Who Makes Money From Private Prisons?

Private prisons were established during the war on drug and tough on crimes era when the US was incarcerating more people than ever. Since their establishment, activists and politicians have debated whether they should exist to begin with. Some argued they didn’t save the government the projected 20% nor were they of better quality. But they continued to grow into a billion dollar industry. Today the industry is largely dominated by two companies, geo group and CoreCivic. But in 2019, the two companies have had a tough year. From Families Belong Together protests that lead to Wall Street divesting to Democratic candidates saying that they will abolish the industry, if elected. After three decades of arguing it is morally wrong to profit from incarceration and detention, activists say this could be the beginning of the end for these companies.

CORRECTION (Dec. 29, 2019): At 2:30 we misstated the operating costs of state and federal prisons. The costs (as shown on screen) are billions, not millions of dollars.

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Who Makes Money From Private Prisons?

[colinmartin]

Shouldn't the goal of prisons be to SHRINK, nor grow?

The whole point of prisons should be antithetical to private business.

[MissMarinaCapri]

When you’re in the business of running a prison, you want people in there and keep them there! CORRUPTION IS INEVITABLE

[leslieloong]

Someone gets rich by having more prisoners, wow, can u imagine the temptation to incarcerate more ppl??

[dmac]

Private prisons economic model depends on housing inmates. That is the root of the the problem. Empty jail cells don't make money, occupied ones do. That introduces a built in conflict of interest with respect to the administration of justice. If judges are elected with financial backing from these companies or worse, receive bribes or kick backs, that means far more people will receive jail time keeping those jail cells occupied whether they deserved to go to jail or not.

[steverl]

They have to fill up these prisons with random people doing small crimes. Big business 🤫

[juuvvy]

Sad to live in times where every aspect of life has some sort of corruption involved in it.

[crookedh]

Private prisons traded on the stock market what could go wrong ?

[jakomean]

Private prisons blow my european mind. Who ever thought that was a good idea?

[goodenergi]

The goal of a business is to make more money every single year. The way they do that is by cutting costs and imprisoning more people for longer. That can *and does* lead to some definite problems.

[Polyester_Avalanche]

1) Any "profit" should be given back to the taxpayers (which is where it came from).
2) Any model in which 'more inmates = more profit' is a terrible idea, for obvious reasons.

[durbinramsey]

The real question is, why are we encarcerating so many people in the first place? Reducing encarceration should be the priority.

[papito]

Who makes money from private prison?
Answer: *Republicans & Democrats*

[yapcyong]

2:30 “3 million dollars to 17 million dollars”

[kingfabrah]

I worked for the company that sells extra stuff to inmates it’s sad 😞 I quit the same day.

[JeandrePetzer]

Can we just appreciate that this C-suite executive actually bothered to do the on camera interview instead of doing like most and declining to interview but sending some scripted email instead? Good on him.

[mikerock]

We should ban all private prisons may come back to state or federal

[henrygarciga]

Missing in this analysis is the incentive to make more money by keeping people longer .
They skirt standards and find loopholes to be exempt from federal guidelines, allowing abuse and sloppy record-keeping that promotes secondary streams of profit unethical and/or illegal.

[donmotitas]

I was detained for 3 months on a Geo detention facility let me tell you things are terrible if I described everything that happened in their hair it will probably longer than the video itself but I lost my left eye because no medication for my glaucoma was provided after I'd mention them several times and I was literally told by one of thenearly crying said it is cheaper for them in the government for you to die then for them to provide care and they'd rather have the former private prison is not a good thing for any human being

[DIVISIONINCISION]

I have worked as a Mental Health Counselor in a state run prison. These prisons are big business regardless of whether they are private or state-run. Also, don't forget that even in state-run prison, the Mental Health/Substance Abuse employees are typically sub-contracted.

[SamVillano]

The food service, Sodexo, at my school, Illinois Wesleyan University, literally owns and operates for-profit prisons.