The ITPI report tells us that Corrections Corporation of America -- the largest private prison contractor -- offers to run a state's prison system provided that the state guarantees a 90% occupancy rate for the prison facilities. Yes, you read that correctly. Many if not most contracts provide that the state promises to send enough people to prison to fill 80% and up to 100% of the prison beds. In an essay published at 7 Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law 849 (2010), I told the story of two judges in Pennsylvania who sent juveniles to a private prison and were paid off for doing so. The judges went to jail. The private prison officials did not. . . . The due process evil of occupancy guarantees works on two branches of government. The judge who sentences a defendant is an agent of the state, and awareness of the contractual obligation inevitably skews her judgment. It is but a small step from Tumey and Monroeville to such a conclusion. However, there is an additional evil here. The prosecutors who choose whom to prosecute and for what offenses, and to advocate for particular sentences, have the most direct influence on incarceration, given that 90% or more criminal cases are resolved with guilty pleas. One must assess the influence -- direct and indirect -- on prosecutors to make sure that those prison beds are filled.

More... (http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2014/tigar070214.html)

Unconstitutional, shocking, when has that made a difference?



2. The convict lease system



Convict lease was a particularly insidious system that invited corruption and exploitation by those who could control the law. Basically it worked as follows. Private individuals could pay the fines of those who had broken the law. Then the state would sign that person over to the custody of the party who paid. The unlucky victim would then be forced to work until the debt was paid--under terms and conditions set by the paying party! A variation on this was to have the state simply let convicts out for rent to factories and farms. For example, the state of Georgia leased convicts out for $20 a year. It was a profitable system for both the state and the renting party. The state didn't have to pay for many prisons and all that upkeep, and the renting party got cheap labor.

When Woodrow Wilson examined this system, he rhetorically asked: "Who can defend a system that makes the punishment of criminals a source of private gain." It is somewhat ironic that we are again talking about private prisons and prison farms and factories as means to reduce the burden on taxpayers. If southern history is any lesson, we should be very careful about safeguards to prevent the kinds of exploitation that can take place.

3. Legalized kidnaping

If the exploiters faced a shortage of felons to be rented or leased, cozy arrangements were sometimes made with the law to increase the supply of convict labor. Travelers, especially foreign travelers, were especially easy prey. In the early 1900s, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune wrote the following:

"newly arrived immigrants are in chain gangs in Alabama charged with no crime whatsoever except for their unwillingness or inability to pay their debts which may or may not have been just ones ... were made victims of old fashioned laws of the Southern States."

Other reports are shocking, to put it mildly. In 1903 Secret Service agents found that several prominent Georgia politicians were operating a manufacturing plant using state and county convicts. The Italian government sent special representatives to Mississippi to investigate the situation of 22 Italians held in peonage. A U.S. Revenue Agent reported scores of cases similar to one in which a 15 year old black girl was forcibly taken from the boarding house in which she was staying. She had been on her way to visit a sister in Florida. Accused of a crime of which she had no knowledge, authorities told her that she could avoid prosecution by paying $25. Not having the money, she was forced to work to pay it off. She worked for three months until her mother was able to win her release by paying another $15. She had legal help even to get this "deal." All this took place while she was never charged or tried for any crime. You may have heard some old stories about the dangers of traveling through small southern towns--they are not all exaggerated myths!



This is from a college course at USC(Aiken, SC)on Southern Labor history. Some good information presented but ultimately Philistine, it concludes that labor has failed in the South because southern workers are pig-headed even while admitting the crushing circumstances.

http://www.usca.edu/polisci/ahum107-web/Class%20Struggle.htm

The quote from Wilson a nice touch, as though he ever tried to do anything about it.