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Coinciding with a recent burst of organizing around immigration reform, Tom Barry pens a fascinating, if grueling, piece in the latest Boston Review. Barry dissects the newest species of American incarceration: the public-private immigration prison and the corresponding “prison towns” that have sprung up all across the country, but particularly along the Southern border.The facilities, which are jointly owned by local governments and private corporations like the Corrections Corporation of America, are seen as a guaranteed source of revenue, and are often located in economically depressed communities:
Because they rely on project revenue instead of tax revenue, these prisons do not need voter approval. Instead they are marketed by prison consultants to municipal and county governments as economic-development tools promising job creation and new revenue without new taxes...Since funding is provided by project revenue bonds rather than general obligation bonds, the county faces no direct liability if the speculative prison fails. “Money for nothing” is a common refrain when county officers are asked about the advisability of prison deals.Occasionally, towns -- like one in Reeves County that Barry mentions -- can run into serious debt problems, if these prisons do not fill their beds.Luckily for them, though, the federal government has their back. Roadblocks to comprehensive reform efforts in Congress have placed the burden of enforcement on the criminal justice system. Over the last 20 years the criminalization of undocumented immigrants has allowed the number of private detention centers to skyrocket. Detention, sometimes indefinite, has replaced the earlier practice of sending Mexican immigrants back to Mexico and calling all other undocumented immigrants to appear in immigration court. The government’s most recent iteration of this is the 287(g) program: The program deputizes local law enforcement to play federal cop and lock up those found without legal documentation. Great news for the prison executives! At a hearing earlier this year, the program was found to have no metric for success or standards with dubious enforcement practices. Still, 287(g) programs continue to operate around the country.Comprehensive immigration reform has been promised for 2010, but issues like health-care reform, financial regulation, and climate change will still take priority before it's seriously addressed. Once -- and if -- it is, the "crimmigration industry" may prove one of the larger obstacles in its path.--Laura Dean
