\n\n<\/a>\nYet the reality is that private prison lobbyists regularly buy influence\nwith state and federal officials, not only to win lucrative contracts,\nbut also to change or preserve policies that increase the number of\npeople behind bars. Private companies have made huge profits off the mass\nincarceration of non-violent drug offenders, and are now turning their\nattention to increasing the detention of Latino immigrants\u2014the newest\nprofit center for the prison industrial complex. Ultimately there is no\nway to reverse the costly trend toward mass incarceration without reducing\nthe influence of these companies and their money in our democracy.\n<\/blockquote>\nHere’s another example\nDavid Donnelly wrote for Huffpo 17 Nov 2011,\n\nPrivate Prisons Industry: Increasing Incarcerations, Maximizing Profits and Corrupting Our Democracy<\/a>,\n
\nEarlier this year in Louisiana, a plan by Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) to\nprivatize prisons narrowly failed in a legislative committee by a vote\nof 13 to 12. The 12 members of the House Appropriations Committee who\nvoted to approve the prison privatization plan have received more than\nthree times more money from private prison donors than the 13 members\nwho voted against the plan, according to an analysis of data from the\nLouisiana Ethics Administration and the National Institute on Money in\nState Politics. Gov. Jindal himself has taken nearly $30,000 from the\nprivate prison industry.\n<\/blockquote>\nAnd of course in Georgia there’s HB 87, which isn’t really about\nexcluding immigrants;\n\n\nit’s about more misdemeanors and felonies\nto lock up more people.\nAnd guess who runs the federal immigration facility in Georgia?\nCorrections Corporation of America (CCA), the same company\nthat wants to build a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.\n\nThe report\n\nties it all together:<\/a>\n
\nBuilding on analysis of the most recent data on private prison lobbying\nand campaign contributions, as well as previous research and news\naccounts, this paper connects the dots between rising incarceration\nrates, increased detention of immigrants, growing private prison revenue,\nincreased spending on political campaigns and lobbying, and privileged\naccess to policymakers.\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<\/a>\nOne of those dots is right here at home.\n\nWe don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.<\/a>\nSpend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.\nFollow\n\nthis link<\/a>\nto petition the Industrial Authority.\n
\n-jsq\n
\nPS: Owed to Michael Noll.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another report about money and private prisons (in addition to the ACLU’s Banking on Bondage), this one Public Campaign and PICO National Network, Unholy Alliance: How the Private Prison Industry is Corrupting Our Democracy and Promoting Mass Incarceration. It establishes that the “kids for cash” scandal, in which two judges accepted kickbacks in exchange for […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,140,1113,40,14,15,70,2,19,1381,72,20,3,178],"tags":[8744,8817,1153,8728,8701,8699,8730,2089,2695,3256,3309,7,3308,75,1297,6,8749],"class_list":["post-1228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-alec","category-cca","category-community","category-economy","category-education","category-ethics","category-government","category-history","category-immigration","category-incarceration","category-law","category-transparency","category-vlcia","tag-alec","tag-cca","tag-corruption","tag-ethics","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-incarceration","tag-influence","tag-justice","tag-kickback","tag-kids-for-cash","tag-lowndes-county","tag-pico","tag-prison","tag-private-prison","tag-valdosta","tag-vlcia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-jO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}