Indiana: It Gets Worse

Indiana Governor Mike Pence is even more of a Bible-humping redneck than you thought.  While taking a Libertarian hands-off position on civil rights enforcement, Governor Inbred wants to increase the prison sentences for minor drug offenses.

In a completely unrelated coincidence, the GEO Group (based in Florida), one of the country's largest private prisons, has made huge campaign contributions to Mike Pence and other Indiana conservatives. GEO Group needs more, uh, clients (i.e. prisoners) to fill their prisons and ensure even greater profits.  And the way to achieve this is:

“Tougher marijuana possession and dealing penalties could be added to a proposed overhaul of Indiana's criminal sentencing laws by legislators after Gov. Mike Pence questioned whether the plan was strict enough on low-level drug offenders.  One proposed change expected to be voted on Thursday would make possession of between about one-third of an ounce and 10 pounds of marijuana the lowest-level felony rather than the highest-level misdemeanor.”  [from the linked article]

Yup, just another example of that good old free enterprise and limited government that conservatives love to talk about.

After Mike Pence has (finally) finished sucking off the lobbyists from GEO Group, maybe local businesses will invoke their newfound religious freedom by refusing to serve him.

Private Prisons: Even Worse Than You Thought

Whatever you’ve already heard or read about the private prison industry, it’s worse than you ever imagined.  The immorality is bad enough:  huge financial incentives to jail as many people as possible, prison owners and management being totally unaccountable to the public, etc.

But financially, private prisons are even more of a drain on taxpayers than we ever knew.  The three largest private prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), GEO Group and Management and Training Corporation — have all been including occupancy requirements in their contracts with state governments.  The state is required to guarantee maximum occupancy for these private prisons.  If the occupancy rate falls below a certain level — usually 80%, sometimes 100% — taxpayers have to reimburse the private prison company for its lost revenue.

Is it just me, or does this conflict with conservatives’ bootstraps/free enterprise rhetoric?  A “private” company is financed by taxpayers, and reimbursed again by taxpayers when their “earnings” fall short — nice work if you can get it.

Also, the private prison industry has campaigned heavily for three-strikes laws, laws to increase prison sentences in general, and laws that would criminalize every imaginable type of private behavior.  The more laws, the more “customers” the “private” prison industry can enjoy.  So much for that “limited government” conservatives are always blubbering about.

This information was compiled by In The Public Interest.

Law and Order:  SVU and CSI:  New York have both had episodes featuring corrupt judges who worked hand in glove with a private prison.  For every defendant convicted of a crime — no matter how petty — the judge received a “commission” from the private prison where this newly-convicted criminal got sent.

Unfortunately, those two TV episodes were not just fiction.  They were based on something that’s happening in real life every day.  And it’s getting worse.

Florida Holds Off on Private Prisons — For Now

Yesterday, Florida’s state senate defeated a bill which would have privatized twenty-six state-run prisons.  Nine Republican senators voted with the Democrats.  The vote was a victory for prison guards and other unionized prison employees, as well as for the prisoners themselves.  For that matter, the vote was a huge victory for everyone who’s properly horrified by the prospect of a private corporation being able to imprison people for profit.

It was a defeat for the state’s largest private prison companies — the GEO Group, Corrections Corporation of America, and Management and Training Corp. — and their favorite boy toy, Rick Scott, who had pushed for the bill.

If this bill had passed, 3,500 state prison employees would have lost their jobs and one fifth of the state’s prison inmates would have been turned over to a private prison company.  Imagine having your life become just a number on a prison corporation’s balance sheet.

There’s one political casualty from yesterday’s vote:  Republican state senator Mike Fasano spoke out against this bill before the vote.  Senate president Mike Haridopolos retaliated by taking away Fasano’s chairmanship of the committee overseeing prison issues.  Fasano said:

“I’ve been in the legislature for 18 years and I always have stood up for my conscience, and if it means me having to lose my chairmanship, I wear that as a badge of honor.”

And Florida senate president Mike Haridopolos is hereby anointed Cocksucker of the Week.  In addition, let’s hope Haridopolos gets framed for something and does some hard time in one of these private prisons he’s so gung ho about.

Anyway, a crucial battle was won in yesterday’s Florida vote, but the war is still looming.  The Corrections Corporation of America is on a huge lobbying bender in 48 states.  For any state that’s facing a budget crisis — and what state isn’t? — Corrections Corporation of America is making a seductive offer.  They want to purchase each state’s prison facilities in return for a twenty-year management contract.  Pretty tempting, no?  Invest YOUR sons and daughters in the lucrative Prison-Industrial Complex NOW.

In case you’re not creeped out enough already, the Corrections Corporation of America is also guaranteeing that their private prisons will be at least ninety percent full.  Is it just me, or does that sound like a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Fantastic Business Opportunities in the Prison Industrial Complex. Invest Your Sons and Daughters Now

America’s two largest private prison companies — GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America — “earned” over $2.9 billion dollars last year. There’s gold in them thar prison inmates. And if you hurry, YOU can get in on the ground floor NOW.

According to the Justice Policy Institute, the total prison population has increased by 16%. During the same period, the prison population of private federal prisons has increased by 120%.

And it gets worse. Private prisons are not just taking advantage of our harsh victimless-crime laws and unbalanced sentencing procedures. They’re actively working to create new laws and longer sentences.

The largest prison companies have bribed, er, I mean “contributed” nearly a million dollars to federal politicians, and over $6 million to state candidates. In Arizona, most of the state legislators who voted for the state’s immigration law — which will be a gold mine for private prisons — received campaign contributions from the private prison industry. Coincidence?

And in Florida, legislation has been introduced that would privatize ALL Florida prisons. Needless to say, there’s a lot of bribery involved here.

And in the “Small World” department, one of the founders of Corrections Corporation of America is the former chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party.

Figures.