Corrections Corp. Spends $2.5M to Lobby

[Robbien]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Corrections Corp. of America spent almost $2.5 million in 2007 to lobby on legislation and regulations related to the private prison industry.

The prison management company spent more than $1.1 million in the second half of 2007 to lobby the federal government, according to a disclosure form posted online Thursday by the Senate's public records office.

The company lobbied on the privatization of Bureau of Indian Affairs prisons and on the Public Safety Act, which would outlaw private prisons, as well as the Private Prison Information Act, which would force private prisons to make public the same information government jails must provide.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5555757.html

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Our tax dollars going to private prison firms who use the money to buy politicians who will make sure our tax dollars keep going to these private prison firms.

[ixion]

1. the privatized prison industry is a sham, and should be dismantled

they are doing nothing but causing the further unraveling of our social fabric with their lobbying efforts. :grr:

[Uncle Joe]

2. You can bet on thing, they damn sure aren't lobbying for more freedom

for the American People, there is no profit in it, only more restrictive laws with them. I believe institutions such as private prisons for profit will inevitably lead to a Big Brother type fascist state.

[WilyWondr]

3. Private prisons should be outlawed

They are scum and should have no part in the political system. We learned too late in WI about how, once they get their foot in the door, they corrupt the whole system. Our ex-governor's wife was a big investor of theirs and they, magically, got many contracts with the state of WI over his tenure as governor.

[flashl]

4. The good news from economic downturn ... for-profits prisons

will no longer be able to bypass citizens to pay for building prisons.

[crimsonblue]

5. Are these prisons even Constitutional?

I'm not legal scholar, but me thinks that isn't kosher for private citizens to have the right to imprison others. That should be restricted to the states and feds. If you are imprisoned by a private company, would you have habeus corpus and other constitutional rights? Or could the company dictate everything, and turn it into a gulag or something. sigh....

[flashl]

6. Constitutional? For-Profits originated in Florida with false profit data.

The U.S. Gulag Prison System
The shame of a nation and a crime against humanity

By Stephen Lendman |03/16/06 |"ICH"

A GROWTH MARKET OF POOR AND DESPERATE PEOPLE, MOSTLY BLACK AND HISPANIC - A READY RESOURCE FOR THE PRISON GROWTH INDUSTRY

Nationwide black males over 18 are incarcerated at 9 times the rate of comparable white males, and in 11 states those rates range from 12 to 26 times the rate for whites. In my home state of Illinois the rate is 15 times, and in the nation's capital the rate is an astonishing 49 times. The most current data on incarceration for blacks in the US was 1,815 per 100,000 vs. 609 per 100,000 for Latinos, 235 for whites and 99 for Asians.? For adult black males the rate was 4,630 per 100,000, 1,668 for Latinos and 482 for whites. In 1999, 11% of black males in their 20s and early 30s were in prison including one third of black male high school dropouts. ? Even worse, the statistical model used by the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the turn of the century to determine racial and ethnic differences in their chances for incarceration at sometime in their lifetime predicts a 29% chance of serving prison time for a black male aged 16 in 1996.