Private prison company’s (CCA) growth went hand-in-hand with political influence

Photo: The Comedian, Flickr

Private prison company’s growth went hand-in-hand with political influence

By Jon Collins 

From MN Independent, but can be found here.

http://paper.li/USuncutMN/1314159648?utm_source=subscription&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=paper_sub#!tag-alec

It’s been almost two years since the privately-run prison in Appleton has held prisoners. But in early 2012, the prison’s owner, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), expects to fill Appleton’s Prairie Correctional Facility and another facility in Colorado with 3,256 inmates from California.

In the last ten years, the revenue of CCA, the country’s biggest private prison company, has almost doubled, according to their annual reports. Critics say that CCA’s success, and even the likely reopening of the prison in Appleton, stems from their use of lobbying and campaign donations to push through tougher crime laws and increase detainment of illegal immigrants.

“Prison privatization contracts are designed by policy makers. It’s important for these companies to have a political strategy to increase their market share,” Paul Ashton, author of a recent report on private prisons for the Justice Policy Institute, said in a conference call Wednesday. Private prison companies “game the system,” he said, by pushing to increase market share, which in the private prison business means putting more people in prison.

Political influence generates business gains

For two decades, CCA was a member of a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — a nationwide organization made up of corporations and state legislators. At an ALEC meeting in December 2009, where CCA employees were present, according to an original report by Beau Hodai of In These Times and a subsequent story by NPR, the group crafted the model legislation that would later become Arizona’s SB1070 and a host of other similar bills across the country.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

CCA and other private prison company executives saw immigration detainees as a significant new source of revenue, as Hodai reported. Although CCA denied pushing the Arizona bill, and has since given up membership in ALEC, lobbyists from the private prison industry flooded the Arizona State Capitol and donations streamed to the bill’s supporters, ensuring its passage.

Even without Arizona-style laws in place in most states, the number of inmates held in private prisons for federal crimes, including immigration-related crimes, has continued to rise. For federal prisoners with more than a one-year sentence, immigration crimes now rank third behind drug and gun charges. In the last decade, the number of people held in federal private prisons more than doubled, according to U.S. Department of Justice statistics (PDF) from December 2010.

Private prison industry efforts to influence policy at the federal level continue. In 2011, CCA has already employed 35 federal lobbyists, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The bills CCA has lobbied on this year include a number of appropriations related to Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detentions, which made up 12 percent of the company’s revenue last year, according to CCA’s 2010 annual report.

In last month’s quarterly statement, the company announced a quarterly revenue increase of 5.6 percent, which the company largely attributed to new federal contracts.

CCA didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment, but in other statements they have denied that they try to influence the political process.

Paul Ashton told The Minnesota Independent that many of the legislative policies CCA was close to as a longtime member of ALEC, for instance the “three-strikes-you’re-out” rule, benefit the company’s bottom line.

“In order for a private prison company to make money, there has to be people in prison,” Ashton said. “In order for them to have an increasing share of the market and in order for them to increase their revenue, there have to be more people in their facility, they have to stay their longer, and they have to come back.”

Business booms for CCA in cash-strapped California

In the wake of the Arizona-style bills, the private prison industry hasn’t gotten complacent. State contracts like the one expected between California and CCA to house prisoners in the Appleton facility, account for about half of CCA’s steadily growing business, with California making up about a quarter of that.

Source: Justice Policy Institute

California, which will provide the 3,256 inmates that will likely fill Minnesota and Colorado prisons, is another state that has been targeted by the private prison industry. (The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has announced its intent to award the contract, but a spokesman is unsure when it will be awarded due to a statewide prison reorganization happening now; the company is confident the award’s on track, according to a recentquarterly filing.)

Between 2003-2010, CCA’s PAC gave more than half a million dollars to California political campaigns, according to the Justice Policy Institute report, with the vast majority coming to 75 separate candidates between 2008 and 2010, according to data compiled by the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

CCA’s California investment looks to have paid off. CCA ”continued to receive additional inmates from the state of California throughout 2009 and 2010 as they have turned to the private sector to help alleviate their overcrowded correctional system,” according to CCA’s 2010 annual report.

In 2008, California accounted for 6 percent of the company’s total revenue. By 2010, the state accounted for 13 percent of the company’s revenue, or $214 million (although full contract costs to the state are reported to be more than $700 million).

Similar attempts at prison privatizations are occurring in Florida, where CCA employed an army of 17 lobbyists and donated $438,494 to state political campaigns between 2003-2011, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Industry rivals Geo Group and a subsidiary donated $822,415 in just the 2010 election cycle, with large chunks of cash going to the Republican Party of Florida, although the industry plays both sides of the aisle.

Steve Owen, CCA’s director of marketing and communications, told our sister site, The Florida Independent last year that opposition to private prisons was usually stirred up by labor unions or ideology.

“Given tightening budgets and limited resources during these challenging economic times, legislators and other officials are increasingly turning to correctional partnerships, enabling them to protect critical priorities like education and health care while delivering safe, quality correctional and rehabilitation services,” Owen said.

A recent study (PDF) by the Arizona Department of Corrections found that private prisons don’t really save states money, as the New York Times reported.

Because of lobbying reporting, it’s also most difficult to track the industry’s lobbying expenditures at the state level.

“They can be a lot more influential on the state level than they can on the federal level, because campaign contributions mean a lot more at the state level than at the federal level,” Ashton said. “Federal candidates tend to bring in money anyway, whereas CCA or GEO [a rival company] giving $25,000 to the Republican Party in Florida can have a huge impact on how the parties spend money on their candidates, as a result it gives a closer tie to the industry.”

One thousand seven hundred fifty miles from L.A. to Appleton

CCA and other private prison companies are doing very well. In 2010, CCA saw total revenue of $1.67 billion, according to CCA’s annual report. But there is a human cost to the industry too.

Amy Gottlieb of the American Friends Service Committee told the Minnesota Independent that prisoners transferred to other states often face both emotional and legal hurdles.

“Ultimately, we have thousands and thousands and thousands of people around the country who are being locked up, held away from their families, in the immigration context are often unrepresented by council,” Gottlieb said. “People are profiting off of that.”

According to CCA’s website, one of the benefits of out-of-state inmate management is that the company will “[a]dhere to state-specific policies and procedures, as well as hundreds of standards set by the American Correctional Association and our company.”

But the fact that prisoners, including detained immigrants in some federal facilities, are being held in the less accountable private facilities is of concern to advocates like Gottlieb.

“We have seen over and over again that the private prison lobby is extremely powerful and they have deep connections to a lot of politicians and get a lot of federal contracts,” Gottlieb said. “That creates very serious concerns when what we are really talking about here are human rights and human rights violations.”

(Yana Kunichoff also contributed to this report.)

Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law

by LAURA SULLIVAN

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Morning Edition

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October 28, 2010

Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.

Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch.

"The gentleman that's the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger," Nichols said. "He's a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman."

What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants.

"They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community," Nichols said, "the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate."

But Nichols wasn't buying. He asked them how would they possibly keep a prison full for years — decades even — with illegal immigrants?

"They talked like they didn't have any doubt they could fill it," Nichols said.

That's because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona's immigration law.

Behind-The-Scenes Effort To Draft, Pass The Law

The law is being challenged in the courts. But if it's upheld, it requires police to lock up anyone they stop who cannot show proof they entered the country legally.

Read Part 2 Of This Report

Shaping State Laws With Little Scrutiny

Among hundreds of bills drafted by an alliance of business, lawmakers: Arizona's immigration law.

When it was passed in April, it ignited a fire storm. Protesters chanted about racial profiling. Businesses threatened to boycott the state.

Supporters were equally passionate, calling it a bold positive step to curb illegal immigration.

But while the debate raged, few people were aware of how the law came about.

NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry.

The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before. And it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to private prison companies responsible for housing them.

EnlargeJoshua Lott/Getty Images

Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, pictured here at Tea Party rally on Oct. 22, was instrumental in drafting the state's immigration law. He also sits on a American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) task force, a group that helped shape the law.

Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce says the bill was his idea. He says it's not about prisons. It's about what's best for the country.

"Enough is enough," Pearce said in his office, sitting under a banner reading "Let Freedom Reign." "People need to focus on the cost of not enforcing our laws and securing our border. It is the Trojan horse destroying our country and a republic cannot survive as a lawless nation."

But instead of taking his idea to the Arizona statehouse floor, Pearce first took it to a hotel conference room.

It was last December at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. Inside, there was a meeting of a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Insiders call it ALEC.

It's a membership organization of state legislators and powerful corporations and associations, such as the tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., ExxonMobil and the National Rifle Association. Another member is the billion-dollar Corrections Corporation of America — the largest private prison company in the country.

It was there that Pearce's idea took shape.

"I did a presentation," Pearce said. "I went through the facts. I went through the impacts and they said, 'Yeah.'"

Drafting The Bill

The 50 or so people in the room included officials of the Corrections Corporation of America, according to two sources who were there.

Pearce and the Corrections Corporation of America have been coming to these meetings for years. Both have seats on one of several of ALEC's boards.

And this bill was an important one for the company. According to Corrections Corporation of America reports reviewed by NPR, executives believe immigrant detention is their next big market. Last year, they wrote that they expect to bring in "a significant portion of our revenues" from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that detains illegal immigrants.

In the conference room, the group decided they would turn the immigration idea into a model bill. They discussed and debated language. Then, they voted on it.

Key Players That Helped Draft Arizona's Immigration Law

Source: NPR News Investigations

Credit: Stephanie D'Otreppe/NPR

"There were no 'no' votes," Pearce said. "I never had one person speak up in objection to this model legislation."

Four months later, that model legislation became, almost word for word, Arizona's immigration law.

They even named it. They called it the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act."

"ALEC is the conservative, free-market orientated, limited-government group," said Michael Hough, who was staff director of the meeting.

Hough works for ALEC, but he's also running for state delegate in Maryland, and if elected says he plans to support a similar bill to Arizona's law.

Asked if the private companies usually get to write model bills for the legislators, Hough said, "Yeah, that's the way it's set up. It's a public-private partnership. We believe both sides, businesses and lawmakers should be at the same table, together."

Nothing about this is illegal. Pearce's immigration plan became a prospective bill and Pearce took it home to Arizona.

Campaign Donations

Pearce said he is not concerned that it could appear private prison companies have an opportunity to lobby for legislation at the ALEC meetings.

"I don't go there to meet with them," he said. "I go there to meet with other legislators."

Pearce may go there to meet with other legislators, but 200 private companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to meet with legislators like him.

As soon as Pearce's bill hit the Arizona statehouse floor in January, there were signs of ALEC's influence. Thirty-six co-sponsors jumped on, a number almost unheard of in the capitol.  According to records obtained by NPR, two-thirds of them either went to that December meeting or are ALEC members.

That same week, the Corrections Corporation of America hired a powerful new lobbyist to work the capitol.

The prison company declined requests for an interview. In a statement, a spokesman said the Corrections Corporation of America, "unequivocally has not at any time lobbied — nor have we had any outside consultants lobby – on immigration law."

At the state Capitol, campaign donations started to appear.

Thirty of the 36 co-sponsors received donations over the next six months, from prison lobbyists or prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America, Management and Training Corporation and The Geo Group.

By April, the bill was on Gov. Jan Brewer's desk.

Brewer has her own connections to private prison companies. State lobbying records show two of her top advisers — her spokesman Paul Senseman and her campaign manager Chuck Coughlin — are former lobbyists for private prison companies. Brewer signed the bill — with the name of the legislation Pearce, the Corrections Corporation of America and the others in the Hyatt conference room came up with — in four days.

Brewer and her spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

In May, The Geo Group had a conference call with investors. When asked about the bill, company executives made light of it, asking, "Did they have some legislation on immigration?"

After company officials laughed, the company's president, Wayne Calabrese, cut in.

"This is Wayne," he said. "I can only believe the opportunities at the federal level are going to continue apace as a result of what's happening. Those people coming across the border and getting caught are going to have to be detained and that for me, at least I think, there's going to be enhanced opportunities for what we do."

Opportunities that prison companies helped create.

Produced by NPR's Anne Hawke.

Prison Divestment Campaign National Strategy Session

On July 1^st, thousands came out in over 14 cities in solidarity with Georgia denouncing the roles of private prison corporations CCA and Geo Group and their investor Wells Fargo. Click here to see press coverage, pictures, and video from the actions.

Thanks to all of your efforts, the day was a success. Wells Fargo is feeling the escalation. The Prison Divestment Campaign is growing, engaging community on the prison industrial complex and its role in anti immigrant laws and policies such as Georgia’s HB87 and Secure Communities.

The next step for the campaign is a National Strategy Session in Denver August 19th-20th. For information about attending the session please contact Daniel atDaniel@enlaceintl.org and 213-284-3802.

Campaign posters are available! Click here for yours!

American Legislative Exchange Council: Detaining Immigrants for PROFIT

Public Policy, Private Corporations: Detaining Immigrants for Profit

Submitted by Peter on October 28, 2010 - 9:17am 

 

People For the American Way has been documenting the ways in which corporate interests, with a big boost from the Supreme Court, are pouring unprecedented sums of money into this year’s elections to buy themselves an even more corporation-friendly government. This morning, National Public Radio reported on another way that corporate interests are shaping public policy. Remember that controversial anti-immigrant law in Arizona? Turns out it was drafted at a conference of right-wing legislators with help from private prison corporations that see the detention of immigrants as a new profit center.

According to Corrections Corporation of America reports reviewed by NPR, executives believe immigrant detention is their next big market. Last year, they wrote that they expect to bring in "a significant portion of our revenues" from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that detains illegal immigrants….

 

NPR also notes that as soon as the bill was introduced in Arizona, prison industry money followed:

 

Thirty-six co-sponsors jumped on, a number almost unheard of in the capitol.  According to records obtained by NPR, two-thirds of them either went to that December meeting or are ALEC members....

 

At the state Capitol, campaign donations started to appear.

 

Thirty of the 36 co-sponsors received donations over the next six months, from prison lobbyists or prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America, Management and Training Corporation and The Geo Group. 

 

By April, the bill was on Gov. Jan Brewer's desk.

 

On a May conference call with investors, NPR reports, one prison industry official expressed hope for more help from the federal level:

 

" Those people coming across the border and getting caught are going to have to be detained and that for me, at least I think, there's going to be enhanced opportunities for what we do."

 

Here’s some more information about the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that brings corporate donors together with conservative state lawmakers to push anti-regulatory legislation on a range of issues.