The industry has contracts requiring states cough up a certain quota of criminals to be imprisoned.


Prison is big business in the United States. In 2010, the nation’s private prisons held roughly 130,000 prisoners and 16,000 civil immigration detainees at any one point, leading to annual revenues for the two top private prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group — of nearly $3 billion.

This has created a system in which holding more prisoners leads to more profits. “The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws,” CCA wrote in its 2010 annual report. “For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.”

The report goes on:

“Legislation has been proposed in numerous jurisdictions that could lower minimum sentences for some non-violent crimes and make more inmates eligible for early release based on good behavior. Also, sentencing alternatives under consideration could put some offenders on probation with electronic monitoring who would otherwise be incarcerated. Similarly, reductions in crime rates or resources dedicated to prevent and enforce crime could lead to reductions in arrests, convictions and sentences requiring incarceration at correctional facilities.”

It has been recently revealed that the private prison industry not only wishes to control more prisons, but are lobbying the states to maintain demand for their services.



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