Trump’s jailing of migrants has private prisons thriving

In the 1967 movie “The Graduate,” title character Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) wanders around at his graduation party, pondering future prospects. A friend of the well-heeled family pulls him aside to whisper just one word, “plastics.”

Remade today, “The Graduate” could have the well-wisher touting Benjamin onto a new sure thing: “for-profit prisons.”

Privately run prisons aren’t exactly a wave of the future. They’ve been around since 1981, when politicians’ “tough on crime” demands propelled the nation toward today’s shameful spectacle: 5 percent of the world’s population holding 25% of its prisoners. Eight percent of the nation’s 2 million convicts (not migrant detainees) are held in federal or state privately run prisons.

Of the eight presidents watching and usually helping the private prison industry grow, two — numbers 45 and 47 — have been Donald Trump. Because of him, for-profit prison businesses and their stockholders have never had it so good. Trump’s jailing-and-deporting binge encompasses not only the originally targeted undocumented migrant criminals but the innocent as well, including children.

Trump’s battle with Democratic presidents over private prisons has been back and forth. In 2016, President Barack Obama ordered cancellation of federal private prison contracts. He believed for-profit prisons’ shoddy conditions represent all that’s wrong with corrections in this country. Obama hoped the move would provide inspiration for reform in the 28 states allowing private prisons. (To its credit, Iowa prohibits them.) For-profit prison companies’ prospects sagged.

But not for long. Three months later, newly elected Trump reversed the scrapping of for-profit prisons contracts. Industry stocks soared.

Four years after that, President Biden reinstalled Obama’s order. For-profit prisons shares tanked,.

Trump’s new term brings us to the jolting present. Trump is reopening shuttered immigrant detention centers and calling upon the largest companies — notably GEO Group of Boca Raton, FL and CoreCivic of Nashville TN — to provide thousands more beds for unauthorized immigrants arrested and held for deportation.

Is the public on board?

Polls did show immigration control topped all of Trump’s campaign promises in 2024; 55% approved. But that apparently reflected desire to rid the country of criminal migrants (the “worst of the worst” Trump calls them) — not innocent consumers who, upon taking jobs, enhance the economy in numerous ways, including taking jobs shunned by many and paying taxes. Current polls reflect far less enthusiasm toward Trump’s racist, draconian policies.

No wonder. Immigrant and Customs Enforcement data show 72% of unauthorized immigrants detained have no criminal record. “Nannies xxx and construction workers,” the Miami Herald called them.

But the die is cast. Investing in private prisons seems a sure thing as long as Trump and his political heirs stay in control.

Writer-editor Jerry Elsea is retired after 40 years with The Gazette. His volunteer work in retirement has included writing instruction (by correspondence) for a California lifer. Goal: group violence intervention.