Texas Prison Bid'ness

Via an excellent Grits for Breakfast post on Friday, the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics has released a new report (Census of State and Federal Correctional Facilities) detailing how private prison corporations are seeing large growth even as publicly-administered adult correctional centers are being built far less often than in previous years. From Grits,

The census basically covers the first half of the decade, comparing data between June 30, 2000, and December 30, 2005. Let's run through some highlights. (All quotes are from the report - pdf)

For starters, governments aren't building prisons much any more, but corporations are. "Private correctional facilities (up 151) accounted for nearly all of the increase in the number of adult correctional facilities between June 30, 2000, and December 30, 2005. Most of the growth in private correctional facilities during this period was in facilities under contract to the Federal Bureau of Prisons."

As a result, private facilities have expanded their market share over a very short period of time, DOJ reports, mostly thanks to federal contracts. "From 2000 to 2005, the number of private facilities increased from 16% (264) to 23% (415) of all institutions. About two-thirds of all private facilities were under contract to state authorities and a third were under contract to the Federal Bureau of Prisons."

The Bush administration's push for privatization in many sectors is probably partly responsible for this trend, along with the private prison industry's use of its influence to persuade government agencies to privatize. Last year, CCA spent $2.5 million lobbying federal officials and departments including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Justice, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, all agencies that oversee correctional facilities. That's on top of the industry's state lobbying, which last year was as high as $1.1 million in Texas lobby expenditures alone.

So, what's the impact of this increased lobbying? Possibly the most damning analysis from the Grits post:

Finally, according to these data, private prisons appear to do a poorer job at providing meaningful programming for prisoners than state run facilities. "About 9 in 10 public correctional facilities and about 6 in 10 private correctional facilities offered academic and vocational training programs in 2005."