Idaho’s prisons are out of room. The Idaho prison population is so high that 130 inmates have just been moved to a prison in Burlington, Colo. There are simply not enough beds and cells to house all of Idaho’s incarcerate.
California had a similar problem, thanks to their disastrous Three Strikes law. They have such a high prison population that they will be forced to release almost 30,000 inmates. Not that they want to — California has no choice. Last year, the Supreme Court upheld population caps, stating that overcrowded prisons, such as those found in California, are unconstitutional.
Conditions in these prisons were so poor that being sent to one constituted cruel and unusual punishment.
More than one percent of the American population is in prison. We have one of the highest incarceration rates in the world.
The former Idaho inmates will be housed at the Kit Carson Correctional Center, run by the Corrections Corporation of America. The CCA is a private, for-profit prison company — one of America’s largest. It earns profits through taxpayer money, paid by state and federal government to house our prisoners. The more inmates CCA prisons hold the more money CCA makes.
According to their website, the Corrections Corporation of America “houses more than 80,000 inmates in more than 60 facilities.” The CCA has two prisons in California, one in Idaho and four in Colorado. The Idaho facility houses 2,104 prisoners.
There is an organization called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Their job is to help congressmen and senators meet with lobbyists for powerful industries who can fund their campaigns. These lobbyists include Exxon-Mobil, the National Rifle Association and the Corrections Corporation of America.
Let’s put these facts together. Idaho’s prisons are full. California’s prisons are full. There are powerful private prison companies such as the CCA that make money based on how many prisoners they incarcerate. These corporations have direct access to, and financial influence over, the people who set laws related to crime and justice–Laws such as those determining what activities are criminalized and what the sentences may be for those crimes. They also set mandatory minimum sentencing laws.
In other words, the same people who make money on prisons also make the laws about prisons. This has resulted in laws such as the Three Strikes rule in California, which gave life sentences to nonviolent criminals.
In the next few months we will likely see calls to build new prisons to house Idaho’s growing criminal population. We will continue to see a “tough on crime” movement that wants longer mandatory minimum sentences and harsher criminal penalties. Next time you see a politician claim to be “tough on crime,” ask yourself where’s the money?
Justice in America is no longer about protecting its citizens — it’s about profits. And prisoners are profitable commodities.
It’s not just minimum sentences either. One of the biggest revenue sources for the private prison industry is incarcerating illegal immigrants. Arizona’s tough anti-immigration laws? Sponsored by politicians funded by the CCA and similar companies. The federal government pays $2 billion of your money to these companies every year.
If justice in America is to mean anything, the justice system must exist for the common good, not for private profits.
Max Bartlett can be reached at [email protected]