Stefano Alva
IRP
ESL-118 T. Iftikar
For-profit prisons and the expansion of the crime industry
The recent scandals and negative reputation that private prisons have gained in the United States has revealed a series of alarming conditions that have put into question on whether these institutions worsen or improve the wellbeing of the country. Private prisons refer to the for-profit organizations that get contracted by the federal government to manage facilities with incarcerated persons. The management of these institutions are outsourced by the government to private corporations with the primary objective that they prove to be able to save costs while still offering the same quality service (OccupyTheory, 2014). Unfortunately, such companies have acquired enough economic power that they are able to influence the country’s political decisions. According to Cohen, the two biggest private prison corporations, Corrections Corporations of America (CCA) and the GEO group, currently receiving a combined 3.3 billion dollars in annual revenue, have invested an approximate of 35 million dollars since the 1989 in order to keep their interest’s relevant among politicians (Cohen, 2015). It is apparent that their political tactics are effective since there has been a significant increase in the incarceration rates and the number of private prisons. The 400% increase in incarceration rates since the 1980’s was due to the imprisoned population jumping from 350 thousand to the current 1.5 million people (The sentencing project, 2015). Additionally, according to Represent.Us, the number of prisoners residing in private facilities has grown around 1600% since 1990 (2016). The correlation between the trends in number of inmates, revenues and money spent on political tactics make it apparent these private institutions are using their economic resources to secure their interests. Private prisons should be more strictly regulated because their political power is leading the country to expand the crime industry by incentivizing the creation of laws that produce increased incarceration rates without a long term positive impact for society as a whole.
The approach that the private prisons are taking in order to exert political influence lies in a three prong strategy in which they use lobbyists, campaign contributions, and revolving door politicians to incline the lawmaking process to their advantage. In corporate American, companies with large economic power can influence political decisions by taking advantage of the lobbying process. These institutions hire individuals who specialize in exerting influence at all levels of the government, encouraging politicians to vote in ways that benefit their clients (Murse, 2016). The usage of these specialists has become a very popular resource to secure private companies’ interests, especially for private prisons. It was reported that in 2014, CCA had 25 lobbyists in Washington, D.C. and 103 throughout 25 other states; GEO didn’t fall behind with 68 lobbyists working in 15 different states and 14 in D.C. (Cohen, 2016). The presence of these individuals has pushed politicians to act in favor of private prisons by incentivizing legislation that drives the incarceration up. A prime example of how lobbyists can influence political decisions is the Arizona Immigration Law, SB 1070, passed in 2010. Being one of the toughest immigration laws, the legislation stipulates that officials are mandated to ask for immigration papers whenever there is “reasonable suspicion” that the individual could be in the country illegally (FindLaw, 2013). The presence of lobbyists hired by private prisons was crucial in the creation of this law. Sullivan explains how 30 of the 36 legislators that supported this policy had received donations from the prison lobby in the last 6 months. It didn’t take long for the effects of this policy to reach their main benefactors. Coincidentally, since 2009 the number of detained immigrants held in private prisons grew from 49 percent, to 62 percent in 2014 (Carson and Diaz, 2015). It is apparent that the efforts of the for-profit prisons to exert political influence through lobbyists have resulted in the passing of laws that increase incarceration rates, therefore increasing inmates population in private prisons.
Another popular technique used by these for profit prison’s lies in making calculated contributions to political campaigns in order to have a voice when it comes to the lawmaking process. According to Pelaez, private prisons are not necessarily supporting to political candidates that agree with prison privatization, but rather politicians that are likely to win; their strategy is to donate a small amount at the beginning of their campaign and then a more significant contribution once the winner is probable (2016). It seems that for-profit prisons have been able to refine such process to make it as efficient as possible. Pelaez also claims that 75% of the campaign contributions from private prisons go to winning candidates (2016). A relevant case that exemplifies the effectiveness of this strategy is the relation between contracts of the GEO group and their campaign contributions towards the political career of Senator Marco Rubio. Rubio is reported to be the politician who has received the most individual donations from the GEO group, amounting an estimate of $40,000 in campaign contributions (Cohen, 2015). With politicians on their side, private prisons have been able to finalize several contracts that contributed to their own growth. Cohen explained how when Rubio was leading the Florida house of Representatives, Donna Arduin was hired as economic consultant, coincidently an ex-trustee of the GEO real estate trust; shortly after, a contract directed towards the construction and management of a private prison was awarded to the GEO group for an estimate of $110 million (2015). It is apparent that the economic power of these private prisons have enabled them to influence the political scene by putting pressure towards the protection of their interests, and that campaign contributions is one of the strategies they use in order to normalize their priorities among lawmakers.
Finally, another resource that private prisons use in order to exert political influence is known as “revolving door politicians”. The concept rises from high-level employees switching from positions in public institutions to jobs for private companies and vice versa; the idea is for these individuals to become consultants for both the public and private side of the industry (Investopedia, 2016). The agreed deals between the private prisons and public positions puts into perspective how can these companies use political power to their financial advantage. For example, Gary C. Mohr, previous manager director of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), was appointed to manage the Ohio’s prison system in 2011 (Reutter, 2012). The exchange was clearly beneficial for these for-profit prisons. According to Ruetter (2012), that same year Ohio became the first state to ever sell a prison to a private corporation, since CCA purchased Lake Erie Correctional Institution. It is evident that the power that private prisons already have among the country’s political institutions is giving them the opportunity to perpetuate their place among politicians and therefore securing their economic growth.
Now that its explained how the private prisons are able to use their economic power in order to incentivize politicians to act in their favor, it’s important to recognize how is this change negatively affecting the country. First of all, the process in which the American government creates laws is already presenting an opportunity for an unequal distribution of interests. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), refers to a group of representatives that meet together in order to create new legislation; such organization stands for limited government and free market enterprise (Pico, 2011). Private prisons can take advantage of such council since they can use their economic power to put legislators on their side. According to The Center for Media and Democracy, the council organizes luxurious weekends in which public legislators are invited to join representatives from private corporations to talk and discuss possible new laws; additionally, the number of private representatives is regulated by the amount of money these corporations are giving to the council (2014). The implementation of policies that resulted in an increase in incarceration rates were developed and realized by the same companies that agreed to profit from such policies (Pico, 2011). Although there is vast number of policy changes that have been encouraged by this board, a number of projects have resulted in private prisons being subject of criticism because their efforts of amounting capital, while disregarding the negative effects of their actions. A recent scandal that raised the public’s attention refers to the “kids for cash” incident, as two judges pleaded guilty of accepting more than $2.5 million in exchange of sending youth defendants to a privately owned jail, PA Child Care (Frank, 2009). Although the proximate cause lied in the judge accepting money from the main business developer of the detention center, there are bigger fundamental laws and requirements that are favoring these occasions to happen; especially considering that such scandal resulted in 28 years in jail for judge Ciavarella, 17 years for judge Conahan, and only a one-year sentence for businessman Robert Mericle (Allabaugh and Kalinowski, 2015). On one side of the issue, most private prisons have guaranteed payment from the government regardless of the number of people detained. According to Watson (2015), the “In the Public Interest” group reported on 2013 that 65% of private prisons have an agreed deal for lockup quotas, these institutions are getting paid regardless of the number of people in jail. Watson explained how the most common bed guarantee is 90% (2015). By analyzing this information, it appears that there is an incentive for the state to fill these private prisons, since a lack of detainments would result in taxpayer’s money being wasted. The presence of these for-profit institutions in the political scene for the last 20 years has resulted in the encouragement of laws that facilitate the process of incarceration. In fact, the rise of “tough on crime” attitude is believed to be the cause for the rapid increase in the incarceration rates from 1980’s and 1990’s; common measures that incentivized this process are the “three strikes laws” and “truth-in-sentencing” policies (ACLU, 2011, p.10). By linking these two pieces of evidence together its apparent that these private prisons have encouraged the creation of laws that favor an increase in the incarcerations by limiting the judge’s position in the sentence, and the agreed lockup quota put’s a burden in the state to fulfill the required agreement in order to secure the use of the taxpayer’s money.
The influence private prisons possess over the countries politics is exemplified in the creation of the “Three Strikes Law”, since it maximizes private prisons’ profits by increasing the incarceration rate. This law develops a simpler way to address individuals who have committed multiple crime. It stipulates that an individual should serve mandatory life imprisonment (more than 25 years) if he is being trailed for a “serious violent felony” and has two or more previous convictions at the federal or state level in which at least of the them is another serious violent felony” (FindlLaw, 2013). In states where the “Three Strikes Law” was implemented, the only noticeable change in the incarceration rates was an increase in the number of imprisoned citizens due to drug cases. On average, it was reported that states with three strikes laws admitted 3.5 more offenders per 100 arrests for drug offenses than states without such laws (Sorensen and Stemen, 2002). The financial support that these corporations are giving politicians is a fundamental reason for why these laws are being enacted. According to Bender, private prisons gave almost $2.1 million in 22 states that had the so called “three-strikes law” in place, almost doubled when compared to the $1.2 million dollars they invested in states that don’t have this law (Michigan Roundtable, n.d.). Although this law intended to prevent criminals from participating in crime, research has shown inconclusive evidence about its long term effects. Despite limited use outside California, the presence of a Three Strikes law appears to be associated with slower declines in murder rates. It’s believed that this effect is due to the subconscious incentive for criminals to eliminate any witnesses involved in the action in order to reduce their chance of getting caught (Chen, 2008, p.27). In conclusion, the hunger for economic profit that these companies are having are leading them to leave a series of collateral side effects that are not positive for society overall.
Truth in sentencing is another legislation that has been incentivized by private prisons because of the increase of incarceration rates it produces while producing an insignificant change in the crime rates. Truth-in-sentencing refers to those laws that eliminate the possibility of the prison sentence to be substantially reduced, they usually imply a required 85% completion of the sentence (uslegal, n.d.). This movement is known to be incentivized by tough on crime politicians that have heavy economic support from private prison groups. For example, the implementation of truth in sentencing policies was one of the biggest victories achieved by Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin; CCA is believed to have supported such policies since two of the fifteen individuals who gave the maximum contribution were high level employees for this company (Keyes, 2015). After the enactment of the truth in sentencing, the major proceeded to increase his support towards private prisons, mainly by standing in favor of sending the excessive number of criminals that were going to be generated to other facilities. Throughout the 90’s and 2000’s Wisconsin shipped approximately 5000 inmates to outside prisons accompanied by $45 million in Wisconsin taxpayer money (Keyes,2015). The positive economic impact that such policy had for private prisons was evident once it was releaved where were these inmates serving their sentence. coincidentally, the arrival of these 5000 inmates were all directed towards jails directed by one company, Corrections Corporation of America (Keyes, 2015). Although the promotion of this law resulted in criminals spending more time in jail, the efforts of private prisons to increase the number of inmates has not proven to stimulate a reduction in crime. According to ACLU, the billions of dollars targeted towards enforcement efforts, incarceration of offenders, and creation of new prisons have failed to curb the rates of drug usage, which is still on the rise (2001). With the previous evidence it’s possible to conclude that private prisons’ effort to apply the truth in sentence laws produced a positive economic impact for these corporations while having no significant impact in the crime rates.
The inclusiveness of the private sector into the prison market is believed to incentivize the creation of more competitive and efficient services. As said by Segal and McCobin (2007) “by introducing competition and focusing on outcomes and results, governments can provide the greatest incentives to innovate, and provide the high-quality services citizens expect for their tax dollars.” States secure savings by offering contracts to these companies for which their payment is below the current spending. According to Bowling (2014), states like Ohio and Florida have even guaranteed these conditions by creating a law that requires these private institutions to run at a lower cost (5% and 7% respectively). These characteristics make it apparent that private prisons are a solution towards for the state to cut expenditures and promote higher quality services. Unfortunately, the corporation’s effort to pocket the largest proportion of the income is leading these institutions to offer low quality services while generating minimal to non-existent savings. According to a recent report by the Office of the Inspector General that compared 14 private and 14 public prisons in these eight categories: contraband, reports of incidents, lockdowns, inmate discipline, telephone monitoring, selected grievances, urinalysis drug testing, and sexual misconduct; determined that the with the exception of the positive drug test and sexual misconduct, private prisons showed higher rates of incidents per capita (2016). Additionally, a recent letter signed by more than 340 organizations pleads to the U.S. Department of Homeland to stop using private prisons as immigration detention facilities because of how inefficiently they spend taxpayers money, specifying how the detention center for families in Dilley, Texas has such high lockup quota that it costs around $20 million a month regardless of how many people are detained (2016). By linking these two pieces of evidence we can identify that private prisons are profiting off the government contracts by reducing the quality of their services while securing incoming revenues.
The actions of these private prisons indicate that these companies are extending their influence to all possible sectors of the government in order to perpetuate their interests in the country’s politics. By aligning themselves with ALEC, they are incentivizing the creation of laws that would have incremental effects in the incarceration rates. Additionally, by using strategies such as lobbying, campaign contributions and revolving door politicians, they are encouraging high level politicians to pass the laws that they themselves incentivized to create. Finally, by having all these politicians in their favor not only do they secure the passing of these laws, but also the presence such connections enable them to secure new contracts in order to host the new inmates that come from the new laws they created. It is hard to imagine how is United States is going to implement laws that have actual positive effects on crime in society, especially if there is a constant focus from politicians on how to increase the incarceration rates.