New Forms of Prison Expansion

Prison expansion is no longer just about the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation building new state prisons. Unfortunately, prison expansion now takes many forms.

Immigrant detention

As the US government continues its criminalization of immigration, the lines between the criminal justice system and immigration enforcement become increasingly blurred. Since 9/11, there has been increased crackdowns on immigrants and more spending in immigration enforcement, which has led to dramatic rise in the number of immigrants held in detention. Legislation such as the Clear Law Enforcement for Alien Removal Act of 2005 increased the charge for being undocumented to a felony and encourages state and local law enforcement to police immigrant communities. This is compounded by local efforts to increase the ability of state and municipal police to enforce federal immigration laws. For example, many police officers can check the legal status of anyone who they “suspect” to be undocumented. New regulations such as refusing to release immigrants on their own recognizance while they await hearings has also driven up the number of immigrants in detention. As the existing facilities become even more crowded, many immigrants are held in state and county prison and jail facilities, and federal and state governments are spending more and more money on new immigrant detention facilities.

County Jails

The number of people locked up in local jail facilities has grown at a much higher rate than the number of people in state prisons. This has placed a large burden on already-cash strapped County governments. As states such as California face severe overcrowding in their prison systems, many local jails are forced to house people for longer periods while they wait for their trial or to be processed through the state prison system. Rising rates of immigrant detentions has also impacted local jails. For more on jail expansion, visit www.caje.org.

Gender-specific prisons

One of the ways California has been expanding its prison system is by creating more prisons specifically for women. Under the guise of trying to improve the lives of women prisoners, a theory called “gender responsiveness,” California has created a “Gender Responsive Strategies Commission”within the state's correction department. Framing proposed new facilities as “community-based alternatives to expansion,” this commission would like to increase the number of women's beds by 40 percent over the next few years. These proposals are billed as a response to the chronic abuse and neglect that women, girls, and transgender people face in the prison system, as well as the increasing rate of incarceration among these communities. However, despite how they are presented, these proposals are still new prison beds, not alternatives to incarceration.

Private prisons

While 95 percent of prisons are publicly owned, the number of prisons run and owned by private corporations has been streadily increasing since they were first proposed in the 1980's. As states such as California face overcrowding in their prison systems and policy makers refuse to take measures to reduce the prison population, private corporations such as the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and Geo Corp have seen continued growth in the number of prisons they operate. Corrections Corp. runs 63 facilities, with a total of 71,000 bed throughout the US, while Geo Corp operates 62 facilities in the US, South Africa, Canada, and Britain. One of the largest areas of private prison growth is immigrant detention centers – Corrections Corp. and Geo currently run 8 of the 16 US's federal detention centers.