“Larger Inmate Population Is Boon to Private Prisons.” (Wall Street Journal, 11/18)

It looks like the only “growth industry” in the U.S. is expanding the prison system.

“Prison companies are preparing for a wave of new business as the economic downturn makes it increasingly difficult for federal and state government officials to build and operate their own jails.”

“As a crackdown on…[undocumented  immigrants], a lengthening of mandatory sentences for certain crimes and other factors have overcrowded many government facilities,” (WSJ) thousands of inmates are being contracted out to private prison corporations like the Corrections Corp. of America (CCA).

Inmate population in 10 states is expected to increase by 25% or more by 2011. The net profits of CCA, the largest private-prison operator, has risen 14% to $37.9 million. “There is going to be a larger opportunity for us in the future,” said Damon Hininger, CCA’s president.

California has shipped more than 5,100 inmates to CCA prisons since late 2006. “Prisons were so overcrowded that hundreds of inmates were sleeping in gyms….  

Outsourcing incarceration to prison companies can reduce a government’s cost…by as much as 15%....Private operators say…“their payroll costs are lower and they can consolidate prisoners from many far-flung jurisdictions into facilities located in areas where land and building costs are very low.”

“Profit is…structured into the way these prisons are operated,” says Judy Greene, a justice-policy analyst….” (WSJ)

An ACLU suit charged CCA with “operating an overcrowded, unsafe immigrant-detention center…. Detainees were routinely assigned in groups of three to sleep in two-room cells — meaning one had to sleep on the floor near the toilet….The suit also alleged that detainees had little access to mental-health care.”

It was under Obama’s Democratic Party predecessor, Clinton, that the prison population skyrocketed to over two million and the immigration “reform” law was passed which is being used to jail undocumented immigrants. Somehow, “changing” this situation escaped Obama’s promises.

As the fascist attacks on immigrants intensify while unemployment rises and workers become more desperate, look for thousands of the jobless and immigrants to find themselves behind bars, and then “employed” in prison factories turning out products at 23¢/hr “wages.” Thus do U.S. bosses jail their unemployment problem and reap slave-labor profits.