs as an exclusive responsibility of the state.

———————————————————–

Allison Gamble has been a curious student of psychology since high school. She brings her understanding of the mind to work in the weird world of internet marketing.

Supreme Court Stops Texas Execution

David Dayen — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:15:34 +0000

Duane Buck

The Supreme Court made the rare decision to step in and order a stay of execution for Duane Edward Buck in Texas, hours before he was to die, because the jury sentencing him to death was told that Buck posed a greater threat to public safety because of his race.

The justices still must determine whether they will review the Buck case, so this stay may not last very long. But at a time when Rick Perry is running for President, it’s a significant reversal that could cause further scrutiny of the death penalty system in Texas.

“We are relieved that the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the obvious injustice of allowing a defendant’s race to factor into sentencing decisions,” his attorney, Kate Black, said in a statement.

“No one should be put to death based on the color of his or her skin,” she added.

Perry, his Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles either refused to hear the plea for clemency or recommended against it. But this is a serious constitutional issue. In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of an inmate whose death sentence was reversed because of a race-based appeal made in sentencing. John Cornyn was Attorney General at the time, and he listed six cases where prosecutors relied on race-based arguments in death penalty cases. Specifically, an expert witness testified that the African-American defendants had a greater propensity for “future dangerousness,” a consideration in Texas death penalty cases, solely because of their race. Of the six cases, five received a new sentencing hearing (those cases were pending in federal court; only Buck’s was in state court). But for some reason, Buck did not. One of the state prosecutors who worked on the case, who has now come forward to say that Buck should get a new trial, simply assumed that he already had one, based on the Cornyn order in 2000. It’s not Buck’s guilt or innocence that’s at issue, it’s this serious misconduct at trial by the prosecution.

State prosecutors won a lower court case arguing that Buck’s Constitutional rights were not violated, but his lawyers appealed up to the Supreme Court. And now they have a stay of execution while the justices review the case. This doesn’t even mean that Buck won’t still get death for the murders; in the other cases, the inmates were re-sentenced to death. But it does mean that he would get a new sentencing trial, because race-based appeals like this violate the federal Constitution.

Hanging over this is the extreme surety with which Perry touts the “very thoughtful, very clear process” for death sentencing in Texas. That’s obviously not true in this case, and hopefully this will force a reckoning from major media on other cases. Like Cameron Todd Willingham, perhaps.

Florida Sheriff Saves $1 Million Over CCA by De-Privatizing Jail

WhyIHateCCA — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:45:31 +0000

Sheriff Michael Page of Hernando County, Florida, is the latest in a line of Sheriffs to inherit the headache that is the county jail. After being operated by CCA for 22 years, the facility had fallen into exceptional disrepair, after CCA had neglected to perform millions of dollars worth of required maintenance. The county took over the facility a little more than a year ago and started the long process of upgrading the security, staff, and conditions of the jail.

Initial projections by then-Sheriff Richard Nugent hypothesized that the county could save up to $200,000 compared to what CCA would have charged. It turns out that de-privatizing the jail has actually saved Hernando County taxpayers more than $1,000,000 this year. Maybe Ric Scott and JD Alexander ought to reconsider their bullheaded push to privatize half the state’s prison system.

ColorOfChange.org in Chicago: Justice for the Cook County Ten

Rashad Robinson — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 12:30:06 +0000

This week, I joined Chicago-area ColorOfChange.org members to deliver more than 66,000 petition signatures to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office. The petition demands that State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez immediately acknowledge the innocence of 10 falsely accused Black men (known as the Cook County 10) and agree to vacate the convictions of nine who were convicted for crimes they didn’t commit.

Terrill Swift, one of the men who was coerced into falsely confessing to a crime, and his family joined us for the delivery. Please check out video from the day’s events:

Swift was paroled last year after spending 15 years in an Illinois prison for rape and murder. DNA testing performed during the original investigation indicated his innocence. Earlier this month, he told Chicago Tribune reporter Steve Mills, “If I was guilty, I would have done my time and tried to proceed with my life. But I can’t continue to walk around like a convicted felon when I didn’t do nothing. So I’m fighting it.”

Recent DNA testing has proven the innocence of all the men, most of whom were forced to confess as teenagers to crimes they didn’t commit. Some of them have been imprisoned for nearly 20 years. Despite overwhelming evidence that has linked the crimes to the real killers, state officials have refused to recognize the innocence of these men.

Florida’s Private Prison Mess

WhyIHateCCA — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 21:08:01 +0000

"House Chamber, Florida State Capitol" by StevnM_61 on flickr

Florida is embarking upon the largest prison privatization plan in history. As part of a last-minute budget amendment, the state legislature mandated the privatization of the correctional services of 18 counties in south Florida, for a total of nearly 30 correctional facilities.

No state has ever undertaken such an ambitious expansion of their private prison system, and for good reason; private prisons consistently fail to live up to contractual obligations, don’t save money, and provide less efficient services than government-run prisons.

But that hasn’t stopped Florida from forging ahead, even despite the fact that the Senate’s Budget Chief at one point even called this initiative an experiment to see if the state could save money by privatization. While that’s not a gamble most sane politicians would ever want to make, JD Alexander was probably swayed, as were many other politicians, by the more than ¾ of a million dollars that the GEO Group spent lobbying the state legislature in the last election cycle.

Thankfully, one of Alexander’s fellow Republicans, Mike Fasano, is able to easily identify the root of the deficiencies of private prisons, and has been challenging this plan from the get-go.

Private Prisons: Pay to Play

WhyIHateCCA — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 23:00:25 +0000

(photo: stevendepolo)

Two interesting pieces here regarding the influence the private prison industry wield in its political affiliations and activities. Most of the reason the industry has been so successful in securing contracts despite decades of failing to perform is the cozy relationship it has cultivated with state and federal officials who control the disbursement of public funds and criminal justice sentencing. They cultivate these relationships through donating to individual politicians and various campaigns they embark upon, but also through hiring professional lobbyists to promote their will while the legislature is in session.

Lobbyists often have great access to politicians, and in many cases either come directly from government or head there after leaving the lobbying business. By utilizing lobbyists to advocate for their interests, the private prison industry is able to simultaneously amplify their voice within the legislature, and to some extent prevent the public from knowing just exactly who and what is influencing political decisions.

In Arizona, for example, I have reported extensively on the ties between Governor Brewer’s office and a huge lobbying firm that works for CCA, Highground Consulting. Highground’s manager, Chuck Coughlin, is the governor’s chief of staff, and one of its principal lobbyists used to work for CCA (and his wife still does). To make the situation worse, the chair of the state’s appropriations committee (that would be the committee that controls public funds), John Kavanagh, looks to be quite close with the GEO Group, the country’s second-biggest private prison company. Public Policy Partners, an Arizona lobbying firm that GEO employs, donated at least 6 times to Kavanagh in the last election.

Is it any wonder this is the same state that passed an immigration bill that’s essentially a handout to private prison companies, or that they’re looking to privatize an additional 5,000 prison beds?

Meanwhile, over in Tennessee, state Republican representatives are coming under fire for participating in a fundraiser while the legislature was in session, that featured some of the biggest industries with a financial stake in Tennessee’s politics (fundraisers during the legislative session are supposed to be illegal). Among the businesses represented was CCA, which is headquartered in Nashville. They were so willing to help raise funds for state Republicans because the new Republican governor recently used the budget as an excuse to reverse a decision to close a CCA prison.