This workshop will explore the rise of for-profit prisons, how other for-profit companies partner with private detention facilities to exploit detainees for their labor, and the ways this industry tries to influence policies, particularly on immigration, to increase their revenue that result in more and more people put behind bars. While some view mass incarceration and the role of racism with deep concern, for-profit prison corporations view an increase in prisoners as a way to vastly increase their bottom line – especially when it comes to the booming industry of immigrant detention. Upon leaving the workshop attendees will have strategies in hand for how they and their home communities can help disrupt the for-profit prison industry as a driver of incarceration, detention and human suffering.
Speakers:
Bob Libal, Executive Director of Grassroots Leadership
Mary Small of Detention Watch Network
Dave Pierre, Immigrant formerly detained at GEO and CCA.