Privately Operated Federal Prisons for Immigrants: Expensive. Unsafe. Unnecessary

“Presented before a House of Representatives briefing sponsored by Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado on September 13, 2012, [this report] ... chronicles the May 2012 Adams County Correctional Center uprising in Natchez, Mississippi, a private for-profit facility operated by Corrections Corporation of America [CCA], under contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.” Sections of this publication address: how lucrative federal prison contracts enrich Wall Street corporations; deadly conditions; the route to a for-profit private prison in Mississippi; prison health care disaster; May 20, 2012-the prisoner uprising; FBI investigation-prisoners were protesting mistreatment-lack of adequate food and health care, and abuse by guards; another private prison under contract with the BOP had similar problems-GEO at Pecos, Texas; a brief history if prison privatization in the U.S.; the industry’s close ties to politicians and public officials; the bubble breaks for the private prison market; a case in point-CCA at Youngstown, Ohio; the private prison industry bubble reinflates after 9/11; a convoy of CARS (criminal alien requirements) arrives just in time to rescue CCA from bankruptcy; the CARS lurch forward; and the post-9/11 crackdown on immigrants trumps unfavorable findings regarding substandard conditions in private prisons.