Category Archives: CCA

Georgia following Florida down the private prison path

Florida is already forging down the path Georgia wants to follow on private prisons. Steve Bousquet writes in the Miami Herald:
The Florida Legislature’s push to privatize many more prisons, its most far-reaching cost-cutting plan in years, could open a lucrative door to politically connected vendors who stand to profit.

Senate and House budgets require the state to privatize prisons in South Florida, home to one-fifth of the statewide inmate population of 101,000. The region is the home of the GEO Group, the nation’s second-largest private prison operator, which currently runs two private prisons, including the largest private lockup, the Blackwater River Correctional Facility in Milton.

Why is this path so popular with the Florida legislature? Continue reading →

Former Mexican president Vicente Fox urges drug legalization

Sandra Dibble writes in signonsandiego 6 April 2011 that Former Mexican president urges drug legalization

Photo by Omar Martinez — Frontera
Legalization of drugs in Mexico would not only lead to lowered violence and drug consumption but also boost its economy, former Mexican President Vicente Fox said Wednesday during a speech to a convention of newspaper editors from the United States and Latin America.

“Things are going very badly for Mexico with the issues of organized crime and violence,” Fox said in Spanish. “We’re losing large volumes of tourists, if not in the interior, then at the border. We’re losing a great number of investments.”

And if there were more jobs in Mexico, from tourism and investments, there would be fewer Mexicans trying to sneak into the U.S. for jobs.

Will legalization cause more drug use? No:

On Wednesday, Fox cited the example of Portugal, where he said drugs use has fallen by 25 percent a decade after they were legalized there.

That would be better than locking up more people for private profit while not decreasing drug use, and that’s what we’re doing now.

-jsq

When the biomass plant is cancelled —John S. Quarterman

What will happen to the spirit of activism when the biomass plant is cancelled?

I applaud the activism of the many and varied biomass opponents! Let me repeat my prediction: the biomass plant will never be built. That’s no reason to stop doing what you’re doing. You know opposition is having an effect when VLCIA repeatedly denies it.

You might be surprised how many other people think this plant will never be built. Ashley Paulk told me Continue reading →

Jails Reap Millions Off U.S. Illegal Alien Crackdown

Betty Liu reports for Bloomberg that Jails Reap Millions Off U.S. Illegal Alien Crackdown:
The big winner in the crackdown on the illegal immiggration has been the private prison industry. As Bloomberg Business Week reports in its latest issue, companies such as Corrections Corporation of America are making millions. In fact, CCA makes more money from detaining immigrants than it does from any single U.S. state.
She goes on to mention CCA’s stock price has gone up by a factor of ten since 9/11.


Bloomberg’s Betty Liu reports, 18 March 2011. (Source: Bloomberg)

The source of the money CCA and its investors and executives are making? Our tax dollars!

With all the additional jail time, misdemeanors, and felonies in new state laws such as Arizona’s, states could catch up with the feds in paying CCA through the nose!

-jsq

Meanwhile in Dublin and Laurens County, Georgia

Jerome Tucker mentioned that it was Willie Paulk who enticed MAGE SOLAR to Dublin and Laurens County, Georgia. She’s president of the Dublin Laurens County Chamber of Commerce. Here’s a writeup in GeorgiaTrend about what’s going on there.

Hm, instead of taking out $15 million in bonds to be paid back by the taxpayers, the community around Dublin joined together and made available just as much money: Continue reading →

“consider ending drug prohibition” “stop the hypocrisy.” –Frank Serpico

One of our readers doesn’t believe Frank Serpico is for legalization of drugs, despite what filmmaker Connie Littlefield and LEAP say. Fair enough: that’s circumstantial evidence. Let’s see what Serpico himself says.

Frank Serpico in his blog, 27 March 2007:

DAMAGE DONE
THE DRUG WAR ODYSSEY
THE FILM
THE COPS
THE FILM MAKERS

After 30 years of drug war, illegal narcotics are decreasing in price, increasing in purity and demand continues to surge. The heroes of this film are veterans of the drug war and they urge us to consider ending drug prohibition. They have had a complete revolution in their thinking. Now they are working to end the War on Drugs. Find out what happened to change their minds.

http://www.drugwarodyssey.com/

Serpico quoted in the website for the film he recommends:

“I think Prohibition is causing the public to lose their respect because they’re enforcing laws that basically aren’t hurting anybody. I think we have to stop the hypocrisy.”
That website’s summary of the film: Continue reading →

How do anti-amnesty directives equate to available prison labor for private prisons?

Somebody recently asked:
I have seen no verification that the private prisons intend to make money from inmate labor & the recent article claiming prison labor would displace more citizen jobs if illegals were jailed as a positive for amnesty was ridiculous. All anti-amnesty directives I have seen call for the illegals being deported back to their country of origin ASAP. How does this equate to available prison labor for private prisons?
OK, let’s go look at the anti-immigrant law passed by Arizona. It’s littered with “federal custody” and “imprisoned not more than thirty days” and “imprisoned not more than six months” and “A person who is sentenced pursuant to this section is not eligible for suspension or commutation of sentence or release on any basis until the sentence imposed is served.” and “class 1 misdemeanor” and “class 3 felony” and “class 4 felony” and “twenty days in jail” and “thirty days in jail”.

Arizona Revised Statutes Section 11-1051

D. Notwithstanding any other law, a law enforcement agency may securely transport an alien who the agency has received verification is unlawfully present in the united states and who is in the agency’s custody to a federal facility in this state or to any other point of transfer into federal custody that is outside the jurisdiction of the law enforcement agency. a law enforcement agency shall obtain judicial authorization before securely transporting an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States to a point of transfer that is outside of this state.

13-1509. Trespassing by illegal aliens; assessment; exception; classification Continue reading →

Georgia: $18,000 per prisoner vs. $3,800 per student –Fox News

Elizabeth Pran asks Who Gets More Tax Dollars… Prisoners or School Children? Of course, being Fox News, it advocates cutting prison costs by reducing air conditioning for prisoners. The real problem is the War on Drugs and Three Strikes. She does at last manage to mention in passing “alternative programs for non-violent offenders.” Yes, like not locking up people for minor drug offenses in the first place!

And indeed, educating students today would cost less than locking them up later.

Meanwhile, privatizing prisons does nothing to solve these problems; it just lines some corporation’s pockets with tax money.

-jsq

“More African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began” –Michelle Alexander

Dick Price writes that More Black Men Now in Prison System than Were Enslaved,
“More African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began,” Michelle Alexander told a standing room only house at the Pasadena Main Library this past Wednesday, the first of many jarring points she made in a riveting presentation.
She’s written a best-selling book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness, and she discusses the problem: Continue reading →

Georgia press complicit in promoting private prisons

The Augusta Chronicle puts it in the lede for the whole state, Georgia showing signs of recovery: Tax numbers give reasons for hope, Associated Press, Monday, March 14, 2011:
Hotels are hiring desk clerks and housekeepers in anticipation of a spring tourist boom in Savannah, while even a rural Georgia city devastated by manufacturing losses is putting some people back to work as construction begins on a $57 million private prison.
Where is that? Continue reading →