My research will analyze the elements of neoliberalism present within the American criminal justice system, focusing upon two central components of the U.S. judicial system: court procedures and incarceration. My research for the preceding week has centralized gathering information about the internal conditions of privatized prisons and learning more about the political influence and implications of the privatization of prisons. A short documentary produced by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, Prisons for Profit: 18 Months in the Life of the Nation’s First Prison Sold for Profit, follows the events that have transpired after the State of Ohio sold the Lake Erie Correctional Institution to Corrections Corporations of America (CCA) in 2011. The correctional facility experienced a dramatic increase in the number of inmates, a greater number of reported assaults and other acts of violence, and a spike of drug accessibility and usage within the complex. The documentary features accounts from key figures of Conneaut City (the location of the Lake Erie Correctional Institution), including Neil LaRusch, a Conneaut City Councilman, and Paul Reynolds, who worked as a Corrections Officer within the prison. Both narratives provided by Neil and Paul demonstrate that the worsening conditions in the Lake Erie Correctional Institution were attributed to the privatization of the facility.
In an effort to drastically cut costs and maximize profits, the CCA eliminated rehabilitation programs, fired medical and safety personnel, and ignored facility needs at Lake Erie. LaRusch contends that rehabilitation programs were abandoned not only as a means to “reduce operational costs and satisfy shareholders,” but also as a means of ensuring that recidivism rates (and thus, future profits) remain high [10:23-10:31]. Indeed, LaRusch states, “You’re in the business to make a profit. Do you want those people rehabilitated?…As a profiting entity, as a business, I think you’re going to take as many bad people as you can get because that’s where your money is coming from” [14:03-14:27]. In addition to the absence of rehabilitation programs, the CCA purposefully disregarded the failing, poor physical structures of the prison complex: “bathroom facilities…were two and three toilets down out of five, sinks constantly not working, they had inmates sleeping on the floor, [and] they had three inmates to a two-bunk cell” [16:59-17:10]. The Prisons for Profit documentary provided me with valuable information about how internal conditions of private prisons exemplify ideals of neoliberalism, including accumulation by dispossession, economic efficiency, and individualized responsibility.
The second portion of my data collection involved learning more about the role politics played in the increase of the privatization of prisons. However, I did not find Lauren-Brooke Eisen’s “The Politics of Private Prisons” chapter in Inside Private Prisons: An American Dilemma in the Age of Mass Incarceration particularly helpful. Eisen’s work focused on the what is already clear about the privatization of prisons: it is a bipartisan issue that Republicans favor and Democrats notably disfavor. The most helpful information I obtained from Eisen’s work concerns the limited power the executive branch possesses to curtail the privatization of prisons, and the extreme unlikeliness that Congress would “penalize states that contract with private prisons to house inmates” (135). Although Eisen’s work did not provide useful data, it did help me realize that while the politics of the privatization of prisons is important, it is not necessarily a central element of my research. Unless I can find compelling, notable data on politics and privatization soon, it is likely a component of my research that I will drop.
My next steps include researching more about the history of the privatization of prisons and beginning to gather more information regarding the first component of my research: the privatization and inequities that exist in legal representation. I have a series of books that I have reserved in the library to read, including Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money From Mass Incarceration edited by Tara Herivel and Paul Wright, Are prisons obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis, Prison Privatization: The Many Facets of a Controversial Industry edited by Byron Eugene Price and John Charles Morris, and Private Prisons in America: A Critical Race Perspective by Michael A. Hallett.
Notes from Prisons for Profit: 18 Months in the Life of the Nation’s First Prison Sold for Profit
- Growing number of inmates
- Greater violence
- Spike in drug usage and availability
- “In order to reduce operational costs and satisfy shareholders many rehabilitation programs were slashed or cut entirely.” [10:23-10:31]
- Schooling system was shut down because of cost…Terminated contract with Kent State University in Ashtabula.
- Neil LaRusch, Conneaut City Councilman, “The more you put in the less you get out, so if they have to provide all of these different programs and all of these different things for all of these different individuals, they’re gonna make less and less money…They are there to make sure that their shareholders are happy at the end of the day.” [11:51-12:10]
- “Since 2009, CCA’s stock price has risen more than 400%, from $10 to over $40 per share.” [12:11-12:18]
- Kimberly’s partner, Ben struggles with addiction and served time at the Lake Erie Correctional Institute. “The cost cutting measures they try to make effects the prisoners in a negative way: less programs, less time, and less resources” [12:19-12:26]
- Not recognizing good and proper behavior because it would gain prisoners early release.
- LaRusch, “You’re in the business to make a profit. Do you want those people rehabilitated?…As a profiting entity, as a business, I think you’re going to take as many bad people as you can get because that’s where your money is coming from.” [14:03-14:27]
- “Demand for our facilities…could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts…” -CCA, Annual 10-K SEC Report
- “We had a medical department there, and they usually made decisions. It started to get to the point where some of the upper management were questioning those decisions, whether we needed to take somebody out or not. I personally think it was ‘Do we need to send this person out because of the cost?’…I saw inmates severely neglected. There was a very big problem in the beginning with medication not being there…For the first couple weeks there were several inmates who went without much-needed medication” [14:47-15:25].
- “We constantly had bathroom facilities that were two and three toilets down out of five, sinks constantly not working, they had inmates sleeping on the floor, they had three inmates to a two-bunk cell.” [16:59-17:10]
- From 2002 to 2012, Corrections Corporation of America spent over $17 million dollars lobbying: The Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, the Bureau of Prisons, and both houses of Congress. CCA grew its prison populations dramatically.
Comments:
Anarelis, I like the progress of your making with your project. I did not realize that there is so much material on private presence here in the US. This stuff is fascinating and saddening at the same time. I know this is not the focus of your project, however I did not realize that private prison companies such as CCA, also are very active in detaining immigrants. In fact, most of the detention centers that holds migrants in this country are owned and operated by CCA and the Geo group. Keep it up!