Business of Detention site is launched!
Take a look at our new site: www.businessofdetention.com. When we first began to look at the phenomenon of immigrant detention in the United States, the obvious step to take as investigative journalists was to follow the money. We found that the trail of taxpayer dollars led primarily to the Corrections Corporation of America, a company that had been on the brink of bankruptcy as recently as 2001. Our desire was to present a picture of how the nation’s largest private prison company had partnered with the federal government to detain close to a million undocumented immigrants until they were deported, and in the process fill their empty beds and increase revenue. CCA now has close to 10,000 new beds under development in anticipation of continued demand.This site is our master’s project, which is the culmination of two semesters of work at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.
Thank You’s in no specific order: Bob Libal, Asif Baksh, Matthew Gossage, Luisanna Santibanez, Judy Greene, Dustin Ogdin, Jose Orta, Tish Stringer, Sheila Coronel, Jim Mintz, John Tarleton, Sean Crowley, Mayra Moreno, Jim Ellinger, Rob Block, Deepa Fernandes, Forrest Wilder, Meredith Kolodner, Susan Long of TRAC, Katherine A. Day of OFDT, Ryan Law of ICE, NYCinteractive.org Team, 2008 Stabile Fellows, our parents and everyone else who helped us along the way.
April 27th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
An exceptional website and excellent investigative reporting into the strong financial and political ties between CCA and the federal government — where the former profits and the latter obtains needed beds to house immigration detainees.
In this “win-win” situation the losers are not only the detainees but also the taxpayers … who must fund an ever-expanding detention system where public funds are transferred into the pockets of CCA and other private prison companies.
Great work on this important issue!