CCA actually has an interesting company history, they were surprisingly well regarded because they first only were running temporary housing and other smaller facilities. But this led the federal government to hand them a bunch of no-bid contracts, which they used to convince the U.K. to do the same, for up to maximum security prisons. And if the feds are doing it, the states say it must be okay, which is how they led to garbage like Colorado and Idaho.
None of the people behind the company had any background in prisons, they had backgrounds in motels, halfway houses and hospitals, all places where people don't stay for years or the rest of their life, maybe months at most. Which is why the company did well when it was doing things like housing for immigrants who were being deported or people awaiting sentencing, etc.
I always think it's funny though when like say NeoGAF.com posters try to explain the exploding prison population as all "private prisons and profit" when less than 10% of prisoners are in them. Unless you count every prisons that contracts out a service (like food or whatever). And how they don't see the same inherent profit motive in government prisons or for prosecutors. Sorry, don't mean to get all black and yellow paultrashcan on you guys, just saw that talking point again in a thread earlier and this reminded me. I've talked to state employees who think half or more of the Michigan prison population is in private-run prisons. (Michigan has none anymore after its single one that was open for six years closed. Michigan has had a lot of problems with other contractors though, there was some food company that wasn't following any state guidelines for kitchens which led to "isolated incidents of maggots" and garbage like that.)
Shut up benji.
