Private prisons look to the Feds for survival

The Sentencing Project issued a new report "Dollars and Detainees; The Growth of For-Profit Detention." The report details how harsh immigration enforcement and legislation led to a 59 percent increase in the number of detainees being held by the federal government between 2002 and 2011 and that 29 percent of all federal detainee are being held by for-profit entities.

In 2010, one in every 13 prisoners in the U.S. was held by for-profit companies.

For-profit prison companies could count on predictable growth in the number of state and federal prisoners until 2008, when budget crises and policy changes led some states to reduce their prison populations and private prison contracts.

The resulting losses for private prison companies were more than offset by expansion of their management of federal detainees under the jurisdiction of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Marshals Service.

Read the full report: http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/inc_Dollars_and_Detainees.pdfdespite evidence that private prisons often provide inadequate levels of service and are no more cost-effective than publicly-run facilities.