CCA really doesn't like community opposition, so apparently it works

Private prison company CCA, which in conjunction with ALEC promotes laws in dozens of states and nationally that lock up more people for CCA's private profit at taxpayer expense, really doesn't like community opposition to siting private prisons in their communities. Hm, why would CCA hate community opposition so much, unless it works?

Not quite rolling his eyes when she mentions visiting communities, CCA's video pair disparage community opposition to private prisons on their own web page, When Corrections Meets Communities:

Question: There are Web sites and blogs that are adamantly opposed to your company and industry, and they provide negative information about you. Why?

Hm, you mean like some of the material on this blog?

Answer: CCA and all corrections companies recognize the ongoing efforts of local, loosely formed grassroots groups and national, well-funded associations that jointly oppose the establishment of partnership prisons, many for self-serving reasons. Such groups go to great lengths to attack, criticize and misrepresent the entire industry. They make false allegations and often rely on hearsay and unreliable sources. Regrettably, these biased groups often resort to misinformation and inflammatory rhetoric to turn isolated incidents into broad generalizations about the corrections industry as a whole.

Well-funded? Har! OK, not this blog. That plus we provide evidence, like

CCA's own 2010 Form 10K to the SEC and medical reports at McRae and extensive research by NAACP and personal experience by LEAP, including NAACP's report on the War on Drugs that got even Grover Norquist on the same stage saying we can't afford to lock up so many people.

Speaking of well-funded, I prefer Bloomberg's take:

The big winner in the crackdown on the illegal immigration has been the private prison industry. As Bloomberg Business Week reports in its latest issue, companies such as Corrections Corporation of America are making millions. In fact, CCA makes more money from detaining immigrants than it does from any single U.S. state.
...
That has led to CCA's stock rising ten-fold in the last decade.

It's true, Bloomberg is well-funded. Will CCA claim Bloomberg misrepresented CCA's well-recorded stock price history, or what CCA's own executives told CCA about the anti-illegal immigrant source of their profits?

Back to the CCA FAQ:

Opposition efforts do a disservice to the national discussion of the merits of public-private partnership in corrections. A healthy dialogue on correctional partnerships should focus on the facts – not half truths, Internet chatter and blatant lies.

Those big bucks CCA gets from the government to detain immigrants? Those are our tax dollars! CCA and ALEC promote locking up more people nationally and in dozens of states. Taxpayers and the victims of those laws have every right to oppose the privatization of justice for the profit of a few corporate executives and shareholders. Every right to oppose private prisons and, to oppose the war on drugs that funds them, like Jimmy Carter is doing. And if you want to call Jimmy Carter a liar, CCA, them's fightin' words.

More from the CCA FAQ:

When these groups criticize CCA, they are, by extension, criticizing governments that have carefully chosen to manage a portion of their corrections system in this manner.

Well, yeah! Thank you, CCA, for drawing one correct conclusion. CCA's own website says under partnering:

"CCA has been a great partner with us for nearly a decade now. Coffee Correctional Facility and Wheeler Correctional Facility certainly meet the standards of the Georgia Department of Corrections. I particularly appreciate CCA maintaining exemplary accreditation status with both the American Correctional Association and the National Commission on Correctional Healthcare. I look forward to a continued long relationship with them.”
—Commissioner James E. Donald, Georgia Department of Corrections

Yes, I criticise that! Georgia has no business outsourcing public justice for private profit.

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority should reject CCA's attempt to site a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. The state of Georgia or the federal government (whichever might end up behind that private prison) should spend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.

-jsq