According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the number of people in federal prison facilities has increased by 3.4 percent annually over the last decade. The number of workers detained on immigration-related charges is an expanding percentage of that population.
Meanwhile, the annual number of undocumented immigrants entering the country has decreased by 50,000 since the
mid-1990s, according to the
The Bush administration has suggested that by next year the number of immigrants held in detention centers each night will reach 27,500, an increase of more than 30 percent. Some detentions can last months or even years.
As attacks against undocumented workers have risen over the past several months, the opportunities for corporations to make a profit have also risen as increased numbers of detainees have led to prison overcrowding.
In a 2005 report, the U.S. Department of Justice reported that federal prisons were operating at 40 percent above full capacity. This means that existing federal detention centers have no room for new prisoners. Yet the federal government has recently stepped up arrests and raids in immigrant communities and heightened the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border. Overcrowding of federal facilities combined with increasingly racist measures have allowed private corporations to pick up the slack.
Private corporations benefit from imprisonment
Two of the biggest private prison operators are the Corrections Corporation of
Contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to incarcerate immigrants generated around $95.2 million, or 8 percent, of Correction Corp.’s $1.19 billion in revenue last year, a jump of 21 percent since 2004. Similar contracts generated about $30.6 million, or 5 percent, of Geo’s $612 million total income.
Revenues for prison management corporations will grow not only due to increased detention rates, but also because profit margins are higher at detention centers than at prisons. According to Patrick Swindle, a managing director at Avondale L.L.C., an investment banking firm that does business with both Geo and Corrections Corp., the “detention market” is projected to increase by $200-250 million over the next 12 to 18 months.
This open collusion between the federal government and private capitalists reveals the profit-driven nature of the system. This collusion is nothing new. The
The government encourages and directly takes part in the exploitation of undocumented workers by deeming them “illegal.” This is as true on the job as it is in prisons. Withholding legal status allows the government and its beneficiaries to do whatever they want to the workers—pay low wages, give no benefits, and harass, criminalize and incarcerate them in horrific conditions.
In May 2006, Bush requested an additional $2.1 billion for detention and removal operations by ICE. A significant percentage of this will go to private firms like Corrections Corp. and Geo Group. According to the New York Times, the number of incarcerated immigrants is expected to grow by 20 percent in the next 3 months.
Anton High, an analyst with the brokerage firm Jefferies & Company, recommends that his clients buy stock in Corrections Corp. and other private prison firms. High noted, “What’s great about the detention business is not that it’s a brand-new channel of demand, but that it is growing and significant.”
What’s “great” for a small number of capitalists is bad for hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers and their families. Increased incarceration of immigrants means profit for the capitalist government and bosses, but for workers, it’s a threat to our class. Prisons of any kind under capitalism are instruments of the bourgeoisie used to attack the working class. The organized movement for immigrant and workers’ rights is a necessary force to combat that exploitation.
