Prison can be a tough, dark place to spend the rest your life, but it can also be a very profitable business.
Kevin Pranis, the director of the Not With Our Money! campaign, has several ideas about how to change the private prison industry and what students can do to bring about change. Amnesty International sponsored his speech on Thursday, Jan. 23.
According to Pranis, there is money to be made in prisons, especially in poor towns with few job opportunities.
Food suppliers, construction companies, medical providers, clothing companies, and banks all make money off prisons.
Not With Our Money! is a campaign against Lehman Brothers Bank, an investment and consumer loan bank, which in the past two years, has been in control of private prisons.
According to the campaign’s website, notwithourmoney.org, Lehman Brothers helped Loyola finance a construction project in 2000, but there is no guarantee that Loyola will do business with Lehman again.
Unlike Sodexho Marriot Food Service, Lehman Brothers does not have a contract with the university, therefore Loyola is not tied to Lehman, Pranis said.
Some $40 billion in tax money is poured into prisons each year, plus state governments borrow money from the people in the form of bonds, he said.
Private prisons are a way for large companies to make money. In the private prison system, there is low quality of labor and more prisoners.
Pranis says he believes there is no incentive for these prisons to do a better job.
The private prison system also offers little benefit to its employees. Wages are low, and there are no unions for employees to join.
There is also a high employee turnover rate in prisons, Pranis said.
Student reaction to the speech was fairly positive and some even considered the speech eye-opening.
“He presented a very logical argument,” Catherine de Mers, music therapy senior, said. “There was a lot of information that I didn’t know about, and probably a lot of students don’t know about.”
Louisiana, where one percent of the population is in prison, has a juvenile detention center that was designed by a business for profit.
“Rehabilitation is not part of these centers,” Pranis said. “The majority of the time, these kids will stay in the prison system their entire lives because their problems are not dealt with.”
