Private prisons in U.S. emerge as “money printing machines” pursuing profits under pretext of serving “justice”

Cartoon by Ma Hongliang

The U.S. has a large private prison system, and these private prisons have continued to pursue profits under the pretext of serving justice.

In 2019, there were about 2.1 million people behind bars in the U.S., among whom over 100,000 were held in private prisons.

The companies that run private prisons in the U.S. enter into contracts with the federal government and local governments that commit prisoners to jail, paying a minimum amount of money to support their private prison facilities. In most cases, private prisons get paid based on the number of inmates they house. To encourage the signing of government contracts, private prisons will lobby members of Congress and make political donations to them every year.

Private prison operators also bribe judicial officials to ensure a higher occupancy rate based on the number of prison beds. A notorious judicial scandal dubbed “Kids for Cash” happened in the state of Pennsylvania. Two judges in the state accepted bribes from private prison operators and sent over 4,000 juveniles to privately run prisons.

To maximize their profits, private prisons in the U.S. often force inmates to engage in work much like slaves. Dominique Morgan, for instance, served out her sentence at the Omaha Correctional Center in the U.S. state of Nebraska. “My day would start at 4 a.m. I would go into the kitchen. I would make the breakfast for 1,200 men. I would work lunch. I would work dinner. And I’d make $2.25 a day,” she told NPR.

Private prison operators have raked in huge profits across the U.S. In 2020, the revenue of CoreCivic and the GEO Group, two major private prison operators in the U.S., reached $1.9 billion and $2.3 billion, respectively.

If private prisons in the U.S. are a kind of “money printing machine,” then it is one marked with the blood and tears of inmates.

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