Money to be made

I‘ve been writing for a few weeks now about the boon that “immigration reform” in its current form is to the private prison industry.  Today, the NYTimes reports on the issue.  A business story by Meredith Kolodner records that “[a]s the Bush administration gets tougher on illegal immigration and increases its spending on enforcement, some of the biggest beneficiaries may be the companies that have been building and running private prisons around the country.”  Her full story is here.  Among the notable facts:

– By the fall of 2007, the administration expects that about 27,500 immigrants will be in detention each night, an increase of 6,700 over the current number in custody.

-At the average cost these days of $95 a night, that adds up to an estimated total annual cost of nearly $1 billion.

-The number of state and federal inmates rose by just 1.4 percent from June 2004 to June 2005, slower growth than the average 4.3 percent annual increases from 1995 to 2000. By contrast, the number of immigrants in detention is expected to increase by about 20 percent over the next three months alone.

-jmc