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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 18, 2016)
Street Roots • Nov 18-24, 2016 News Page 5 DIVEST, from page 4 not reverse, that momentum. “With the outcome of the Tuesday election, it’s even more urgent that our local practices. leaders step up on behalf the communities The pressure being applied to City of color and immigrant communities that Council by the local coalition is part of a Trump seeks to throw away,” said Amanda national movement pushing governmental Aguilar Shank, deputy director of Enlace, bodies to divest from private-prison profiteers. which plays a lead role in the coalition. “The strategy of prison divestment has always In California, student members of Afrikan been about a strategy to economically Black Coalition succeeded in pressuring the weaken the prison industry, and Portland is University of California system into selling still perfectly positioned to be a national its $30 million worth of holdings in private leader in doing so.” prison companies in 2015. Enlace also convened the national Prison Berkeley City Council followed suit, Divestment Campaign that launched in becoming the first city to adopt a resolution 2011. to divest from private prisons in July; Sankofa Collective Northwest co-director however, actual divestment is pending a Leila Haile submitted written testimony, financial impact analysis. telling City Council that Sankofa recently In spring, the Oregon Education turned down a $2,000 grant from Wells Association, which represents 45,000 public Fargo for Portland Black Pride. education employees across the state, “If we can make a stand for our values, passed a resolution to lobby the Oregon and cut our ties with Wells Fargo, we think Investment Council and state treasurer to that the City can as well,” Haile wrote. divest the Public Employee Retirement Ashlee Albies, on behalf of the National System from stocks related to private Lawyer Guild’s Portland chapter, also prisons, including investors. submitted written comment. She stated, It’s also asking Portland City Council to “Although there are no private prisons in divest, stating that its 4,000 members in the state of Oregon, we feel the impacts of Portland would like to see the council draconian immigration policies lobbied for approve all of the committee’s by and profiting the private prison recommendations. industry.” “As educators, we But not having see the impacts that private prisons within the prison and its borders doesn’t detention system has "Hie strategy of prison divest mean Oregon isn’t on our youth and sending people to ment lias always been abont families,” OEA told them. council in a public a strategy to economically In 2015, nearly comment it weaken the prison indnstry, 1,000 people were submitted. “We and Portland is still perfectly transferred from believe that for-profit positioned to be a national Portland District prison corporations Office Holding Facility leader in doing so." and the financial to immigrant AMANDA AGUILAR SHANK, institutions that back DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF ENLACE detention centers, them are some of the according to a data most disturbing research group at drivers of mass Syracuse University incarceration.” known as TRAC. Private-prison Most were sent to stock fell following GEO Group ’ s Northwest Detention Center the Department of Justice’s announcement in Tacoma, Wash., one of the largest earlier this year that it was scaling back its immigration prisons in the country. contracts with private prison companies. One man who’d spent time at the facility But prison-industry giants CoreCivic also submitted testimony to City Council, (formerly Corrections Corporation of claiming he was subjected to physical and America) and GEO Group saw their stock verbal abuse and long stints in solitary shoot up drastically after Donald Trump’s confinement while he was there. He victory was announced on Election Day. described the rooms as being overcrowded Trump supports prison privatization, and with people sleeping on the floors, and he he’s campaigned on deporting more said the food lacked basic nutritional value. immigrants, who are typically held for long His complaints are consistent with the periods of time in privately run immigrant groundbreaking report from Mother Jones detention centers. earlier this year. The magazine sent He told MSNBC earlier this year: “I do reporter Shane Bauer to work undercover think we can do a lot of privatizations and as a guard in a private prison owned by private prisons.... It seems to work better.” CoreCivic for four months, giving the world Evidence, however, shows the opposite, a rare look inside. with multiple studies indicating private Bauer revealed the company’s cost prisons’ cost-cutting measures lead to cutting measures were resulting in human violence and overcrowding, and create rights abuses. He witnessed how barriers to visitation. These factors all lead understaffing and high staff turnover were to higher rates of recidivism among inmates fostering a very dangerous and violent who’ve been housed in private prisons. The Portland Prison Divestment Coalition environment within the prison’s walls, and he reported that inmates were living in sent a letter to members of City Council on squalor and frequently denied medical Oct 31, urging them to use their votes to treatment, even for serious illness. “add heat to what is becoming unstoppable The Socially Responsible Investments momentum to end the prison industry, and Committee considered, but did not mass incarceration.” But a Trump presidency will likely slow, if recommend, divesting from U.S. Bancorp, which also plays a significant role in FURTHER READING COMMENTARY: Show City Council your support for cutting Portland’s ties to the prison industry. Page 10 ONLINE: The multibillion dollar immigrant detention industry costs taxpayers but does little to stifle improper border crossings. news.streetroots.org/ immigrantdetention financing private prisons. According to notes from the committee’s April meeting, it was decided that while U.S. Bancorp has “some controversial issues ... the bank has far fewer controversial governance issues than its peers” and has taken some positive steps. A report released Nov. 17 by a Washington D.C.-based research center, In the Public Interest, found U.S. Bancorp was one of the six banks primarily responsible for bankrolling private prisons. The city has holdings worth $45.1 million in U.S. Bancorp subsidiary U.S. Bank. The report, “The Banks That Finance Private Prison Companies,” detailed how six financial institutions are propping up the private prison industry by extending revolving credit, providing astronomical loans and underwriting bonds for CoreCivic and GEO Group. Because the private prison companies rely on revolving credit and massive debt, these banks are instrumental in their operations. The report indicated that at the end of June 2016, CoreCivic was $1.5 billion in debt and GEO Group was $1.9 billion in debt But big banks continue to lend CoreCivic and GEO Group more money - money that’s allowing them to expand their reach into other sectors of the criminal justice system. On Oct. 28, Damon Hininger, Corrections Corporation of America president and CEO, announced, “Rebranding as CoreCivic is the culmination of a multi-year strategy to transform our business from largely corrections and detention services to a wider range of government solutions.” This expansion included converting to a Real Estate Investment Trust, and therefore being able to rake in millions in tax-free revenue, and investing $250 million to acquire and build a network of residential re-entry and community corrections facilities. “By providing loans to (CoreCivic) and GEO Group to purchase companies that provide residential re-entry and electronic monitoring services, the banks have helped position the private prison companies to receive new business as states and the federal government replace ‘tough on crime’ with ‘community corrections’ policies and replace immigration detention policies with immigration surveillance policies,” argued the report on banks behind the prison industry. See DIVEST, page 13
