Trump Administration Has Doubled Private Prison Spending With Most Money Spent on Detaining Immigrants

Newsweek
By: Chantal Da Silva
Published: September 25, 2019
Read the original article

Newsweek reporter Chantal Da Silva discusses the sharp increase in funding by the Trump Administration of the for-profit private prison company GEO Group, even as overall national incarceration rates in 2017 were at a twenty-year low.  In just the first eleven months of fiscal year 2019 over $595 has been obligated to GEO by the Administration, 53 percent of which went to ICE for the detention of immigrants.  Justice Strategies’ Executive Director is extensively quoted in this article.

Related Publication

JS Publication July 13, 2016

Indefensible: A Decade of Mass Incarceration of Migrants Prosecuted for Crossing the Border

"Indefensible,” a new book from Justice Strategies and Grassroots Leadership, examines the costs and failures of over a decade of criminalization of border migration. Operation Streamline was launched in 2005 and added criminal convictions to the previous civil removal process, and is known for the disturbing spectacle of mass courtroom proceedings in which up to 80 shackled migrants are arraigned, convicted and sentenced for misdemeanor improper entry charges. While the Streamline courts have been scaled back in several districts, the legacy continues in federal courts, and includes related massive immigration prosecutions for both improper entry and felony re-entry. In 2015, half (49 percent) of all federal prosecutions were made up of what is essentially a crime of trespassing, in the form of improper entry and re-entry prosecutions. Read more »