On Friday April 15, 2016 the Colorado congress passed a budget that included $3m subsidy to Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) to shore up a failing for-profit prison in Colorado. The subsidy should not be allowed. The funds should be used for local development.
Colorado's prison population has been declining since 2009, so prisons should be closed, not subsidized. Let's close the CCA Kit Carson Correctional Facility in Burlington and relocate the inmates. Let's spend the $3m subsidy to retrain the employees for new jobs and help them find other work, or start their own businesses.
What you can do
Write to Governor Hickenlooper and tell him that this bailout is not OK
Colorado's prison population has been declining since 2009, so prisons should be closed, not subsidized. Let's close the CCA Kit Carson Correctional Facility in Burlington and relocate the inmates. Let's spend the $3m subsidy to retrain the employees for new jobs and help them find other work, or start their own businesses.
Write to Governor Hickenlooper and tell him that this bailout is not OK
This is the second bailout for CCA for the same prison. It is bad business to use public funds to shore up a failed private venture. Especially when the venture already has a lucrative contract with the state. The company is already being paid to house the inmates, now it is being paid twice to house them. Prisons for profit is a business model which is arguably unethical, and it is a model which the prisoner experience proclaims to be inhumane.
In addition to ending the bailout, let’s cease to support for-profit prisons. The business model is designed to increase the number of incarcerated and has nothing to do with corrections. It is a mockery of capitalism to subsidize, and it is in defiance of humanitarian ideals that the business model exists at all.
Related links in The Denver Post
Colorado budget talks stumble after $3m request for rural prison 4/13/16
Colorado budget deal wins final nod after fight on private prison 4/15/16
Letter to the Editor published 4/17/16
Related links in The Denver Post
Colorado budget talks stumble after $3m request for rural prison 4/13/16
Colorado budget deal wins final nod after fight on private prison 4/15/16
Letter to the Editor published 4/17/16
Angel - This blog post has completely opened my eyes to how wasteful government is with my local taxes. We are subsidizing a private prison when that money could be used for ventures such as halfway houses, rehabs, food banks or schools....something proactively making a difference in peoples lives.
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