What Private Prisons Have Done to Diversify in the Face of Sentencing Reform

Corrections Corporation and GEO Group have both invested into offender rehabilitation services

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-13/what-private-prisons-companies-have-done-to-diversify-in-the-face-of-sentencing-reform

GEO Group in 2011 acquired Behavioral Interventions, the world’s largest producer of monitoring equipment for people awaiting trial or serving out probation or parole sentences. It followed GEO’s purchase in 2009 of Just Care, a medical and mental health service provider which bolstered its GEO Care business that provides services to government agencies…

“The big growth in recent years has been with [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE] and both of these companies have historically made heavy investments there,” Ruttenbur says. Immigration detainees are commonly held in the same private facilities that contain state and federal prisoners, and a Government Accountability Office analysis of ICE data showed (PDF) that immigration detentions more than doubled between 2005 and 2012.

Alex Friedmann, associate director of the Human Rights Defense Center and managing editor of Prison Legal News, says sentencing reform will probably not affect immigration detainees. “Immigration reform might, but even under proposed reform legislation, detention will likely increase,” he says.

In 2015, more than $2 billion in federal contracts are up for bid to run five or more prisons that meet the “Criminal Alien Requirements” and house non-U.S. citizens.