The Private Prison Project began without a clue.
It’s an assessment made with the privileged perspective now afforded by witnessing and feeling the visceral roller coaster response to the last two-and-a-half years: through an intensive crash course in the public records process, through a hellish jokescape of an election cycle, through the short-lived declaration that private prisons would be no more and then their swift return at the righthand side of our criminal justice system.
What PPP did have was the clear sense that for-profit incarceration is problematic and a personal problem for the American public. We’ve learned a lot, not least among them that the road to a more humane future is lined with false hopes, deliberate distractions, and good intentions that may provide comfort but no real change.
- Corrections Corporation - Red
- GEO Group - Blue
- Management and Training Corporation - Green
So as we dive into this prime year, 2017, MuckRock is recommitting to the Private Prison Project with a focus on four areas we think deserve the most focus for the foreseeable future: immigration, labor, local connections, and accountability mechanisms.
While we’ll continue to gather the contracts that keep these cogs active in our criminal justice machine and keep an eye on the ways that they’re expanding and incentivizing their wares, we also want to work with you and those you love to bring the mission a little closer to home.
Whether you’re an activist interested in helping shed light on how these companies take advantage of small town charms or a correctional officer concerned that a facility is opening (or closing) near you, whether you’ve served time in a private prison or you want to help from hundreds of miles away, please join our effort to bring greater, grassroots accountability to the for-profit incarceration industry.
Please reach out via the form below or at info@muckrock.com. All tips, stories, clippings, books, thoughts, and donations are most appreciated.
Image via New York Immigration Lawyers
