Cash for Kids - coming to a towm near you!!

Please, before you read any further, go to Google and type in "cash for kids".  You will soon find that a couple of Pennsylvania judges were taking bribes to sentence teenagers to privately run juvenile facilities for minor offenses.


In my previous post, I mentioned CCA, and how anyone can look up their donation records at Data Influence Explorer.  While I was there, I decided to check up on another company GEO as well.  Now, it would be nearly impossible to track down every judge, and see if their name sowed up, but I thought of another angle - States Attorney Generals!

As it turns out, CCA appears to spend a lot more on attorney generals than GEO does.  GEO gives to slightly more attorney generals, but in really small amounts.  My research shows that state attorney generals from Virginia receive an awful lot of contributions from CCA.  Now, this is the way you do it - you take a "contribution", not a bribe.


Now, what could an attorney general do in return for generous donations?  Here are the names, the amounts, and the year the money was received:

State	AG	CCA Total	Year
Virginia	Cuccinelli, Ken	$10,000.00	2009
Virginia	McDonnell, Robert F.	$4,000.00	2005
Virginia	McDonnell, Robert F.	$28,500.00	2009
Virginia	Kilgore, Jerry W.	$20,000.00	2001
Virginia	Kilgore, Jerry W.	$63,500.00	2005
Virginia	Earley, Mark	$35,000.00	2001
Virginia	Coleman, J. Marshall	$4,000.00	1994

You can draw your own conclusions.  Here are mine:

1) The privatization of prisons has nothing to do with saving tax money, and everything to do with a source of campaign contributions, or, in the case of the "Cash for Kids" scandal, outright bribery.

2) The United States accounts for roughly 5% of the population of the world, yet 25% of the incarceration.

3) Incarceration in the United States doubled from 1940 to 1980 - going from 250,000 to 500,000.  From 1980 to 1990, just 10 years, it doubled, and from 1990 to 2000, it doubled again.

As far as I am concerned, it should be so costly to incarcerate people that any money spent on intervention and preventative measures would be miniscule by comparison.  By turning it into a for profit industry, we are guaranteed to see a steady increase in incarceration, after all, these companies are traded on the New York Stock Exchange!  They have shareholders that must be appeased, and will spare no expense to "buy" favorable legislation and or policy to ensure a steady flow of prisoners.