Ominous growth industry
Mass dententions push up prison stocks
By Monica Moorehead
The House of Representatives passed "anti-terrorism"
legislation on Oct. 12 that gives the government sweeping new
powers for wiretapping, surveillance and investigation.
Civil liberties advocates had argued against the bill,
warning that its passage could usher in dangerous infringements
on privacy and constitutional rights.
But one small minority group is salivating at the passage of
this legislation. These greedy investors in private prisons
have dollar signs for eyes. They are anticipating a huge boom
in profits as private prisons, already crowded with a reported
700 new detainees, are expanded to detain more thousands who
may be accused of connections to "terrorism."
The Bush administration and all the repressive arms of the
state are using the tragic events of Sept. 11 as an excuse to
legalize racist profiling on a broad, sweeping scale. Those
particularly vulnerable are Arabs, South Asians and all who
practice the Islamic faith, as well as Black, Latino, Native
and other peoples of color and immigrants.
The newly created Office of Homeland Security will be the
main administrator of these unconstitutional mass detentions.
This office will have a $15 billion budget and will combine the
repressive forces of the FBI, CIA, INS and other agencies.
And who will head up the Office of Homeland Security? The
former governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge, who signed more
death warrants than any other governor. Not all have been
carried out. Mass protests have led to the vacating of two
execution warrants Ridge signed against the best-known U.S.
political prisoner on death row, Mumia Abu-Jamal.
George W. Bush himself, as governor of Texas, was dubbed
Governor Death because he presided over the most executions of
any state.
As governor, Ridge not only was a vicious pro-death penalty,
anti-labor, anti-environmental politician, but he had very
close ties to Pennsylvania's corporate elite. In Bush's eyes,
that made him the perfect choice to head up this new cabinet
post. As the head of the Homeland Security Office, he will be
able to have a direct say on how the Bureau of Federal Prisons
will divide up prison construction projects among the privately
owned prison corporations next year.
Private prison stock soars
Wall Street can also depend on the judicial arm to do its
bidding. The U.S. Su pre me Court is scheduled to make a ruling
very soon that could bar inmates from suing private prisons for
civil rights violations.
The role of these corporations is to build privately run
prisons on behalf of the U.S. and governments abroad. Wall
Street sustains itself by buying and selling stocks based on
speculative bidding on which can bring in the highest profit
margins. Once the "anti-terrorism" bill came before Congress,
the value of stocks in some private prison corporations zoomed
by as much as 300 percent.
The Bureau of Federal Prisons is now in the process of
taking bids on prison construction contracts. The BFP has
allowed Georgia to bid on two prisons and is seeking bids for
three more prisons in the Southwest desert next year.
The country's largest prison corporation, Corrections
Corporation of America, is expected to make the biggest gains.
Just a few months ago, the CCA was facing bankruptcy. It found
a new business life after Sept. 11, when its stock value shot
up by 308 percent. This corporation maintains 65 prisons in the
U.S. and Puerto Rico that incarcerate 61,000 human beings,
including 500 in Leavenworth Federal Prison.
There is no question that the prisons-for-profits investors
received a shot in the arm with the Sept. 11 events. But these
bloodsuckers also cash in on economic hard times.
James MacDonald, a prisons-security analyst at First
Analysts Securities, stated, "Crime always goes up in a bad
economy. Where there are good times and jobs are plentiful,
people who get out of prison can usually find work and don't
have to go back to their old ways. When the economy fails, so
do the former inmates." (New York Post, Oct. 4)
The Sept. 11 tragedy is helping to expose in an
unprecedented way how the capitalist system takes full
advantage of a catastrophe--not to benefit the people, but to
carry out the aims and objectives of a tiny clique of bosses,
bankers and their puppets to achieve political, military and
economic domination over the entire world.
The growing anti-war movement should take up the slogan:
Money for jobs, schools, health care and human needs--not for
prisons, racist repression and war.
Reprinted from the Oct. 25, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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