The US Prison System and Its Ties To the Economy: Part Three of Six

This is the third part in the six-part series about the US Prison system and the long reaching grip it has on our economy, our judicial system, politics and more. 

Ties To Politics, The Economy and You

Many Americans have always believed that as long as they 'keep their nose clean' that they are safe from imprisonment. One need only watch the news to see that this is not entirely true. Find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time and you may end-up charged with a crime that you not only didn't commit, but you can even denied bail hearings for as long as a month in some jurisdictions.

What happens to the average person's life in a month? Most people in America are now living paycheck to paycheck. After being incarcerated, many get out – sometimes having been completely exonerated – only to find that they have no job now, all their bills are a month behind (or more if they were already struggling) and eviction processes have begun on their rental. Missing a mortgage payment is a black mark on credit that cannot be repaired until it disappears and lowers credit scores horribly. Most marks like this will remain on your credit for up to seven years.

For some people, being arrested and jailed for up to a month may be what puts them on the street and literally turns them into homeless people. In one month, you may come home and find your car repossessed, notice to vacate on your door and no job. Not to mention that you are now most likely facing fines, court costs and probation – even if you were innocent. Many people finally enter into plea bargains so that they can gain freedom, after being told that “if” they are found guilty, they may be facing months or even years behind bars. This is typically enough to scare most people into taking a plea and probation even when they know they are innocent.

Probation means that you are assigned a probation officer that you must report to at given time intervals and pay “probation costs” to. This can range but is typically no less than $50 per visit. Court costs on top of this probation cost can also range, but typically amounts to at least $2000 for most people. Again, I stress that many people who are paying these expenses were, in fact, not guilty. They agree to plea arrangements to finally get out of jail, after having been held for long periods of time and then frightened into thinking that they could be found guilty and have to spend more time in this institution if they are found guilty at a trial. This is typically enough to make even an innocent person agree to 'pay for their freedom.' Does this sound like innocent until proven guilty?

Politics play a large part in who gets arrested and who does not. This is easy to see when one begins to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Companies like CCA and Geo want to make money. In order to make more money, they need more prisoners. These companies use lobbyists to push their agendas in Washington, DC. By creating harsher penalties for certain things, like drug use, it is easier to arrest people on charges that indoctrinates them into the legal system. More and more juveniles are being arrested on charges for crimes that would not have even been considered crimes thirty years ago. This has simply become a case of supply and demand.

Case in point, Judge Mark Ciavarella, Jr was recently charged with conspiring to sell kids to prisons for cash. He was found guilty and sentenced to 28 years behind bars. Since 2003, Ciavarella had received millions of dollars in bribes. In one case cited, Ciavarella sentenced a ten-year old to 2 years in a juvenile facility for accidentally bottoming out his mother's car. It was estimated that the judge had denied rights to approximately 5,000 juveniles and sentenced them to unfair punishments. Many have since been released. The state of Pennsylvania has overturned some 4000 rulings having been made by Ciavarella since 2003. Ciavarella was ultimately found guilty of tax evasion, racketeering, money laundering and mail fraud. He appealed his original conviction but a federal appeals court on May 25, 2013 upheld the verdict. He was ordered to pay $1.2 million in restitution. He is currently serving a 28 year sentence.

What about the lives he ruined? We've already learned about the food issues, the lack of adequate staff that results in prisoners being beaten - sometimes to death. These things are also happening in juvenile facilities. Could a good kid go in and come out a bad kid? If so, they have been set-up to be a part of this system for the rest of their lives. Those who are not exonerated, will often go on to find themselves in and out of facilities for the rest of their lives. Only time will tell what happens with the 4000 who have been released due to this one dirty judge. How many other dirty judges are there? At least one that is also suspected at this time of working with Ciavarella.

Also accused of conspiring with Ciavarella is Michael Conohan. He awaits trial at this time. They both were said to have taken a combined total of approximately $2 million in bribes from the private builder of PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care detention centers. Child care?


If you were to break down these numbers, it essentially put a price on the heads of the 4000 sentenced but later exonerated children to $500 each. Not quite worth the $2500 that the adults in the prison system break down to, but this is the indoctrination. Do not forget that once in the system it is very hard to get out of the system. Juveniles actually learn how to be criminals in juvenile detention centers. Once they are old enough to be tried as adults, they find themselves in systems that don't let go of them easily.

Watch tomorrow for the next part in the series: What Happens Once You Have a Record?

The US Prison System and Its Ties to the Economy - Part Two

Part two in the series regarding the US prison system and the drastic way in which it influences our economy and our judicial system. 

What This Means To Americans

For many years, politicians have brought up the “failed prison system” in the United States and told the public how it is bleeding the country dry. What they have failed to mention is that by privatizing prisons, US lawmakers and politicians stand to gain huge campaign contributions by stroking the backs of companies such as Geo and CCA. Not only are these for-profit prisons turning enormous profits, but they are actively seeking more prisoners to fill those beds. Every inmate in these private, for-profit prisons is worth an estimated $2500 each, based on the numbers above; for only one year. A prisoner who has been sentenced for 20 years is now worth $50,000 to the private prison industry, at minimum.

The private system is dependent upon filling beds to keep those profits turning, so it is not all that hard to see why so much money is being spent for lobbying and campaign contributions. But what about the state, county and federal prisons? How are they making money? First of all, nearly every part of the work force in these facilities is now contracted out. The medical care is contracted to medical companies that are being contracted for large amounts of money for providing medical services. Many facilities have private companies in charge of running cafeterias, who often use prisoners as free help but collect large payments for themselves with contracts. Aramark is one such private company that provides meals at over 600 detention facilities nationwide. Most meals are contracted to be provided for at a cost of somewhere between $1.13 and $1.40 per inmate, per day.


The prison system in Alabama had actually budgeted $1.75 a day for inmates back in 1939. This law is still in place today and reads that if the sheriff can feed inmates for less than the budgeted amount, they may keep the difference as a bonus. That was 70 years ago and the law has never been changed, even though the cost of providing enough food to keep an adult healthy has obviously changed.

Recently, a sheriff in Alabama admitted to feeding prisoners watered down milk and hotdogs at every meal until a discounted truckload had been consumed in full. They also were using a lot of powdered foods. The sheriff admitted to pocketing $200k in monies that had been allocated for food, by basically starving prisoners. This was not illegal because of the law on the books. After multiple allegations and lawsuits brought forth from victims who claimed hunger and having lost excessive amounts of weight, the sheriff was finally investigated and charged with contempt. One prisoner lost 100 pounds in a year. While some may argue that he needed to lose this weight, others who were at very normal weights lost as much as 30 pounds in their first month of incarceration.



Prison kitchens have even been shut-down in some states, due to malfunctioning equipment or not being able to pass health inspections. This has resulted in prisoners having to eat cold food for days and weeks on end. While some might say this is just punishment for prisoners, it should be pointed out that the vast majority of these people are in for minor offenses and, in some cases, we are talking about pregnant women who are being malnourished because of traffic violations or charges for prostitution – while Wall Street bankers who bilked people for millions and/or billions of dollars are out on bail or without charges ever even being filed. Some of these people serving time may not even be guilty, as we have already contended. They are currently being held for bail or being held-over without bail, something that is now perfectly legal in our country. “Jail is not supposed to be a hotel, that’s true,” stated criminal defense attorney G. Kerry Haymaker. “That being said, [some of] these people haven’t been convicted of anything and these are the conditions they’ve been subjected to.” In some counties and states, it is common to be held as long as 30 days without even being formerly charged with a crime or having bail set. This is thanks, in part, to changes made during the George W. Bush administration. No longer does it seem that anyone is innocent until proven guilty.

The US Prison System and Its Ties To Economy - Part One

This is part of a six part series on the US Prison System and how it largely impacts US economy and the lives of all private citizens. Prepare to have your eyes opened. 

Part One: How Things Came To Be - A Little Background

The prison system in the United State became widely used after the Revolutionary War, however it wasn't a system based on parole, probation and sentencing until after the Civil War. The system that we have today was born from expansion in the 1970s and has grown by by more than five times the size it was in 1973. In any given year, approximately 7 million persons are are under the supervision of correctional facilities, either on probation or held in facilities. In 2012, there was a total population in the United States of 313.9 million people.


In 1920, the percentage of Americans incarcerated was only .01 percent. By 2008 that number was fast approaching a full 1% of the population. We have, since 2008, nearly doubled to 2%. while only accounting for 5% of the world population. In 2008, the United States accounted for 2.4 million of 9.8 million prisoners held in the entire world. Billboards could be seen at that time that read, “Welcome to America, home to 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's prisoners." One might begin to question “Home of the Free” if these numbers were honestly taken into account?

What was the drastic change in the 1970s that caused number to begin to skyrocket? In 1971, Richard Nixon declared the war on drugs. Coincidentally – or not – the United States also began privatizing juvenile correctional facilities at about this same time. This was an experiment that proved profitable. Within a few short years, prisons were overflowing. Following that, came the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. For the last 25 years, America has had private prisons, run as businesses, to handle “overflow” from the already established prison system.


According to Bureau of Justice Statistics, there are now 1.6 million total state and federal prisons in the United States. 128,195 prisoners are now housed in private, for-profit prison facilities. This number has grown by 37% between 2002 and 2009. There are 66 facilities owned by Corrections Corporations of America. This is the largest for-profit company in the United States. There are 91,000 beds in CCA facilities, currently spread across 20 US states. The total revenue reported by CCA in 2011 was $1.7 billion dollars. Lobby expenditures by CCA, as reported by The Center for Responsive Politics, was $17.4 million dollars over the last ten years. Even further damning is the statistic for the amount of money contributed to political campaigns by CCA from 2003 to 2012: $1.9 million. The CEO, Damon T. Hininger, was paid an executive salary in 2011 of $3.7 million dollars.


The GEO Group is the second largest for-profit private detention company in the US. Their total revenue, according to their own annual report in 2011 was $1.6 billion dollars. They own 65 facilities with over 65,000 beds currently. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that The Geo Group has spend over $2.5 million dollars in lobbying in the last eight years. The National Institute on Money in State Politics reports that from 2003 to 2012, The Geo Group spent $2.9 million dollars in political contributions. Their CEO, George C. Zoley earned a paycheck of $5.7 million dollars in 2011. The company was ordered to pay a fine of $1.1 million that was levied in November of 2011 by the New Mexico Department of Corrections for inadequate staffing. They are currently still appealing another judgment for damages awarded in a wrongful death lawsuit from last June. An inmate was beaten to death by his cellmate at an Oklahoma prison. The judgment was awarded for $6.5 million dollars but the company has filed an appeal and it is still pending.

Up next, Part 2 - What This Means To America

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