NPR: Private Prison Industry Behind Ariz Immigration Law

[StlSluggers]

This one's fresh, people: October 28, 2010.

Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law

Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.

Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch.

"The gentleman that's the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger," Nichols said. "He's a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman."

What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants.

"They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community," Nichols said, "the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate."

But Nichols wasn't buying. He asked them how would they possibly keep a prison full for years — decades even — with illegal immigrants?

"They talked like they didn't have any doubt they could fill it," Nichols said.

That's because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona's immigration law.

There's a lot more at the article, but the gist is that NPR claims the companies who run private detention facilities were the main driver behind getting the immigration bill passed in Arizona.

[Tavish]

I really don't want to believe the article (and the craptastic way it was written doesn't help too much), but if it is true then it is shameful. We would basically be talking about corporations finding ways to force indentured servitude on illegal immigrants if not outright slavery.

[ayebatter]

Which came first, the law pitch or the prison pitch, I'm bettin' the law pitch came 1st.

[Dan Lambskin]

isnt this pretty much how politics works

[StlSluggers]

isnt this pretty much how politics works

The article glances over that in these sentences:

Asked if the private companies usually get to write model bills for the legislators, Hough said, "Yeah, that's the way it's set up. It's a public-private partnership. We believe both sides, businesses and lawmakers should be at the same table, together."

Nothing about this is illegal.
...
Pearce may go there to meet with other legislators, but 200 private companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to meet with legislators like him.

[RugbyD]

I'm not a fan of corporations pushing legislation for their own benefit aside from it being in line with the idea of free markets and true competiton, but this seems a bit seedy. That said, unless people actually care about the law being proposed enough to vote it in on its merits, it really doesn't matter where the support comes from. The people made their own decision and have to live with it.

[bleach168]

According to wikipedia, the U.S. holds 25% of the world's prisoners. 90% of which are for non-violent crimes.

[dAnzac]

Apparently they've written a song about this already