Imagine you are the defendant in a Utah courtroom where the police witnesses, the prosecutor, the judge and your lawyer all own stock in corporations that make more money when people are convicted of a crime and placed in a prison. In fact, this scenario is the reality in almost every courtroom in America.

Private prisons exist to make profits and have become a multibillion-dollar industry. They are less safe than government-operated facilities, and they do not save money for taxpayers. They oppose decriminalization (such as marijuana laws) and alternatives to incarceration, and they have supported laws that both criminalize more behaviors and impose much harsher sentences. All to keep their facilities full.

Even in Utah, which is home to MTC but does not use private prisons, the retirement pension plans of most government employees, including those who work in courtrooms, are invested in private prison corporations. This is true for every state in the union, as well as for federal and local levels of government. With only a few notable exceptions such as New York City, the government-managed pension plans for judges, police and prosecutors are betting on the profitability of private corporations that lock people up.

To influence laws that govern the criminal justice system, the private prison industry then invests heavily on lobbyists at work in state capitols and in Washington, D.C. Those same corporations also spend lavishly on direct campaign contributions to state and federal politicians who are deemed friendly to the private prison industry.

These investments embed an apparent bias in favor of incarceration in our criminal justice system and further the continued growth of private, for-profit prison corporations.

This is business as usual in today’s criminal justice system — but it should not be. The justice system must be trustworthy in appearance and in fact, not only to those who work within the system but also to the members of the public. Quite simply, these corrosive investments must stop.

Ideally, those who work within the criminal justice system should demand that their pension funds be divested from private prisons. The public can demand laws and policies that prohibit such investments, as may civic and faith-based organizations. New laws and policies are needed to prohibit such investments.

We know that divestment is possible because California — through CalPERS, its pension fund — and several colleges have done so.

The Arizona example

Arizona’s private prison pension investments are typical of those in every state — even in states that do not use private prisons. Various retirement funds in Arizona cover judges, police, prosecutors, public defenders, legislators and most other government actors. The pension plans buy shares of stock in CoreCivic and The GEO Group through the New York Stock Exchange.

These justice system employees personally benefit from these corporations performing well. In Arizona, they have also dramatically increased the number and percentage of people that it incarcerates in private prisons since 1990.

The purchase of private prison stock is morally wrong and haunts every step in the criminal justice system: more arrests are made, more crimes are charged, more convictions and longer sentences are imposed. Even those released on parole or probation are GPS-monitored by the same private prison corporations. To what end? They increase the wealth and political power of the private prison industry which, in turn, benefits these pension plans and their members.

Consider just the judiciary: The Arizona Code of Judicial Ethics states that “A judge shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary, and shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.”

How can the appearance of impropriety be avoided when the entire judicial branch of government invests in private prisons?

Judges should not be invested in entities that profit from prison terms, directly or indirectly, no matter how large or small the investments may be. The same reasoning applies no less to police, prosecutors and public defenders. The whole system must divest.

When everyone but the defendant is financially invested in the success of the private prison industry, fair trials in an American courtroom are highly unlikely. Unless the public demands change, business as usual in criminal justice will include such investments. These investments not only embed bias in the system; they also sustain the influence and growth of the private prison industry.

John Dacey and Robert Craig are attorneys at Abolish Private Prisons. Write them at contact@abolishprivateprisons.org.

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