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