Private Prison Operators Eye Immigrants as Business Opportunity

[High Plains]

Immigration crackdown creates new profit opportunity for CCA
Prison operator competes for federal contracts to house detainees

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20060521&Category=BUSINESS01&ArtNo=605210386&SectionCat=&Template=printart


At the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas, there's a playground for children and murals painted on the walls. There's carpet on the floors of detention cells but no locks on the doors. Only the second detention facility in the nation designed to house families, the center is part of a new push by U.S. immigration authorities to detain rather than release illegal immigrants awaiting deportation.

The location is owned and run by Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, which, like other private prison operators, is bracing for an increase in business from measures to curb illegal immigration. The Hutto Center opened last week under a contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, reversing last year's decision by CCA to shut down the then-underutilized prison.

"We do expect there'll be an increased need for detention beds," said John Ferguson, chief executive with CCA, citing the spotlight on immigration including legislation being discussed in Congress.

Opportunities being eyed by private prison operators include:

• The 2007 federal budget calls for 6,000 new detention beds for ICE, which doesn't build prisons but contracts space from county and other governments and from private operators such as CCA.

• CCA and its rival The GEO Group are among bidders vying to build and run a 2,800-bed U.S. Marshals Service detention Center in Laredo, Texas, to serve a federal court loaded with immigration cases.


<snip>

Much, much more at the link above.


EDIT: COPYRIGHT. PLEASE POST ONLY 4 OR 5 PARAGRAPHS
FROM THE COPYRIGHTED NEWS SOURCE PER DU RULES.

[Jed Dilligan]

1. K & R: I'm going to keep kicking this

until some supposed "liberal" comes on saying this is all a-okay, and then I will kick their ass.

[Jed Dilligan]

2. Kick

[Jed Dilligan]

3. Kick

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. What? they don't have enough "customers" already??!

More than 2 million Americans are behind bars, the most — in absolute numbers, and share of the population — of any nation on Earth.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=212389

[Telly Savalas]

5. And you know damn well that these assholes will cut costs

by having some of their staff be undocumented workers who they'll pay under the table less than the minimum wage.

[AlienGirl]

6. Kicking...this is very troubling

:kick:

[Asgaya Dihi]

7. Some info on CCA and Wackenhut

CCA stands for Corrections Corporation of America, it's one of the largest private prisons in the nation and one of theirs was the facility in Texas where the abuse and dog bites were caught on film a couple of years ago.

Here's an article that talks about CCA and Wackenhut which are the two largest for profit prison systems. http://www.infoshop.org/prisons/public_html/article.php?story=02/01/23/0799434

Pot-TV also did what they said was a three part video on the subject though I can only find the first two, it's titled about Abu Ghraib but it's actually about the American system and tries to draw similarities between them. Personally I'd have liked it better just to the point and less dramatic in the narrative, but it's good video in any case. Life inside is not pleasant, this is how we breed new criminals and why they can't fit in when they come home.

http://www.pot-tv.net/archive/shows/pottvshowse-2680.html
http://www.pot-tv.net/archive/shows/pottvshowse-2712.html

[SammyWinstonJack]

11. Wackenhut founder........personal BFEE friend? Seems I remember

reading that somewhere. :shrug:

[Asgaya Dihi]

12. Couldn't say for sure

I did a quick web search and came up with a thread right here on DU about it though, might have what you wanted since it's about BFEE and Wackenhut is in the thread. One article linked in it I'll include below after the thread link, it's a history of Wackenhut and though the term BFEE isn't used it does talk about their relationship with power including with the Bush family. Fair sized thread so it'll take time to load on a slow connection. Hope it's what you were looking for.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4813493
http://www.marijuanalibrary.org/WACKEN.HUT.html

[SammyWinstonJack]

14. Thanks for the links..........I'll dig through them. nt

[treestar]

8. I bet they are just salivating at the thought

And what are they going to do with them after they've deported all the illegals?

[High Plains]

9. Glad to see this is still on the first page.

Kick.

[rman]

10. Combine this with lobbying and corruption,

and we've got business as usual.

[Supersedeas]

13. more Corporate give away opportunities for Campaign dollars--brilliant