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going from profit driven media to profit driven
prisons we've talked many times on this show Louis about the connection between
private prisons
banks owning part parts love those private prison companies
and the detention of undocumented immigrants and we figured out how
there's this conflict of interest where private prisons can make money
of love the detention a fun documented immigrants and therefore
now have a stake in immigration policy we've talked about the connection
between private prisons
and the war on drugs right and how private prisons stand to make money
from a drug policy that puts more nonviolent drug offenders
in prison just makes perfect sense we haven't explored
how private prisons are able to make millions
even when crime rates go down even when you restructure
drug laws to keep more nonviolent drug offenders
out of prison but Mother Jones has a really good article
outlining this and they explain how to take the example above the CCAA Louis
the Corrections Corporation of America
that the nation's largest owner of private prisons
they've seen their revenue go up by over 500 percent
in the last twenty years and this is in spite
love re a of declining crime rates
and this is just fascinating the way this is happening CCAA
is able to get they they do a number different things number one last year
CCAA made an offer to 48 different governors
to buy an operate their state-funded prisons
but the pitch the part of the pitch that
gives this insight into what is really going on behind the scenes
is that there are occupancy requirements so when the pitches made let's say
I'm CCAA and I go to a prison in ohio and I say
we'd like to take over this prison we think we could just take this completely
off at your plate
however will give you X amount of money for the prison but
we need an occupancy requirement that this prison will be ninety percent full
at all times are 95 percent for it could be any number
regardless of whether crime is going up or crime is going down
so as it turns out this is pretty common in the private prison industry there's a
new report by
in the public interest and they've reviewed 62 contracts for for but prefer
different private prisons around the country
and 41 of those had occupancy requirements
somewhere between 80 and 100 percent
ball so the the reason for this Louis is obvious
we can have a guaranteed three moving come we don't have to worry about our
prisons sitting empty
so what happens when crime drops and the natural level
occupancy might drop below the agreed-upon rate well
this state then has to in order to meet its contract requirements
move prisoners from the state-funded prisons
to the private prisons and then what happens
the the state prisons are emptier and emptier
still incurring the same overhead costs and you have taxpayers
pain for state prisons that are increasingly
empty while this state is giving these guaranteed occupancy contracts to
for-profit corporations
which have an interest in what I would consider unproductive immigration reform
and certainly terrible war on drug
incarceration policy it is a horrible and corrupt
and disgusting circle it is despicable
and you know what in in occupancy guarantee even outside
a for-profit prisons just the idea of an occupancy guarantee
for a prison is is mindboggling certainly and a state prison would not
have that which is yet another one of the reasons why private prisons
are going to be an impediment to improving war on drugs and drug-related
policy
reducing incarceration in favor rehabilitation aware
it make sense not that it always does and and this the the states that are
going like Kentucky which actually has now
eliminated all private ownership of Prisons that's the direction we should
really be going in