Detention-for-Profit: The Business of Human Suffering
Immigration detention centers are not merely facilities to enforce the law—they are profit-driven enterprises that thrive on human suffering. What began as a system of enforcement has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar industry dominated by private corporations. These companies benefit from mass incarceration while exploiting vulnerable individuals—all at the expense of human dignity and taxpayer dollars. This is the dark reality of detention-for-profit: people treated not as human beings, but as commodities. The Origins of For-Profit Detention The rise of private detention centers stems from two forces: privatization and tougher immigration policies. Privatization and Expansion. In the 1980s, companies like CoreCivic (then Corrections Corporation of America) and GEO Group began contracting with the federal government to run prisons. By the 1990s, they had expanded into immigration detention, fueled by bipartisan “tough-on-immigration” policies ( Wikipedia ). The Bed Mandat...