A reader expresses skepticism about returning prisons to public sector management:
The mega-prison corp’s. are big enough that I expect major lobbying to stop this, so basically I won’t believe there’ll be any change until I see significant numbers of federal prisons being “nationalized”.
If Trump or Johnson wins, I agree, but if Hillary wins then I expect trend back to public sector management to continue, as she’s taken a pledge to do so. However, via The Intercept_, it appears the CEO of the Correction Corps of America agrees with my reader:
THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE of the largest private prison company in America reassured investors earlier this month that with either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the White House, his firm will be “just fine.” Damon Hininger, the chief executive of Corrections Corporation of America, was speaking at the REITWeek investor forum.
Private prisons have received a great deal of criticism this election cycle, first with Bernie Sanders campaigning to end for-profit incarceration, followed by Clinton taking up a similar pledge.
After The Interceptrevealed that the Clinton campaign had received campaign donations from private prison lobbyists, a number of activist groups confronted Clinton, leading her to announce that she would no longer accept the money and later declaring that “we should end private prisons and private detention centers.”
But Corrections Corporation is apparently not concerned. Asked about prospects under Trump or Clinton, Hininger argued that his company has prospered through political turnover by taking advantage of the government’s quest for lower costs.
“I would say that being around 30 years and being in operation in many, many states, and also doing work with the federal government going back to the 1980s, where you had Clinton White House, you had a Bush White House, you had Obama White House, we’ve done very, very well,” Hininger said.
“If we continue to do a good job on the quality, and with that, we can demonstrate savings both on capital voids, but also cost savings in our services, then I think we’ll be just fine,” he said.
The report goes on to note CCA was founded by the former head of the Tennessee Republican Party.
