It’s no secret that the prison industry is a very profitable industry. It’s so profitable that private prisons and for-profit juvenile detention centers have become billion-dollar corporations. It would be less profitable for law enforcement to allow Schaquana Spears to whoop her kids now and have them be upstanding citizens later. It’s better for them to scare Spears out of disciplining her own children and later have her 6 delinquent children end up in a for-profit juvenile detention center. Don’t think law enforcement would lock up kids to add money to their pockets? They’ve done it before, and the judges, local sheriffs, and politicians are the biggest entrepreneurs in the industry.
Between 2003 and 2008, Judge Mark Ciavarella, Jr. and Judge Michael Conahan of Pennsylvania earned millions from sending juvenile delinquents to a for-profit detention center they built called PA Child Care. The judges received a finder’s fee of 10% of the construction costs of the center by its builder, totaling around $2.2 million. Police would convince the parents of the juveniles to waive their right to legal counsel and have children enter guilty pleas for the smallest of infractions, including cussing out a teacher or cyberbullying. The children would then face Pennsylvania Judge Ciavarella and be sentenced harshly for months, sometimes years, to his for-profit detention center.
For-profit detention centers can run at the local, state, or juvenile levels. One of the largest prison contracting companies, LCS Corrections Services, owns and operates private correctional and detention facilities located in Louisiana, Texas, and Alabama. Reportedly, LCS Corrections Services is also a major donor to local political campaigns. In Louisiana, for example, LCS has reportedly donated to the campaigns of sheriffs who have supplied their rural prisons LCS owns with inmates from urban areas, including inmates from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where Schaquana Spears and her 6 kids reside. Corporations like private prison contractors will donate money to politicians who can keep their facilities running. This includes enforcing stricter laws and longer sentences for criminals. These criminals would then be sent to the private prisons and for-profit detention centers. According to reports, “private prison corporations have actually helped write the ‘three-strike’ and ‘truth-in-sentencing’ laws that drive up prison populations”.
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