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xchrom

(108,903 posts)
Sat Sep 1, 2012, 08:33 AM Sep 2012

Private Prison Monopolies

http://www.nationofchange.org/private-prison-monopolies-1346418537

As the late business historian Alfred Chandler, Jr. once said, the visible hand of the corporation has been of far greater importance to capitalism than has Adam Smith’s so-called invisible hand of the market.

Although modern forms of capitalism are justified, and often sanitized, by rhetorical appeals to competition, competition contradictorily tends toward monopoly by eliminating “weaker” firms in any given market. Competition is integral to the rationalizing logic of capitalism writ large, but anathema to individual capitalist firms. The essential inconsistencies of modern capitalism, however, often serve as the fault lines from which social movements can emerge.

And what better place to begin than with the Tennessee-based private prison firm, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). CCA, in its own words, “is the nation’s largest owner and operator of partnership correction and detention facilities and one of the largest prison operators in the United States, behind only the federal government and three states. [The company] currently operate[s] 67 facilities, including 47 company-owned facilities, with a total design capacity of approximately 92,000 beds in 20 states and the District of Columbia.”

Very few corporations are more notoriously devoted to Chandler’s “visible hand” theory than the Corrections Corporation of America. With less than one month remaining in FY 2012 CCA has thus far been “awarded” $373,355,264 in contracts with the federal government. Eighty-eight percent of federal contracts “won” by CCA this year have originated with the U.S. Department of Justice. The Department of Homeland Security accounts for the remaining 12 percent of allotments. During FY 2012 CCA competed for only 45 percent of its total federal procurement dollars. The remaining 55 percent of CCA’s FY 2012 federal contracts—worth close to $205 million-- were provisioned on a non-compete basis. So much for free-market competition…
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Private Prison Monopolies (Original Post) xchrom Sep 2012 OP
The "for profit" prison model is horrifying and just sucks corruption annabanana Sep 2012 #1
Ok, how do we find out who owns stock in GEO and MTC? nt nanabugg Sep 2012 #2
I read on here about a week ago 2pooped2pop Sep 2012 #3

annabanana

(52,791 posts)
1. The "for profit" prison model is horrifying and just sucks corruption
Sat Sep 1, 2012, 08:41 AM
Sep 2012

into it's sphere like a black hole.

 

2pooped2pop

(5,420 posts)
3. I read on here about a week ago
Sat Sep 1, 2012, 08:51 AM
Sep 2012

that the banks are investing in the private prison system among other things like ammunition. Don' t know if that is true or not.

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