Private Prisons: What's The Harm?

I truly only have one issue with private prisons, and that is, if they are private, they are for profit. Prisons should NEVER be for profit. Once they are, does the ideology shift to WANTING more people in prison, instead of using it as a deterrent?

Class warfare exists? How about institutional racism? No way, not in 'Merica. That's just the Corporations saving money to pass on the savings to consumers, those Union people are out of there minds with greed, if they hadn't asked for fair wages they might have jobs.

But if Corporations and the Financial Sector are the job creators and...
jobs are outsourced (or is insourced a better term?) to prisoners at slave wages.
If Corporations pay no taxes because really they'd just have raise prices on consumer goods, but they're saving money on labor too and...
prices are still going up and well clearly no jobs for the average joe/jane are being created.
I'm confused on where the benefit to America is.

Private corporations lobby to purchase state run jail systems from the state wherein they would be paid $$$ by the state every time there was a person that needed to be imprisoned. These private corporations donate large sums of money to various politicians and judges. The politicians pass a law effectively selling these state resources to private corporations wherein taxpayers would pay these corporations any time they need to incarcerate a citizen.

Owning these jail systems – private corporations pay and donate to sympathetic judges helping to increase the rate of incarceration and now there is a financial incentive to keep prisons full. These private corporations make more money directly from the state and taxpayers pay more money out of pocket because private corporations cost more. Now these private prison corporations SELL slave labor to Fortune 500 companies where these prisoners make $1.00 a day and these private prison corporations make even more money off the backs of their legally captive slave labor. Well…that’s what’s happening, and it should scare the # out of you.

classwarfareexists.com

Well Kali, because your thread here sent me down a different path, I decided to take a closer look behind the curtain of Corrections Corporation of America. This is a publically traded company on the NYSE, ticker code: CXW. So that right there tells me the company is driven to produce monetary results for it's major shareholders.

A brief snapshot of the company's profile on Morningstar.com says this is what the company publically says it does:

Corrections Corporation of America is the largest owner and operator of correctional and detention facilities in the United States. The firm operates over 60 facilities and owns more than 40, and holds a capacity of nearly 85,000 beds. The company also provides inmate residential and transportation services for government agencies. Additionally, the firm offers rehabilitation and educational services.

Bold emphasis mine there. Interesting, eh? Ok... moving on.....

My next question was what investment firms actually own stock in CXW? What I found admittedly sort of surprised me. According to stockzoa.com the top investor is a firm out of the UK, Sarasin & Partners hold the most stock @ $79.55 million USD which has me wondering just why a UK firm is so heavily invested in privatized US prisons. The second largest investor is a world wide investment firm with offices globally by the name of Wellington Management Firm @ $61.79 million. The 3rd largest investor is also a UK company called the London Company @ $55.38 million. It's not until we get to the 4th and 5th largest investors that we actually see US firms getting into the action.

What I fully expected to see as investors were companies like JP Morgan Chase, Goldman-Sachs, BofA... companies of that ilk.

2 US pension fund managers of note who have also invested in Corrections Corp. of America are NY State Common Retirement Fund @ $9.3 million and... TIAA-CREF @ $9.28 million..... yes... TIAA-CREF the goody goody touchy feely group who helps fund all those PBS shows and according to their own website holds this as part of their mission statement:

This globally integrated approach seeks to influence positive social change in the countries and communities in which we invest while helping our clients achieve their goal of a safe and secure retirement.

TIAA-CREF website source Ummm, come again? "influence positive social change in the countries and communities in which we invest"???? Riiiight....

Fantastic if you enjoyed the slave trade else expect new laws past to fill the jails just as fast as they are built.

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