Whose voice counts more than the people's?

CCA's, of course. They always do. That's the danger of private prisons: the industry is invested in perpetuating "crime", not protecting communities. They feed off of desperate people whose voices are never heard by those in power.

So, it's fitting that this from Stephen Lemon's blog this week. The only thing I find surprising about this is that it involves so little money - I think there's a whole hell of a lot of more CCA money than this floating around the capitol these days - and into chambers of commerce and city halls of all those little towns they keep pushing their prisons in...and of course those folks are invested in SB 1070. 

As should every American citizen in this state, now. If they aren't locking up immigrants, they're going to have to start locking up the rest of us - or those fine little communities will go under, and we can't let that happen. Then, of course, there are also all the folks (council members, senators, etc.) who have bought CCA's stock expecting more immigrant detention to drive it up. They place a value on the head of every brown body they can collect - and do whatever they can to keep them as long as the feds will pay them to do so - just like Sheriff Joe. That's what all these laws and the hysteria are about - not crime or public safety, just turning a buck on these folks backs. It's okay for them to be here as long as we can profit from their misery - and that of their children.

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Jan Brewer's CCA Money and Her Possible Conflict of Interest Over SB 1070

Feathered Bastard

Several months before signing SB 1070, Governor Jan Brewer accepted hundreds of dollars in "seed money" for her clean elections campaign from corporate executives and others with a possible stake in Arizona's "papers please" legislation becoming law.

In all, seven executives with the Tennessee-based private prisons giant Corrections Corporation of America contributed $980 for the governor's start-up fund with Arizona's clean elections system. A warden for one of CCA's Arizona prisons gave $100. A CCA shareholder gave $140.

Lobbyists listed with the state of Arizona as having CCA as a client gave another $560, for a total of $1,780. In addition, CCA has contributed a whopping $10,000 to the campaign for Prop 100, the one cent sales tax heavily promoted by Brewer, which is up for approval by voters today. The success of Prop 100 is considered by many to be the linchpin for a Brewer victory in November.

How does CCA stand to gain from SB 1070? CCA, which houses 75,000 offenders and detainees in more than 60 facilities nationwide, operates six prisons in Arizona, three of which list U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a client: Florence, Eloy, and the Central Arizona Detention Center.

If SB 1070 is not stopped by a federal court injunction before it goes into effect late July, as a recently filed ACLU lawsuit aims to accomplish, all Arizona law enforcement will be required to check the immigration status of those they have "reasonable suspicion" of being in the country illegally. This, during any lawful stop, detention, or arrest.

So the law could potentially mean a boon in warm bodies for CCA prisons, as those aliens turned over to ICE might find themselves in CCA facilities, even if for a short stay.

"The more folks that get pulled over and detained, the more money CCA makes," said Monica Sandschafer, executive director of the Phoenix immigrant rights group LUCHA, which stands for Living United for Change in Arizona. "It's a pretty disturbing connection between Brewer and this company."

But Brewer campaign flack Doug Cole scoffed at the suggestion that there was anything nefarious about the connection between Brewer and CCA, referring to CCA as a "good corporate citizen" and denying that CCA's contributions to Brewer in any way affected her decision to sign the controversial law...

 (finish the Feathered Bastard's blog on this here, then peruse the rest of the PHX New Times..)