Prison Gets Rich Locking Up Preschoolers

By Betsy Woodruff

Corrections Corporation of America is getting rich from jailing children and pregnant women—and no one seems to care.

If you’re looking to make some money, try locking up toddlers.

One for-profit prison company has found that incarcerating infants, toddlers, children, and mothers—as long as they’re undocumented immigrants—is a great way to boost their revenue by upward of $49 million over the previous year.

The latest quarterly finance report from Corrections Corporation of America, a for-profit prison company, indicates that its contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to manage a detention center packed with immigrant mothers and children is very helpful to its bottom line.

Part of the reason their deal is so lucrative? The public isn’t particularly bothered by it.

The company can thank President Obama. Facing enormous political pressure and eye-grabbing headlines, the Obama administration moved last summer to dramatically expand the federal government’s capacity for locking up young mothers and kids.

Before last summer—when thousands of mothers and young children fleeing gang violence and bad governance in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador crossed the southern border into this country—the detention of immigrant families was rare.

Antonio Ginatta, the U.S. advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said there were only 90 beds or fewer in facilities designated for the detention of these immigrants. But then last summer happened, and the number of young children—many entering the country without parents—and young mothers crossing the border went up dramatically.

“There was no family detention in the United States, practically, a year and a half ago,” said Ginatta. “And now we’re in the thousands.”

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Source: The Daily Beast