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Why Texas Still Holds 'Em--- the boom in locking immigrants up

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Why Texas Still Holds 'Em Forget oil and gold. In the Lone Star state, the boomtown business is locking up immigrants." Mother Jones Stephanie Mencimer" July 21" , 2008" In 1997, with the private prison business booming, the Corrections Corporation of America picked a 64-acre plot near Austin, Texas, for its newest lockup. A medium-security prison, it was named after the company's cofounder and designed for some 500 federal inmates. But the anticipated stream of prisoners never arrived: By the time the T. Don Hutto Correctional Center opened, a glut of private prison beds, along with cca's own poor track record, had left the company nearly bankrupt. Its stock, which once traded at around $45 a share, bottomed out at 18 cents. Several of its facilities were shuttered or sat empty for years, including the Hutto prison, which cca moved to close in 2004...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on July 24, 2008 (boomark / email).