Private Prison Companies Brag About Providing Local Jobs
The GEO Group’s website, for example, claims that GEO prisons provide local communities with an “influx of capital [that] has the ability to stimulate the economic makeup of a community through consumer spending, new business enterprises, and capital improvements.” Similarly, CCA promises that “[o]ur presence means more revenue for counties, towns, cities and states. Our facilities mean more local jobs for hardworking residents.”
In Hardin, Montana, Helping Those With GEDs Get a Job at Private Detention Center
In 2004, a group of businessmen had a proposal for the small town of Hardin, Montana: Build a private detention center. The theory was that such a facility would lead to economic benefits for the community. In 2004, the city’s economic development director predicted that at the new facility, a job seeker “with a GED or high school diploma” might be able to “get a job with a significantly higher income.” To finance the project in Hardin, the economic development authority created by the town issued $27 million worth of municipal bonds that were both uninsured and unrated. But once the facility had been built, it was unable to obtain a contract to house prisoners, and its 464 beds remained empty. One news report described the facility as follows: “Inside its concrete walls, orange jumpsuits, rubber sandals and stacks of white tube socks weigh down the shelves of the storeroom. Computers, phones and video monitors line the tables in the control room. In the cafeteria, stacks of plastic trays and cooking utensils wait to be put to use.” To fill its empty jail, when President Barack Obama pledged to remove all detainees from Guantanamo Bay, the Hardin City Council voted unanimously in favor of receiving Guantanamo detainees at the local facility, a proposal that of course never materialized.
