Thirty years ago, Corrections Corporation of America opened its first private prison. As demand for border patrol increased over the decades, so has its earnings. Last year, CCA brought in $1.7 billion dollars in revenue – a quarter of which came from government agencies enforcing immigration policy and incarcerating non-citizens in the US. Lee fang is Reporting Fellow with the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute. He probed the connection between prison profits and stiffer immigration policies and came up with some unsettling answers.
Thirty years ago, Corrections Corporation of America opened its first private prison. As demand for border patrol increased over the decades, so has its earnings. Last year, CCA brought in $1.7 billion dollars in revenue – a quarter of which came from government agencies enforcing immigration policy and incarcerating non-citizens in the US. Lee fang is Reporting Fellow with the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.
One day you check the mail, and flipping past the usual assortment of bills, credit card offers, and shopping catalogues, you find a letter that begins “Dear citizen"—a summons to serve jury duty. Whether met with annoyance, anxiety, or a burning desire to game the selection process, this (albeit inconvenient) civic duty is an intrinsic part of being an American.
For nearly a decade, New Hampshire has been seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from oil companies over the chemical additive MTBE, which the state says caused contamination in the state’s groundwater. The legal proceedings originally involved 26 oil companies; as trial began this week, there were just two left, ExxonMobil and Citgo, and now there may be just one.
Supporters of the health care law march in front of the Supreme Court building.
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Two supporters of the law belly-dance as they demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court.
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Kailash Sundaran (left), Devyn Greenberg and Devontae Freeland, supporters of President Obama's health care overhaul, cheer outside of the Supreme Court on Thursday, after the court upheld a majority of the law.
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Opponents of the law, dressed as President Obama and the Grim Reaper, await a decision by the Supreme Court.
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Journalists await the court's decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama's signature legislation.
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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California watches the news of the court's ruling unfold on television. Pelosi, the former speaker of the House, was instrumental in helping to pass the health care overhaul in Congress, and was at President Obama's side when he signed it into law.
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William Temple, of Brunswick, Ga., awaits the Supreme Court's landmark decision on health care.
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People wait in line for passes to enter the court.
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Many Americans still question what the health care law will mean for religious groups and organizations.
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Supporters of President Obama's Affordable Care Act celebrate outside the Supreme Court. Across from the celebration, protesters voiced their opposition to the court's ruling.
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Kailash Sundaran (left), Devyn Greenberg and Devontae Freeland celebrate the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the Affordable Health Care Act outside the court Thursday.
In one of the most widely anticipated decisions in recent history, the U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that the sweeping federal law overhauling the nation's health care system is constitutional.
Tucson, Ariz., police officers work in the city's predominantly Hispanic South Side in May 2010. Since April 2010, when Arizona's controversial immigration bill passed into law, crime in the state has hit a 30-year low. Some attribute this to the law, but others are not so sure there's a connection.
The Supreme Court is about to take up one of this term's biggest cases. Next Wednesday, the court will hear arguments challenging Arizona's controversial state immigration law, known as SB 1070.
Among other things, the law makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally and requires police to question the immigration status of people they stop. Lower courts blocked parts of the law when it was passed nearly two years ago.
But in that time, things in Arizona have been changing.
Proponents of the death penalty often argue that the threat of being executed acts as a deterrent that prevents people from committing murder. But those who oppose capital punishment challenge that claim. And some researchers argue that state-sanctioned execution might actually increase homicide rates.
Now, a panel of independent experts convened by the prestigious National Research Council has taken a look at this question and decided that the available research offers no useful information for policymakers.
