TIC

A new report finds that prison corporations, stymied by prison reform, are seeking new markets for human product lines – if you can't jail ’em, find another way to make ’em pay.

The “Treatment Industrial Complex has the potential to ensnare more individuals, under increased levels of supervision and surveillance, for increasing lengths of time – in some cases, for the rest of a person’s life.” A report released last week by the American Friends Service Committee, Grassroots Leadership, and the Southern Center for Human Rights coins the term “Treatment Industrial Complex” to describe the latest spinoff of the prison privatization business – aka the Prison Industrial Complex. The emerging “Treatment” complex, declares the report, are those “for-profit prison corporations … adapting to historic reductions in prison populations by seeking out new markets previously served by non-profit behavioral health and treatment-oriented agencies.” [node:read-more:link]

"Smoke and Mirrors is a new series that dives into the details of "bipartisan prison reform" to reveal the right-wing, neoliberal carceral sleight of hand that's really at work. It asks hard questions about the content and consequences of various proposals and explores ways in which commitments to unregulated free markets, privatization and states' rights drive the agenda for a new generation of reforms that will reinforce structural racism, intensify economic violence and contribute to the normalization of a surveillance society. Just as this week's Smoke & Mirrors article was going to press, an essential new resource was announced:"The Treatment Industrial Complex: How For-Profit Prison Corporations are Undermining Efforts to Treat andRehabilitate Prisoners for Corporate Gain," is a groundbreaking report that exposes the ways in which for-profit prison corporations are adapting to historic reductions in prison populations by seeking out new markets previously served by non-profit behavioral health and treatment-oriented agencies. The report highlights the expansion of the incarceration industry away from warehousing people and into areas that traditionally were focused on treatment and care of individuals involved in the criminal justice system -prison medical care, forensic mental hospitals, civil commitment centers, and 'community corrections' programs such as halfway houses and home arrest." [node:read-more:link]

A new study purports to show the expansion of private-prison firms into areas of medical and other treatment for incarcerated people.

The American Friends Service Committee, Grassroots Leadership and Southern Center for Human Rights released the report Tuesday titled "Treatment Industrial Complex: How for-profit Corporations are Undermining Efforts to Treat and Rehabilitate Prisoners for Corporate Gain."

The report says many of the companies traditionally involved in operating for-profit prisons have begun to "profit from providing treatment-oriented programs and services."

The report says companies involved in the so-called "treatment industrial complex" have capitalized on state and federal efforts seeking alternatives to incarceration such as reforming sentencing laws and expanded parole possibilities.

Authors of the report noted the incarcerated population in the United States has grown more than 500 percent since the 1980's - to more than 2.2 million people behind bars. [node:read-more:link]