Private prisons thrive despite repeated failures to justify a costly, dangerous industry - The Prison Complex

28.10.13

Private prisons thrive despite repeated failures to justify a costly, dangerous industry - The Prison Complex: Private prison companies -- the few, huge and proud companies contracted to help the federal government and many states deal with their overcrowded prisons -- are under attack. The Huffington Post has run a few very good stories recently (particularly this one) about the problems that arise when prisoner populations are attached to Wall Street profits. The Atlantic has made similar points�referencing private prison companies' connection to immigration reform, and The Nation is in the midst of a marketing campaign with the ACLU and Beyond Bars to bring more attention to the "Prison Profiteers" that not only thrive when people are imprisoned, but that write penalties against governments into their contracts when enough people aren't thrown behind bars. A report in�Cincinnati�City Beat about the continued failure of the first Ohio prison to be sold to a private company also hit the web this week, along with more fallout from the disgraceful conditions discovered within Idaho's private prisons,. Plus, there's the recent�$2.5 million civil settlement in the wake of the infuriating "kids for cash" scandal in which two Pennsylvania judges took kickbacks from a private prison operator to lock up increased numbers of juveniles.