Buying Influence: How Private Prison Companies Expand Their Control of America’s Criminal Justice System In The Public Interest, October, 2016“In 2014, out of the 30 governors, lieutenant governors, controllers, attorney generals, and legislators that received individual contributions of $5,000 or greater from the corrections industry, 27 won their races.”
Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Monitoring of Contract Prisons U.S. Department of Justice, August, 2016“We found that, in most key areas, contract prisons incurred more safety and security incidents per capita than comparable BOP institutions and that the BOP needs to improve how it monitors contract prisons in several areas.”
Community Cages: Profitizing community corrections and alternatives to incarceration American Friends Service Committee, August, 2016“The profitization of community corrections poses a serious threat to the movement to end mass incarceration.”
InCorrect Care: A Prison Profiteer Turns Care into Confinement Grassroots Leadership, February, 2016“This report’s in-depth analysis of GEO Group, GEO Care and now Correct Care Solutions’ involvement in operating mental health hospitals and civil commitment centers exposes serious concerns.”
Locked Up & Shipped Away: Interstate Prisoner Transfers and the Private Prison Industry Winter 2016 Update Grassroots Leadership, January, 2016(Since the 2013 release of Locked Up and Shipped Away, the same four states (Vermont, California, Idaho, and Hawaii) continue to house a portion of their prisoners in private prisons out of state. And, a fifth state, Arkansas has also opted to do so.)
Buying Access: How Corporations Influence Decision Makers at Corrections Conferences, Trainings, and Meetings In the Public Interest, August, 2015“In 2014, sponsors, vendors, corporate partners, and other non-individual entities contributed at least $3 million to five of the largest professional corrections associations.”
Do Private Prisons Distort Justice? Evidence on Time Served and Recidivism University of Wisconsin – Madison, March, 2015“My final result is that there is no reduction in recidivism for prisoners in private prison despite the additional time they serve, suggesting that either the marginal returns to incarceration are low, or private prisons increase recidivism risk.”
Private Prisons, Private Records Boston University School of Law, January, 2015“Without access to operational and personnel information, practitioners and advocates are unable to determine with any reasonable degree of confidence whether many private facilities are operated in humane, productive, and cost effective ways.”
Treatment Industrial Complex: How For-Profit Prison Corporations are Undermining Efforts to Treat and Rehabilitate Prisoners for Corporate Gain American Friends Service Committee; Grassroots Leadership; Southern Center for Human Rights, November, 2014“Most for-profit prison corporations have dismal records in terms of safety, cost, and quality of the prisons that they manage.”
The Color of Corporate Corrections, Part II: Contractual Exemptions and the Overrepresentation of People of Color in Private Prisons Radical Criminology, February, 2014“…this study finds that people of color are overrepresented in private minimum and/or medium security private facilities relative to their public counterparts in each of the nine (9) states examined.”
Locked Up & Shipped Away: Interstate Prison Transfers and the Private Prison Industry Grassroots Leadership, November, 2013“Currently, prisoners in out-of-state private facilities are held approximately 450 miles to nearly 3,000 miles from their home states.”
Criminal: How Lockup Quotas and In the Public Interest, September, 2013“Essentially, the state would have to guarantee that its prison would be 90 percent filled for the next 20 years (a quota), or pay the company for unused prison beds if the number of inmates dipped below 90 percent capacity at any point…”
International Growth Trends in Prison Privatization Sentencing Project, August, 2013“Prison privatization is most concentrated and most fully privatized in a handful of predominantly English-speaking countries. These include Australia, Scotland, England and Wales, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States.”
Roadblocks to Reform Perils for Georgia’s Criminal Justice System Southern Center for Human Rights, November, 2012“The traits endemic in private prisons – poorly trained staff, inadequate services, higher rates of violence and other infractions – dovetail with one another and are mutually reinforcing.”
Lake Erie Correctional Institution Full Internal Management Audit Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, September, 2012“Employees interviewed could not demonstrate the following: a knowledge of the local fire plan; a knowledge of the rapid release of inmates from cells in locked areas […] and many simply stated they had no idea what they should do.”
“She Doesn’t Deserve to be Treated Like This”: Prisons as Sites of Reproductive Injustice Rachel Roth, Center for Women Policy Studies, July, 2012“[T]he well-established nature of women’s rights has not stopped prison and jail personnel from trying to deny women abortion care, or at least obstruct women’s access to abortion.”
Dollars and Detainees The Growth of For-Profit Detention Sentencing Project, July, 2012“Between 2002-2010 […] privately-held ICE and U.S. Marshals Service detainees increased by 206% and 322%, respectively. In contrast there was respective growth of 28% and 67% in the number of state and federal prisoners held in private facilities.”
Collateral Consequences of Interstate Transfer of Prisoners Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, July, 2012“In addition to breaches in facility security, out-of-state private prisons create significant barriers to rehabilitation and humane conditions of care.”
Prison Bed Profiteers How Corporations Are Reshaping Criminal Justice in the U.S. National Council on Crime and Delinquency, May, 2012“Prison industry lobbyists seek to impact sentencing policies as well as the rules and regulations included in government contracts. In 2010, CCA, GEO, and Cornell Companies together spent more than $1.5 million on federal lobbying.”
Private Prisons: The Public’s Problem American Friends Service Committee, February, 2012“Between 2008 and 2010, Arizona overpaid for its private prisons by about $10 million. If the requested 2,000 medium security private prison beds are built, Arizona taxpayers can expect to waste at least $6 million on privatization every year.”
Pitfalls and Promises The Real Risks to Residents and Taxpayers of Privatizing Prisons and Prison Services in Michigan Michigan Corrections Organization, February, 2012“Taxpayers want to save money. Private prisons want to make money. These are inherently opposite interests, since the only way for private prisons to make money is for the government to give it to them. The drive for growth can be counterproductive…”
Too Good to be True Private Prisons in America Sentencing Project, January, 2012“Finally, private prison companies’ dependence on ensuring a large prison population to maintain profits provides inappropriate incentives to lobby government officials for policies that will place more people in prison.”
Too Good to be True Private Prisons in America The Sentencing Project, January, 2012“The available data belies the oft-claimed economic benefits of private contracting, and points to the practice being an unreliable approach toward financial stability.”
FY 2010 Operating Per Capita Cost Report Cost Identification and Comparison of State and Private Contract Beds ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, April, 2011“An inmate health care cost factor is identified and deducted due to the limitations imposed by the private contractors […][because] unlike the private contractors, the ADC is required to provide medical and mental health services to inmates […].”
Banking on Bondage Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration ACLU, 2011(The evidence that private prisons provide savings compared to publicly operated facilities is highly questionable, and certain studies point to worse conditions in for-profit facilities.)
Department of Corrections-Prison Population Growth A Report to the Arizona Legislature State of Arizona Office of the Auditor General, September, 2010“The State paid more per inmate in private prisons that for equivalent services in state facilities.”
Corrections Department: Review of Facility Planning Efforts and Oversight of Private Prisons and Health Programs Legislative Finance Committee (New Mexico), May, 2007“Nationally, New Mexico places the highest percentage, about 42-44 percent, of inmates in private prisons. The national average is 6.5 percent.”
Cost-Saving or Cost-Shifting: The Fiscal Impact of Prison Privatization in Arizona Private Corrections Institute, February, 2005
Corrections Corporation of America: A Critical Look at the First 20 Years, Grassroots Leadership Grassroots Leadership, December, 2003“explores continuing operational and financial problems; questions CCA’s long-term viability as states reassess prison policies”
Governments’ Management of Private Prisons: Abt Associates, September, 2003“This report examines state and federal governments’ practices of contracting with private firms to manage prisons, including prisons owned by state and federal governments and those owned by private firms.”
Private Prisons and Public Money Hidden Costs Borne by Colorado’s Taxpayers Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, September, 2002
A Contributing Influence: The Private-Prison Industry and Political Giving in the South Institute on Money in State Politics, April, 2002
Weighing the Watchmen: Evaluating the Costs and Benefits of Outsourcing Correctional Services Reason Public Policy Institute, January, 2002
Jail Breaks: Economic Development Subsidies Given to Private Prisons Good Jobs First, October, 2001
Selective Celling: Inmate Population in Ohio’s Private Prisons Policy Matters Ohio, May, 2001(argues that prison cost savings are a myth by sending only low-cost prisoners to private prisons)
Should Crime Pay? A review of the evidence AFSCME Corrections United, 1998
Private and Public Prisons: Private and Public Prisons: Studies Comparing Operational Costs and/or Quality of Service General Accounting Office, August, 1996
The Private Sector and Prison Industries National Institute of Justice, August, 1985“As of January 1985, there were 26 projects in which the private sector was involved with State-level prison industries. There has been a gradual growth […] until 1980, when a marked increase occurred at a rate that continues to grow today.”
