In a country where nearly everything is a commodity and can be bought and sold for profit, it should not surprise us that the prison industry is no exception. America has the highest incarceration rate in the world and certain private companies love it because the more bodies that fill prisons, the more money there is to be made.
In 2016, the Obama administration decided to end the federal government’s relationship with private prison contractors. This was after a report which cited that private prisons have more issues with safety and security than ones run by the government. This policy was in place until 2017 when Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions decided they could care less about the safety of prisoners and overturned the Obama administration’s decision—rewarding Trump’s campaign donors with lucrative private prison contracts. Trump really loves his private prison friends. So much so that last week he hosted one group’s conference at one of his own golf resorts.
The country’s biggest private prison company last week held its annual leadership conference at a golf resort owned by President Donald Trump, underscoring an increasingly cozy relationship between the ever-expanding industry and the White House.
GEO Group executives met for several days at the Trump National Doral near Miami, the Washington Post reports, as the company continues to hold multiple lucrative prison contracts with the federal government.
In case you needed confirmation, it looks like business is good for the GEO Group in the Trump era. Really good. Since Jeff Sessions has announced his plans for the Department of Justice to restore America’s War on Drugs (despite crime being near historic lows), the administration is making plans to increase mass incarceration as much as possible. Plus, as they continue criminalizing immigrants—even 10-year-olds with cerebral palsy—they need more detention centers in which to lock them up. Apparently, paying off Trump and becoming an ally in his quest to rid America of people of color and immigrants pays off.
GEO Group spent hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting the Trump campaign last year: The prison giant donated $225,000 through a subsidiary to a pro-Trump super-PAC, according to campaign disclosures, including a gift of $100,000 on August 19, 2016, just one day after the Obama administration announced it would phase out its use of private prisons because of their high rates of violence. The Post also reports that GEO gave $250,000 to the president’s inaugural committee.
After Trump’s inauguration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Justice Department would continue its relationship with private prisons. Prison stocks soared. The following month, GEO won a $110 million contract to build a federal immigrant detention center in Texas. The facility is expected to generate $44 million a year.
Of course, the White House is playing dumb and suggesting that all of this is just one big coincidence. After all, it couldn’t really be intentional that the GEO Group donated half a million dollars to Trump, received a huge government contract in return and then just happened to use a cozy Trump resort for their annual conference, right? It absolutely is intentional. But they want us to believe differently. “A White House spokesperson told the newspaper the Trump administration was not aware of the prison company’s conference that was held there.”
This administration is terrible at everything—including lying. You’d think that’s one thing they might actually be good at. At any rate, we clearly see this for what it is, Trump helping his horrible friends get rich by locking people of color up. Way to make America great, guys. Are we there yet?