Compiled by Sandy Thomas, a Spring 2012 intern
The Sentencing Project’s latest report, “Too Good to be True: Private Prisons in America,” examines the recent increase in the use of private prisons and inspects their cost effectiveness.
Among the report’s findings are:
• The amount of privately held state prisoners increased by 40 percent between 1999 and 2010, while the number of federal inmates held privately increased by 784 percent.
• Claims of private prisons’ cost effectiveness are overstated and largely illusory.
• Private prison companies, such as Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group, Inc. spend millions of dollars each year in lobbying and campaign contributions to continue this trend.
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National Council of La Raza’s new report, “The Wrong Approach: State Anti-Immigration Legislation in 2011,” analyzes the status of anti-immigration bills introduced over the past year and offers a breakdown of the bills on a state by state basis.
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The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under Law recently released report, “Pulling Back the Curtain,” analyzes the vote on Initiative 27, Mississippi’s voter identification amendment, and “shows that Mississippi’s ugly history of voter suppression continues.” Among the report’s key findings is that more than 75 percent of the state’s non-White minority voted against showing photo ID at the ballot.
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The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and American Civil Liberties Union’s joint report, “Improving Budget Analysis Of State Criminal Justice Reforms: A Strategy for Better Outcome and Saving Money,” examines more than 600 significant bills on adult sentencing and corrections policy that 49 states have enacted in the past three years. The report found that Corrections spending is absorbing a growing share of states’ budgets, which leaves less for education, health care, and other priorities.
Additional findings include:
• Over the past 25 years, states’ correction spending has grown 674 percent.
• About 40 percent of the legislation proposed in statehouses across the nation does not receive any sort of fiscal analysis.
• Without an official certification that a bill would save money, legislators are less inclined to vote for it.
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A new AFL-CIO report, “Crisis in Alabama: Investigating the Devastating Effects of HB 56,” looks at the crisis surrounding Alabama immigrant families as a result of HB 56. The report includes stories from parents facing the threat of deportation being forced to make arrangements with church members, friends and even strangers to care for their U.S.-born children.
