Prisons Profit from [white supremacy] Lock Up Quotas
/White genetic survival is the dynamic behind the high incarceration rate of non-white males in the U.S. It contributes in genocidal fashion to the prevention of Black births and the Black male-supported development of all Black children, particularly boys. [MORE]
The private prison industry's profiteering off mass incarcerations has come under fire by prison reform advocates who blasted the industry’s use of bed or lockup quotas to pad their bottom line even as states attempt to decrease their prison population.
The backlash stems from a September report by Washington D.C.-based watchdog group In the Public Interest (ITPI). Their report found states and local governments that have contracts with private corporations, like Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group, to run their prisons contain clauses requiring high occupancy levels. And if those prisons fall below those levels, states must foot the bills for those empty prison beds often at taxpayers’ expense.
Nicole Porter of The Sentencing Project called occupancy quotas problematic. The quotas, she said, tie lawmakers’ hands in managing state prison population.
“If they build prisons, they’ll fill them,” Ms. Porter said, noting that lawmakers often see increased prison capacity as a “safety vale” to address crime rather than reserving incarceration “for people who actually need to be in prison.”
