By Rebecca Fernandez
On the morning after the land of the free elected her new leader, private prison stocks surged up to 40 percent. In the dungeonesque basement of the home of the brave is the family secret — a rapidly expanding, powerfully churning multibillion-dollar prison industry built upon the disproportionate incarceration of black and Latinx Americans.
As recently as August, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates was quoted in a memo to the Bureau of Prisons saying it should prepare for the end of the Justice Department’s use of privately run facilities. Dipping stocks, reports of poor conditions and declining federal prison populations suggested the eventual retirement of the long-standing industry.
After audits revealed that the Clinton campaign had received funding from private-prison interests, the nominee folded under pressure and publicly denounced contract prisons, echoing the sentiments of President Obama and her opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders. All the while Trump charged on in the opposite direction and doubled down on his bold claims of establishing a “deportation force” to expedite the purging of 11 million undocumented immigrants from the country.
Trump’s promises to triple the number of immigrations enforcement agents, to erect a wall, and even to repeal birthright citizenship, a 14th-Amendment right, all place millions of Latinx Americans at risk of incarceration during the ugly deportation process and foreshadow a tremendous increase in detention-center populations. These claims were received as outlandish throughout the campaign, joked about and dismissed by his opponents, critics, and even some supporters. None of this doubt seemed to faze Trump, who only grew more cocky, insisting that he “built an unbelievable company worth billions and billions of dollars,” making him the best fit for this business venture.
So when CoreCivic, formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America, witnessed a spike of 58 percent, and GEO Group, which donated thousands to the Trump Victory Fund also saw stocks rise around 20 percent, moderates maintained their shock at Trump’s success and upheld their willful ignorance of one huge driving force behind whatever makes our country so great. Trump sold fear to white America through his vitriolic scapegoating of immigrants in order to obscure his true intentions of exploiting and profiting on the disenfranchisement of millions of tax-paying Americans.
At the REITWeek investor forum this past June, Damon Hininger, the CEO of the Corrections Corporation of America, expressed his confidence in the longevity of private prisons: “I think about the next president, whoever that is, if it’s Hillary Clinton or if it’s Donald Trump, there’s going to be so many things that he or she are going to have to deal with next year or next administration, both nationally and internationally, that I think having a view on our business, our industry is going to be really, really low on the priority list.”
On Nov. 9, Hininger was undoubtedly pleased to see proof that his industry is high on the new president’s priority list. As Trump’s anti-immigration plan begins to roll out, contract prisons’ unmonitored abuses of inmates embolden our country’s legacy of racist punishment and profit. President-elect Trump’s tough stance on crime and plans to crack down on immigration say more about his visions for expanding the sleaziest business of America than his desire to shield us all from danger.