Private Prison Demands 300 More Prisoners Or It Close Down

The corporate entity that operates the facility, CoreCivic — formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America — is the second-largest private prison company in the nation.

The Anti-Media
By The Anti-Media
New prisoners at the Department of Youth Services Detention Center begin the intake process by being searched Thursday, Jan. 31, 2002. (AP Photo/Will Shilling)

New Mexico — A small community in New Mexico is learning firsthand the consequences of relying on corporate industry to fuel your economy. In the case of Torrance County, it’s the private prison industry. From a July 25 article by the Santa Fe New Mexican: “The company that has operated a private prison in Estancia for nearly three decades has

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Private Prison Accused Of Using Immigrants For Forced Labor

A class action lawsuit alleges CoreCivic, a privately-run immigration prison, forced inmates to do free, and underpaid labor under threat of punishment.

Nick McCann
By Nick McCann
A prison guard on horseback watches inmates return from a farm work detail at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, La.

SAN DIEGO  — A privately run immigration prison in San Diego forces its inmates to clean their own jail for a dollar a day or less, two prisoners say in a federal class action. Sylvester Owino and Jonathan Gomez sued CoreCivic, formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America, a Nashville-based corporation that is one of the biggest private

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Texas Senate Paves Way For ‘Baby Jails’ To Be Licensed As ‘Family Residential Centers’

The legislation would allow the state to exempt the facilities from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Service’s general residential operations standards.

Julián Aguilar
By Julián Aguilar
Immigration

The Texas Senate on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to legislation that would make it easier for the state to license privately run detention centers as "family residential centers" in order to hold immigrant families in detention centers longer. Senate Bill 1018 by state Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineloa, would ease the guidelines the centers must

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Justice Dept Announces It Will End Use Of For-Profit Prisons

As soon as the news broke the DOJ would be abandoning for-profit prisons, stock value crashed for both Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group.

Claire Bernish
By Claire Bernish
Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington. The Justice Department says it’s phasing out its relationships with private prisons after a recent audit found the private facilities have more safety and security problems than ones run by the government.

In a stunning turn of events, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday it will no longer use private prisons to incarcerate federal prisoners, deeming the notorious for-profit facilities both less safe and less effective in providing correctional services than those operated by the government. “They simply do not provide the same level of

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‘Profiting From Misery’: Private Prison Corporations Driving Harsh Immigration Policies

“The immigrant detention system has expanded significantly since the implementation of the quota, and the percent of the detained population held in private facilities has increased even more dramatically.”

Sarah Lazare
By Sarah Lazare

Barbara Gonzalez, public information officer for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, shows a dormitory where immigrant families are housed at the Artesia Residential Detention Facility inside the Federal Law Enforcement Center in Artesia, N.M. on Friday, July 11, 2014. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson visited the facility Friday and

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Private Prisons Pushing To Increase Profits

The privatized prison industry has allowed the Corrections Corporation of America to increase its profits by more than 500 percent in the last 20 years.

Jo Erickson
By Jo Erickson

The private prison industry has become an increasingly lucrative business, as the companies running them seek to increase profits by cutting inmates’ food provisions while pressuring state governors to guarantee prisons remain 90 percent full at all times. In recent years, for-profit prisons have grown in popularity. The number of private prisons

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