US: America's Private Gulag
by Ken Silverstein, Prison Legal News
June 1st, 2000

What is the most profitable industry in America? Weapons, oil and computer technology all offer high rates of return, but there is probably no sector of the economy so abloom with money as the privately run prison industry.

Consider the growth of the Corrections Corporation of America, the industry leader whose stock price has climbed from $8 a share in 1992 to about $30 today and whose revenue rose by 81 per cent in 1995 alone. Investors in Wackenhut Corrections Corp. have enjoyed an average return of 18 per cent during the past five years and the company is rated by Forbes as one of the top 200 small businesses in the country. At Esmor, another big private prison contractor, revenues have soared from $4.6 million in 1990 to more than $25 million in 1995.

SOURCE: CORP WATCH

The Hard Sell
The nation's 2 million inmates and their keepers are the ultimate captive market: a $37 billion economy bulging with business opportunity.
Business 2.0 Magazine
By Michael Myser, Business 2.0 Magazine
March 15 2007: 12:37 PM EDT

(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- Brian Prins is an affable salesman who touts the benefits of his prepaid collect-calling service in a distinct Long Island accent. He's also an ex-con who served five years in a Pennsylvania state prison for aggravated assault and possession of stolen car parts, so when he explains that he's simply helping families stay in touch, stay together, and stay out of debt, you might want to listen.

"I know how much phone calls from prison cost, and how much an inmate needs to talk to his family and friends," says Prins, who himself racked up $1,000 in monthly phone bills from behind bars.
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SECURITY PRODUCTS: A surge in prison populations means booming sales of modernized versions of the gear used to control inmates. Market size: $1.5 billion.
toilet.03.jpg
SUICIDE WATCH: Combo toilets are designed to prevent inmates from hurting themselves.
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PRISON-BOUND: Among the 21st century twists on an age-old security device - barbed wire in a box.
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Upon his release in 2002, Prins founded Outside Connection in a bid to undercut the collect-calling services that contract with prisons. Those contracts create virtual monopolies that charge a big premium - as much as four times the standard rate for collect calls.

With Outside Connection, family members and friends buy discounted phone time, and prisoners are given a direct-dial local number that routes calls straight to a family's chosen phone. Calls can also be sent to cell or Internet phones, which isn't possible with traditional collect calls.

SOURCE: CNNMONEY

The US Prison Industry: big business or slavery?

By Vicky Pelaez


HUMAN rights organizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation in the United States, where they say a prison population of up to 2 million – mostly Black and Hispanic – are working for various industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells.

SOURCE: POLITICAL AFFAIRS

Company Focus
3 prison stocks poised to break out

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Thanks in part to overcrowding, governments are turning to private companies to build and manage prisons. Here's how to pick the right time to buy into the trend.

By Michael Brush


In what might be a revealing commentary on our country's state of affairs, the nation's private prison companies look like solid investments for the next several years.

The three big prison companies -- Corrections Corp. of America (CXW, news, msgs), The Geo Group (GGI, news, msgs) and even the troubled Cornell Cos. (CRN, news, msgs) -- have decent growth prospects for the following reasons.

* Increased border patrols. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, signed by the president in December, calls for stepped up border patrols to improve domestic security. This makes it likely that more illegal immigrants will be caught. Lawmakers estimate that by 2010 the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will need another 40,000 prison "beds," as they say in the business.

* Governments are hard up for cash. "Because of tight budgets, there has not been a lot of new prison construction," says Irving Lingo, Corrections Corp. of America's finance chief. Instead, state and federal prison systems turn to private companies that build and manage prisons. In the 2005 federal budget, for example, Congress cut prison construction spending by 48%, says Patrick Swindle, an analyst who covers the sector for the brokerage Avondale Partners. Government prison systems turn to the private sector in part because costs are 10% to 15% lower.

SOURCE: MONEY CENTRAL