The booming business of private prisons

A prisoner in the U.S.

Given huge tax breaks and buoyed by the soaring stock market, American corporations, in general, have been upbeat about the Donald Trump administration. However, the bullishness has been more pronounced in the case of private prisons. The sweeping enforcement of immigration laws and the ‘zero tolerance’ policy of Mr. Trump has given a major fillip to companies whose business it is to lock up people. A recession-proof industry anyway, the private prison complex is now looking forward to some years of robust growth.

In 2016, the last year of the Barack Obama administration, the situation looked grim as the government announced plans to phase them out. However, Mr. Obama’s detention and deportation drives had already offered these companies a new growth area. The Trump administration put that growth on steroids, after Attorney-General Jeff Sessions reversed Mr. Obama’s decision in February 2017. Corrections Corporation of America, the U.S.’s first private prison company, reincarnated itself as CoreCivic and made a comeback.

The private prison sector, which took shape in the early 1980s, grew rapidly through the 1990s, capitalising on the boom created by Bill Clinton’s harsh anti-crime measures. The first federal private prison opened under his presidency in 1997. The U.S. has only 5% of the world’s population, but holds 25% of the world’s prisoners. In 1972, the total number of prisoners did not exceed 3,00,000. In 1990, it was one million and in 2000, it rose to two million. Now, it has grown to above 2.2 million.

Rising numbers

While the voters cheered tough anti-crime measures that disproportionately swept up African Americans, Hispanics and illegal migrants, they did not support more state spending for new prisons. More and more private facilities were the answer. Ten years ago, there were only five private prisons in the country; today, there are 100, with 62,000 inmates. With the U.S. housing nearly 11 million undocumented people, these facilities are only set to grow.

The recession-proof private prison sector has seen a rapid growth under the Trump administration. As the President implements his anti-immigrant policies, the industry is only set to grow more

According to a Brookings study in 2016, 1,31,000 inmates were held in private prison facilities under the jurisdiction of 30 States and the Federal Bureau of Prisons in 2014. “The share of federal prisoners held in private prisons increased from 3% in 1999 to 19% in 2014 — notably in immigration detention centres,” said the report.

The idea that competition among private companies would make prisons better and cost-effective has no evidence to support it, the study found. On the other hand, allegations have piled up over the years of under-staffing and other cost-cutting measures that compromised quality and safety. Further, private companies are not subject to public scrutiny, making the functioning of these prisons extremely opaque. In 2014, the FBI launched an investigation into a private prison facility because its correctional officers had allegedly negotiated an arrangement with gang leaders to overcome staff shortage — the leaders could resort to gang violence to maintain order in prison!

The two largest private prison companies, GEO Group and CoreCivic, get about two thirds of all contracts. Each gave $2,50,000 to Mr. Trump’s inaugural festivities, according to an NPR report. The two earned a combined revenue of $4 billion in financial year 2017. Profits are set to soar further, as the administration continues with extended detentions until deportation proceedings are completed.

Varghese K. George works for The Hindu and is based in Washington.