Prison Privatization

News Article Queens Daily Eagle April 6, 2020

Illness spreads with little scrutiny in Queens' private jail

Judith Greene is quoted in this article about the lack of COVID testing in the, private for-profit, eight-unit dormitory-style prison warehouse facility located in Springfield Gardens, Queens run by GEO under contract with the US Marshalls Service where inmates are getting sick, and an entire unit refused food provided them by unmasked, ungloved staff.  Inmates also report Warden William Zerrillo has told them they could not be tested for COVID-19 and would have to "let the virus take its course."

News Article Newsweek September 25, 2019

Trump Administration Has Doubled Private Prison Spending With Most Money Spent on Detaining Immigrants

Newsweek reporter Chantal Da Silva discusses the sharp increase in funding by the Trump Administration of the for-profit private prison company GEO Group, even as overall national incarceration rates in 2017 were at a twenty-year low.  In just the first eleven months of fiscal year 2019 over $595 has been obligated to GEO by the Administration, 53 percent of which went to ICE for the detention of immigrants.  Justice Strategies’ Executive Director is extensively quoted in this article.

JS Publication June 21, 2018

It's Time to Decriminalize Immigration

This Texas Observer article by Executive Directors Judy Greene, of Justice Strategies, and Bob Libal, of Grassroots Leadership calls on Congress to repeal the law that allowed the Trump Administration to separate children from their migrant parents, and for an end to the criminalization of migration.   In it the authors provide the historical links of this destructive policy to the mass incarceration tactics of the failed War on Drugs, now used in a new War on Immigrants, the growing for-profit private prison industry, and increasing attempts under the Trump Administration to federalize local and state criminal justice enforcement mechanisms.  These policy choices have led to a federal court docket 45 percent of which is occupied with the criminal prosecution of migrants for entry into the United States, a misdemeanor, and re-entry, a felony that carries a penalty of from two to five years in federal prison.

News Article The Intercept December 17, 2016

Fatal Corrections: Inside the Deadly Mississippi Riot That Pushed the Justice Department to Rein In Private Prisons

Justice Strategies' Director, Judith Greene, is quoted in this recent Intercept article about the deadly riot that occurred on May 20, 2012 at the Adams County Correctional Center in Natchez, Mississippi, a facility run by the Corrections Corporation of America, now know as CoreCivic.  The author, Janosch Delker, traces the events leading to the Natchez private prison riot, including complaints by prisoners about the inadequate medical care, substandard food and poor supervision that led to fatal consequences for prisoners prior to, and for staff, that day.  The riot at CoreCivic's Natchez prison, and similar events elsewhere, prompted investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and a call by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, in August of 2016, for ending the use of private prison contracts by the federal Bureau of Prisons to house immigrants.  During his campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump called for increasing the use of private for-profit prisons.  The Natchez Adams County Correctional Center private prison riot was the subject of a Justice Strategies' report released in Sept. 2012 entitled Privately Operated Federal Prisons for Immigrants: Expensive, Undafe, Unnecessary. 

JS Publication July 13, 2016

Indefensible: A Decade of Mass Incarceration of Migrants Prosecuted for Crossing the Border

"Indefensible,” a new book from Justice Strategies and Grassroots Leadership, examines the costs and failures of over a decade of criminalization of border migration. Operation Streamline was launched in 2005 and added criminal convictions to the previous civil removal process, and is known for the disturbing spectacle of mass courtroom proceedings in which up to 80 shackled migrants are arraigned, convicted and sentenced for misdemeanor improper entry charges. While the Streamline courts have been scaled back in several districts, the legacy continues in federal courts, and includes related massive immigration prosecutions for both improper entry and felony re-entry. In 2015, half (49 percent) of all federal prosecutions were made up of what is essentially a crime of trespassing, in the form of improper entry and re-entry prosecutions. Read more »

News Article Full Frontal with Samantha Bee March 30, 2016

Samantha Bee Makes Serious Points on Private Prison Industry

Samantha Bee of TBS's Full Frontal With Samantha Bee makes some serious points in her comedy show about the private prison industry's effect on our criminal justice system.  Although couched in comedic expression, her video raises important concerns about the threat private for-profit corporations pose when operating within any part of our criminal justice system.  Allegations of kickbacks to criminal justice officials, lobbying legislators for harsher and longer criminal penalties, and a Pennsylvania judge with ties to a private prison corporation found guilty of sending juveniles to prison for profit, should concern all Americans who understand the need for vigilance in the safeguarding of our freedoms, and who expect impartial justice.

JS Update July 28, 2015

Immigrant Children Ordered Released

In a rebuke of the federal government's position that a prior consent decree (the Agreement) prohibiting the incarceration of unaccompanied minors in unsafe or secured facilities (detention centers) did not apply to accompanied minors crossing the US Mexico border with their parents, in last summer's refugee crisis, Federal District Court Judge Dolly M. Gee ordered the government to show cause, within ninety (90) days, why the remedies she concludes are needed to protect the well being of incarcerated accompanied minors (class members) held by ICE and the US Border Patrol, should not be imposed.  In Jenny L. Flores, et al. v. Jeh Johnson, et al. decided July 24, 2015, Judge Gee grants the plaintiffs motion to enforce the Agreement as to class members and denies the government's motion to amend the Agreement.  In her order, Judge Gee would further require the defendant federal government to comply with the following remedies:
1. Make and record prompt and continuous efforts toward family reunification and the release of minors under the Agreement.
2. Comply with the Agreement by releasing class members without unnecessary delay in first order of preference to a parent, including a parent who either was apprehended with the child minor or presented herself or himself with a class member.

JS Update February 10, 2015

"Shadow Prisons" Transforming Rural America's Landscapes

Follow this link to see Fusion writers Jorge Rivas and Cristina Costantini's birds-eye-view of how "Shadow Prisons" used to house over 55,000 immigrants, have transformed landscapes in rural America. http://fusion.net/story/43342/before-and-after-how-shadow-prisons-transformed-rural-america/

JS Update February 10, 2015

Director Judy Greene Quoted on Shadow Prisons

In their multimedia Fusion article, with quotes from Justice Strategies' Director Judy Greene, authors Cristina Costantini and Jorge Rivas describe how the U.S. Government has created a second-class federal prison system specifically targeted to holding immigrants in private for-profit prisons. http://interactive.fusion.net/shadow-prisons/

JS Publication October 8, 2014

For-Profit Family Detention: Meet the Private Prison Corporations Making Millions by Locking Up Refugee Families

In this joint report by Grassroots Leadership and Justice Strategies, we review the history of charges of sexual abuse and neglect of children, indifference to medical needs, inadequate and unsanitary food, and brutal treatment by staff, levied in lawsuits, government investigations, and allegations by those held in family detention facilities operated by private, for-profit, prison corporations.  These same corporations are now being contracted by the federal government to detain refugee families arriving at our southern border after fleeing the violence in Central America.

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