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Profiting Off Inmates

Journalist Silja J.A. Talvi went undercover at the American Correctional Association’s 2005 Winter Conference in Phoenix last month. The organization of wardens was originally designed to promote " rehabilitation, religious redemption and humane treatment of prisoners." But that was back in 1870. Today, Talvi writes, its focus has shifted to profiting from inmates.

Scores of individuals from prison acquisition and purchasing departments, consulting agencies, and the ranks of high-level prison administrators had come to the conference for networking, recruiting and, above all, business.

And they weren't disappointed.

The real draw of the ACA conference was the exhibitors, who had two full days to showcase their wares. The exhibition hall corridors had been given names like “Corrections Corporation of America Court,” “Verizon Expressway,” “Western Union Avenue,” and “The GEO Court Lounge,” where one could sip Starbucks and eat free glazed doughnuts.

Here, the discussions were all about increasing profit margins, lessening risks and liabilities, winning court cases, and new, improved techniques and technologies for managing the most troublesome inmates. In the glaringly bright exhibit hall, attendees buzzed around booths, snapping up freebies and admiring the latest in prison technology.

Exhibitors hawked restraint chairs, tracking systems, drug-detection tools, suicide-prevention smocks and prison facility insurance. Dozens of companies competed to sell private health care systems, pharmacy plans, commissary services and surveillance systems. Of particular interest were behavior modification programs, juvenile boot camps, and Internet and phone services. Interest in the latter brought in the “big boys” of telecommunications: Sprint, AT&T, NEC, MCI Communications, Verizon, Global Tel*Link and Qwest. And why not? Prison phone contracts that overcharge prisoners and their families generate an estimated $1 billion a year.

Three more articles in this issue of In These Times not to miss:

< The New Theocracy | Mothers Charged With Drugging Babies >
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    Re: Profiting Off Inmates (none / 0) (#1)
    by David on Mon Feb 07, 2005 at 09:29:29 AM EST
    WOW, it appears that pretty much everything the warden in "The Shawshank Redemtion" did is now legalized and promoted.

    Re: Profiting Off Inmates (none / 0) (#2)
    by wishful on Mon Feb 07, 2005 at 10:02:19 AM EST
    And I sincerely believe that our officials at the highest levels are personally benefitting in ways too numerous to count. I have suspicions based on strange occurrences with telling timing that Bush's appointment to HS head was not totally unconnected to his oversight of PA prisons during Ridge's tenure as Gov.

    Re: Profiting Off Inmates (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Feb 07, 2005 at 11:30:49 AM EST
    Privatization has worked so well for prisons - let's privatize everything!!

    Re: Profiting Off Inmates (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Feb 07, 2005 at 04:37:51 PM EST
    Corrupt ba*ds. Of course, I may be jaded.

    Re: Profiting Off Inmates (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 08, 2005 at 06:34:53 AM EST
    So, it would seem the only guaranteed employment that can be found in America...is in America's prisons? Is this how we will compete with nations with low wage workers?

    Re: Profiting Off Inmates (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Feb 19, 2005 at 02:50:47 AM EST
    Prisons are one of the TOP business industries in America. Prisons are SELF-SUPPORTING, but States take between $23,000.00 - $50,000.00 per inmate, per year, of tax-dollars, while charging inmates for rent, restitution, medical, the gym, classes, etc.. Inmates are paid slave-wages, yet pay full-price for shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, lotion, snacks, etc.. Visit any prison website, then click on "Industries" to view products each prison manufactures. Prisons grow, process, manufacture, and distribute the FOOD supplied to inmates, while unsuspecting tax-payers are led to believe that citizens pay for inmate food. Privatized prisons are a FARCE, beneficial only to the gvt and investors. BOYCOTT NYSE:CXW.