Mother Jones reports that stock prices for two of the nation’s biggest private prison profiteers have taken a tumble since Election Day, and it’s obvious why. These companies make obscene amounts of money imprisoning human beings for the federal government, and President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to end the federal government’s use of private prisons. So since Tuesday, CoreCivic has fallen 19%, Mother Jones said. GEO Group, another major private prison profiteer, has fallen 14%.
Pro-detention forces already sensed trouble—for them. With then-candidate Biden’s platform also stating that he would “make clear that the federal government should not use private facilities for any detention, including detention of undocumented immigrants,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement rushed into long-term private prison contracts intentionally designed to go past a theoretical second Biden term.
Private prison companies also pumped tons of cash into the 2020 election, in fact spending “more money on the upcoming election than any on record,” Mother Jones reported last month. Much of it went to Republican candidates. “This is no surprise,” that report continued. “The for-profit prison business has been booming under the Trump administration, which has increasingly relied on prison companies to hold immigrant detainees.”
The Obama administration had been in the process of phasing out the federal government’s use of private prisons until you-know-who won in 2016. CoreCivic and GEO Group have raked in even bigger bucks since. The latter of those two, “which was responsible for the bulk of the election spending, received $900 million in federal contracts in the most recent fiscal year—as compared to $500 million in Obama’s last year in office,” the report continued.
There’s been worry that the federal government’s use of private prisons companies—especially when it comes to federal immigration detention—is just so widespread that winding it down will be incredibly difficult. These companies hold about 70% of ICE’s population. But a solution can be much easier than it sounds. Under Donald Trump’s administration, ICE detention has hit record highs (in defiance of limits set by Congress). Under a Biden administration, ICE can be forced to stop that, Marshall Project said.
“Experts say the only realistic way to make good on that promise is to detain far fewer people,” the report said. “The Biden campaign has strongly endorsed case-management strategies for those arrested on immigration violations instead of detention.”
Biden’s platform stated that in addition to building on the phasing out policy rescinded by Trump, a case management system program (another successful policy rescinded by Trump) can “enable migrants to live in dignity and safety while awaiting their court hearings—facilitating things like doctor visits, social services, and school enrollment for children. Evidence shows that these programs are highly effective and are far less expensive and punitive than detaining families.”