It's hard to compete with former Democratic Senator Evan Bayh moving to the Chamber of Commerce, but former Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons Harley G. Lappin going to work for the Corrections Corporation of America is up there. James Ridgeway reports:
Taking advantage of two concurrent 30-year trends--toward mass incarceration and toward privatization of government services--CCA has grown to a $1.6 billion company that operates 66 facilities in 20 states, with approximately 90,000 beds. It has become notorious for its poor treatment of prisoners, and for numerous preventable injuries and deaths in its prisons and immigrant detention centers. About 40 percent of CCA's business comes from the federal government, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as the Bureau of Prisons. As BOP director, Lappin would have overseen government contracts with CCA worth tens of millions of dollars. CCA spends approximately $1 million annually on lobbying on the federal level alone.
Private prison companies like the CCA, along with prison guard unions, are some of the biggest obstacles to changing criminal justice policy in the United States. They make a great deal of money, and they donate a lot of it to politicians who go on to support "tough on crime" policies. As Ridgeway notes, though, it would be a mistake to think that CCA's influence just extends to criminal justice policy -- they also have a substantial impact on immigration policy. They were one of the forces behind Arizona's draconian immigration law. More focus on detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants, after all, means more demand for their services.
