Societal Justice and the Prison-Industrial Complex

The GEO Groups share price finished but fifteen cents away from its highest ever position last
week.Traders across Wall Street took positively to the news of further cost-cutting measures
being applied across all facilities operated by GEO. Consensus opinionnear unanimous, too
amongst reputed analysts on the Street implores the investor to buy more positions in the
stock.
In other words, people making money deciding to make more money made people making
money from people making money a little happier and potentially, a lot wealthier.
In other words, another week in another month in another year in another twenty-first century
country came to an end.
There are those who believe that such moneymaking represents an unfortunate perversion in
modern society. They rally against these 1% in their bespoke suits, heading into work with their
unencumbered love for all things capitalistic, coming out at the end of the day even richer than
the 99% they look down upon and heading off to fundraisers they share a joke or drink or both
with their buddies stationed in Washington.
I am not an ardent subscriber to such views, though. In my admittedly nave opinion, considering
a necessary by-product of capitalism as a plague on all our houses betrays a disproportionately
negative outlook towards a system whose benefits far outweigh their harms. Especially when
one considers the alternatives.
My issue isn't with those who use the system as it isalbeit unfortunately and frustratingly
meant to be used, but with those exceptions to the rules of society at large who have perverted
societal functions to such an unbelievable extent that their actions betray an alarming, viscerally
disgusting moral bankruptcy. My issue is with the GEO group. For that matter, my issue is also
with the Corrections Corporation of America, the Management and Training Corporation and the
very concept of a privatized prison itself, including the political machine that enables it.
BraveNewFilms Immigrants for Sale made apparent to me the role of the prison-industrial
complex in the perversion of the society became apparent. The documentary shone a light on
the ethical cracks prevalent in the American justice system through its portrayal of those

wronged by the debate on immigration taking place at the moment, while enlightening its
viewers on how prisons do not serve any genuine societal good any longer. Furthermore, it
convincingly argued that the privatization of prisons harms everyonefrom the prisoner, to their
families, to the guard who genuinely wants to help and the resident of a town obscure enough to
dump a facility in. All this, for the sake of profits, share prices and campaign contributions.
It is worth pointing out that while the correctional nature of state-run disciplinary facilities has
become increasingly euphemistic, there is at least a superficial intention to make their wards
better citizens while providing them with some of their rights as one. Such rights include the right
to legal counsel and to some form of medical care. Critically, though, Immigrants for Sale makes
clear that the private facilities where those who run afoul of the INS are sent do no necessarily
even have to try afford their wards such rights.
We were introduced to the case of Guillermo, a mentally unstable individual whom the private
jailers were under no obligation to provide with legal counsel prior to his hearing or even any
form of medical care. They did, however, send a mentally sick man to solitary confinement and
subject him to significant physical torturea constitutional violation at the very least, let alone
moral.
We were provided significant anecdotal evidence of the general incompetence of guards in the
area, including a case where they watched as one prisoner beat another one over a time
duration where he even had the audacity to take a break. We were even shown that displaying
any care towards your wards as a correctional officer--your duty, in other wordswas the
easiest way to get yourself a pink slip.
All this was clearly a function of a disciplinary facility where societal, rehabilitation as well as
isolation, functions significantly flawed in and of themselves, were replaced by the motivation of
profiting from those found to have run afoul of the law. Immigrants for Sale made clear that
prisoners had become the equivalent of hotel guests. In my opinion, the addition of such a
blatant profit motive to what is ostensibly an essential societal function epitomizes a.
Such moral depravity reaches its lowest, patently absurd low in the documentary when guards
are seen auctioning off a site to the highest buyer. In conjunction with pitches from GEOs
investor meetings (shown in John Olivers Last Week Tonight) where the company boasts of its
high recidivism rate, one does became aware that there is societally redeeming aspect to the

private prison experience whatsoever.

What was unfortunate was the stark and all-too-true note that the documentary ended on: the
political machine that allows this is fueled by the profits that this creates, in an unfortunately
vicious and self-perpetuating cycle. It did offer hope in the form of democratic activism though,
but it qualified this with the reality of towns such as Littlefield, Texas, which is now bankrupt itself
due to its purchasewithout the support of citizensof one of these private facilities.
It is in light of this shocking reality of the prison-industrial complex that I wonder whether my
failure to uninhibitedly criticize the system that produced it is a failing on my part as well.