The Last of the Prison Posts

Gopnik doesn't provide data on the numbers of prisoners in the U.S. who are incarcerated in prisons run as businesses by private companies, nor how many such prisons exist, but as he points out, "it is hard to imagine any greater disconnect between public good and private profit..." The obvious public good of having as few people as possible in prison runs up against the profit motive of having as many inmates as possible, maintained as cheaply as possible.

This is from the 2005 Annual Report of the Corrections Corporation of America. They are obliged to caution their shareholders that there exists a "risk that somehow, somewhere, someone might turn off the spigot of convicted men:

Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities....The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. 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.

We have the situation of "a capitalist enterprise that feeds on the misery of man trying as hard as it can to be sure that nothing is done to decrease that misery." Gopnik points out that this particular company, as well as others in the same business, spend millions lobbying legislators to keep their businesses profitable by keeping the convicts coming.

The exploitation of prisoners is not just limited to the private companies that run the prisons for a profit. The following is from the site http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289. It is dated March 2008, but there is nothing in Gopnik's article to suggest things are any better in 2012.

Who is investing? At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom's, Revlon, Macy's, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more. All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call "highly skilled positions." At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month.

Thanks to prison labor, the United States is once again an attractive location for investment in work that was designed for Third World labor markets. A company that operated a maquiladora (assembly plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq.

[Former] Oregon State Representative Kevin Mannix recently urged Nike to cut its production in Indonesia and bring it to his state, telling the shoe manufacturer that "there won't be any transportation costs; we're offering you competitive prison labor (here)."

There is a problem when prisons are run as corporate profit centers. It is another instance of Americans running away from their social responsibilities.