Yesterday morning, while driving my son to school I heard a piece on NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130833741&ps=cprs) detailing how a for-profit prison company helped to create a need for its services. Now, America is proud of the fact that we are a "make our own way" country, but this is a new low. Their plan was to open "detention facilities" in Arizona to accommodate the upcoming need for prison space for illegal immigrant women and children. How did they know there would be such a need? Because they had been in on the planning of Arizona Senate Bill 1070. How is this legal? How is this ok? A business model based on locking up women and children, women and children with no voices to protest.
It all revolves around the current SB 1070. The law is currently being challenged in the courts, but if upheld will require law enforcement to lock up anyone they stop who cannot prove they are in the country legally. This alone is a slippery slope that the extremest out there have no problem sliding down. I understand that the immigration debate is a long and complicated matter. But I don't believe that it will be solved locking up women and children for profit.
One thing has to be made clear, the "dentention center" is a prison. If you would like to see, take a look at this short video on the ACLU site that shows our own Hutto Detention Facility, you can find it at http://aclu.tv/hutto. Better yet, take a day trip and check out the high fences or maybe you will be fortunate enough to observe the children in prison garb getting their allotted yard time. That should warm the cockles of your heart. And if it doesn't, well it may be because you don't have one. We're talking children here folks. Is this what our country has been reduced to?
By the way, if you are of the mind set that these women and children are a burden to the taxpayer now, imagine what they will cost once the for-profit prison companies start sending the bills.
In response to my classmate’s blog titled “The New Business Models for Prisons”, I am nothing less than heartbroken. However, I must give kudos to the horrible money hungry scum for showing me yet another jaw-dropping reality that I would have rather remained in the dark about. A prison for women and children, huh? Wow! It’s nice to know that some senators along with the prison companies are putting so much effort behind catching the “real” criminals.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Kimberly in that this is all about money and greed and it is extremely troubling. In the article, they argue that it is not illegal. Maybe not illegal, but is it ethical? Is it humane? If we allow something like this to happen in our country, what makes us any better than a third world country. What makes us any better than those places that we hear about on the evening news that makes us say to ourselves “I’m glad that type of stuff can’t happen here”? I know that immigrants can come here illegally and get welfare and insurance, but I cannot say that it makes me angry enough to want to put women and children behind bars! It doesn’t make me angry at all to speak truthfully, but that is just me, I guess.
Reading the article linked on Kimberly’s blog made me think of that recent movie starring Daniel Trejo by the name of “MACHETE.” It touches on immigration and all the dishonest American people that make money off of immigration but turn around and speak against it. I thought it was bizarre initially, but now I’m not so sure that it isn’t far from reality itself.
I found this additional article on the matter, but with just a little more commentary from Pearce. http://latindispatch.com/2010/11/02/arizona-immigration-law-sb1070-engineered-by-prison-industry-according-to-npr/