Private prison companies treat immigrant detainees like convicted criminals—and reap huge profits from the people they hold

Professor Karamet Reiter in the American Scholar critically looks at the treatment of immigrant detainees in private detention facilities.  Here is the beginning of the article, which is well worth a read by anyone interested in contemporary immigrant detention:

“The T. Don Hutto Residential Center is a 512-bed institution that has operated in Taylor, Texas, since the mid-1990s. The word `residential’ in its name and the bright pink walls inside suggest a hospitable, domestic space. The layers of chainlink fence, heavy steel doors, and slim window slits suggest something far more sinister. Although the Hutto Center has little of the mystique of America’s more infamous prisons, like Alcatraz or Rikers Island, today it is at the center of an archipelago of private prison and detention facilities run by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).”

KJ