Prison business is booming
The forprofit prison industry spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Donald Trump’s election and inauguration. Now business is booming, report Michelle Conlin and Kristina Cooke , of Reuters, in New York and San Francisco.
DETAINED in a California lockup with hundreds of other immigrants seeking asylum, Duglas Cruz faced a choice.
He could content himself with a jailhouse diet that he said left him perpetually hungry. Or he could labour in the prison’s kitchen to earn money to buy extra food at the commissary.
Cruz went to work. But his $1aday salary at the privately run Adelanto Detention Facility did not stretch far.
A can of commissary tuna sold for $3.25 ($NZ4.80). That is more than four times the price at a Target store near the small desert town of Adelanto, about two hours northeast of Los Angeles. Cruz stuck with ramen noodles at 58c a package, double the Target price. A miniature deodorant stick, at $3.35 and more than three days’ wages, was an impossible luxury, he said.
‘‘If I bought that, there wouldn’t be enough money for food.’’
Tuna and deodorant would seem minor worries for detainees such as Cruz. Now 25, he sought asylum after fleeing gangs trying to recruit him in his native Honduras, a place where saying ‘‘no’’ can mean execution.
But immigration attorneys say the pricey commissary goods are part of a broader strategy by private prisons to harness cheap inmate labour to lower operating costs and boost profits.
Immigrants and activists say facilities such as Adelanto, owned by Floridabased Geo Group Inc, the nation’s largest forprofit corrections company, skimp on essentials, even food, to coerce detainees to labour for pennies an hour to supplement meagre rations.
Geo Group spokesman Pablo Paez called those allegations ‘‘completely false’’. He said detainees were given meals approved by dietitians, the labour programme was strictly voluntary, and wage rates were federally mandated.
The company said Geo Group contracted with outside vendors to run its commissaries, whose prices were ‘‘in line with comparable local markets’’. It also said Geo Group made a ‘‘minimal commission’’ on commissary items, most of which went into a ‘‘welfare fund’’ to buy recreational equipment and other items for detainees.
Relatives can send money electronically to fund their loved ones’ commissary accounts, for fees of up to 10% of the amount deposited, some families report. But for many immigrant detainees, scrubbing toilets or mopping floors is the only way they say they can earn enough to stay clean and fed.
You ‘‘either work for a few cents an hour or live without basic things like soap, shampoo, deodorant and food’’, detainee Wilhen Hill Barrientos (67) said in a classaction lawsuit filed last year by the Southern Poverty Law Centre against Nashvillebased CoreCivic, the nation’s secondlargest forprofit prison operator.
In the complaint, Barrientos said guards told him to ‘‘use his fingers’’ when he asked for toilet paper at the Stewart Detention Centre in Lumpkin, Georgia.
Detainees are challenging what they say is an oppressive business model in which the companies deprive them of essentials to force them to work for subminimum wages, money that is soon recaptured in the firms’ own commissaries.
‘‘These private prison companies are profiting off of what is essentially a companystore scenario,’’ said the SPLC’s Meredith Stewart, a lead attorney on the class action.
Immigrant rights groups have filed similar lawsuits against CoreCivic and Geo Group in California, Colorado, Texas and Washington.
Government watchdogs and lawmakers are taking notice too.
In November, 11 US senators, including 2020 presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren, sent letters to Geo Group and CoreCivic lambasting the ‘‘perverse profit incentive at the core of the private prison business’’, which has benefited from a crackdown on illegal immigrants under US President Donald Trump.
The senators cited a December 2017 report from the US Office of the Inspectorgeneral documenting problems at lockups contracted by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The office found spoiled, mouldy and expired food, and cited detainees’ complaints that hygiene products were ‘‘not provided promptly or at all’’, the report said.
The lawmakers have demanded Geo Group and CoreCivic respond to allegations of detainee mistreatment.
Geo Group said a comprehensive, detailed response was under way. It told Reuters it had ‘‘already taken steps to remedy areas where our processes fell short of our commitment to highquality care’’.
CoreCivic spokeswoman Amanda Gilchrist said the company disagreed with the senators’ assertions and it provided ‘‘all daily needs’’ of detainees.
She said CoreCivic followed all federal standards for ICEcontracted facilities, including management of the outside vendors that run its commissaries, prices for commissary products, and fees charged to families for depositing funds into detainees’ accounts.
The US forprofit prison industry has exploded over the past two decades. In 2016, 128,300 people, roughly one in 12 US prisoners, were incarcerated in private lockups. That is an increase of 47% from 2000, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Geo Group and CoreCivic together manage more than half of US private prison contracts, with combined revenues of nearly $4 billion in 2017. ICE is the No 1 customer by revenue for both companies.
Trump’s immigration polices have been a boon for the industry, which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on his election and inauguration. In fiscal 2019, the number of people in ICE detention has averaged 45,200 daily, according to agency spokesman Vincent Picard. That is up nearly 19% from fiscal 2017.
Both Geo Group and CoreCivic have added hundreds of immigration detention beds over the past year. Stock prices for the two companies are up about 30% since Trump’s election.
The government pays private prison companies fees ranging from roughly $60 to $130 daily for the care and feeding of each detainee.
At CoreCivic’s Stewart Detention Centre in Georgia, which houses about 1700 undocumented immigrants, ICE pays a per diem of $62.03 for each detainee housed there. CoreCivic’s revenue from Stewart alone was $38 million last year, court records show.
Detainee Barrientos, the lead lawsuit plaintiff, said in court documents he worked seven days a week at the facility in order to buy hygiene products and phone cards to call family members in Guatemala.
Those basics can add up. Reuters viewed a copy of the centre’s commissary price list. It shows detainees are charged $11.02 for a 4oz (113g) tube of Sensodyne toothpaste, available on Amazon.com for $5.20.
Dove soap priced at $2.44 at the commissary is available for just over a dollar at Target. A 2.5oz tube of Effergrip denture cream that sells for $4.99 at Walmart is $7.12 at the commissary.
Fees are pricey too. Vioney Gutierrez, a former detainee at Geo Group’s Adelanto facility in California, said 10% of the money her family spent to fund her commissary account was consumed by fees.
‘‘When my daughter put in $40, I got $36,’’ said Gutierrez (37). A native of Mexico, she said she spent six months at Adelanto in 2018 after asking for asylum at a port of entry. She is out on bond at present and staying with family in Oregon while she awaits the outcome of her deportation case.
Geo Group said its inmate commissary account services were provided by a thirdparty vendor and it did not profit from those transactions.
At Adelanto, Gutierrez said it cost $1 a minute to make calls to Mexico, and even more to places further afield, prices that kept many detainees from communicating with their families.
Geo Group said ICE contracted with a thirdparty telecom vendor and the company played ‘‘no role whatsoever in communications services’’.
High commissary prices have long been a complaint of prison reformers. But for immigrant detainees, many of whom borrowed money or drained savings to reach the United States, the prices are particularly prohibitive.
Cruz spent eight months at Adelanto last year before an immigrant rights organisation paid the $10,000 bond for his release. He is now in Texas awaiting the outcome of his case.
Cruz said that in his final months at Adelanto, he resorted to bartering, trading shoes he wove out of plastic bags for ramen and cookies.
❛ Barrientos said guards told him to ‘‘use his fingers’’ when he asked for toilet paper at the Stewart Detention Centre