Prisons For Fun And Profit

T he game Prison Tycoon , the newest release in the Tycoon PC game series, describes itself as follows: “ Prison Tycoon allows you to build and run your very own correctional facility from the comfort of your own home, on your PC. Control the layout of your prison buildings and the arrangement of the rooms and facilities within them. Place dormitories and cellblocks, mess halls and gymnasiums, but don’t expect to be able to build death row right away.” 

Prison Tycoon would be just another in a string of relatively offensive video games (think Grand Theft Auto ) if it were farfetched fiction. Instead, Prison Tycoon is a reflection of one of the fastest growing and most nefarious legal industries in the United States. 

As the game promises, “In Prison Tycoon , you’re at the ground floor of the country’s largest growth industry.” And that’s no lie. Real prison tycoons exist and they’re getting rich heading companies called Corrections Corporation of America (NYSE:CXW) and the GEO Group (NYSE:GGI). Yes, the NYSE logos mean you can buy and trade in prisons on the stock exchange. 

George Zoley, the CEO of GEO Group, makes over $3.6 million a year in total compensation. CCA’s John Ferguson draws in just under $3 million in his role overseeing the country’s 5th largest prison system of over 62,000 prisoners. 

Unfortunately, what’s good for prison tycoons isn’t nearly as good for the rest of us. Last summer the federal government announced that there were nearly 2.2 million people in prisons in the United States—almost twice as many as were imprisoned 10 years ago. In fact, while the United States has roughly 8 percent of the world’s total population, it incarcerates nearly 25 percent of the world’s imprisoned population. 

Nationwide, the bulk of the newly incarcerated are young people of color, who have been convicted of nonviolent drug offenses, and immigrants who are being incarcerated under harsh new “coun terterrorism” laws and policies.  

The Presbyterian Church, Uni ted Methodists, and all 48 Southern Catholic Bishops have criticized forprofit prisons as having a vested interest in incarceration. Beyond the moral dilemma posed by incarceration for profit, it is increasingly clear that forprofit prison operators produce more volatile and violent prisons. 

Criminologist James Austin found that privatized prisons have 49 percent to 65 percent higher rates of violence against both inmates and guards. These effects largely come from costsaving measures implemented to ensure profits, such as cutting the number of guards and trimming programs for education and rehabilitation. 

Private prisons are banking on a crackdown on undocumented workers to fill prison beds. In Texas alone, there are over 7,500 recently built or proposed private prison beds solely designed to house federal detainees—almost all of whom are immigrants held on nonviolent charges.