Capital & State Join Hands in Private Prisons
by MC12

"Privatization" is popular in Amerikan politics, but the term is incorrect. People say "privatizing" services is getting the "government off our backs," or using the "free market" to increase "efficiency." All these terms are smokescreens. When the state delegates powers to capital, capital is increasing its share of power in the system. In a simple sense, this is a process of subverting democracy. But under Amerikan imperialism, it's more than that.

On one hand, the melding of capital and the state is an aspect of fascism. When state powers are delegated to capital, the bourgeoisie uses these powers to increase its influence over the state. The democratic process is less involved. On the other hand, this capital-state collaboration usually acts on behalf of the oppressor Amerikan nation. With less imposition from democracy - which means national minorities can't vote, for example - capital-state power can increase national oppression with fewer obstacles. As much as this represents the wishes of the oppressor Amerikan nation - including its middle class and labor aristocracy - it is not completely undemocratic for members of that nation. It's process may be undemocratic, but that does not mean the white nation is not getting what it wants. The anti-"crime" craze is a good example of this: most of the white nation is willing to give up some of the Constitution because they see the change as hurting the oppressed nations more than themselves. Still, the white nation as a whole may benefit in ways that disproportionately aid the upper classes of that nation, or the biological men, and so on. This is a recurring difficulty in the question of fascism - how much are the different classes and groups within the oppressor nation getting what they want, compared to what they may lose.

We analyze the question of private prisons and related institutions as a means of addressing these issues, which are important for revolutionary science in all imperialist countries today. Understanding the fascist trend and the ever-growing prison system is a requirement for revolution.

Growth of the Industry

Prison privatization started in Southern states, and is not spreading outward.(1) At the beginning of 1996 there were about 100 privately run prisons in operation or development in 18 states, with a capacity of 60,000 inmates at the state, local and federal level.(2) All that growth is basically since 1984, when Hamilton County, Tn., gave a contract to run the local jail to the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

CCA still dominates the 20-company market, keeping about half the privately held prisoners, with 47 facilities and 28,607 beds operating or under construction in 11 states, Puerto Rico, Britain and Australia, at the beginning of 1996.(3) Of the 1.6 million adult prisoners within U.S. borders, fewer than 3% are in private hands, but the rate of growth is extreme. In 1994 alone, the number of inmates in private correctional facilities alone, the number of inmates in private correctional facilities rose 51%.(4) In 1985 there were only about 1,000 prisoners in private cells.(5)

private prisons - a term which in this article includes prison-related institutions - began at the impetus of the federal government and big capital, which means they cannot be considered part of an "anti-government" or anti-big-capital trend despite the tendency to treat them as such. The leaders in government were the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). INS started contracting for private detention centers in the early 1870s. Contractors for these centers were led by CCA and Wackenhut Corporation, which is the second biggest private prison contractor.(6) Now INS has 13 detention centers, four of which are run privately (two by CCA), and it rents thousands of cells at many other locations.*7) BOP put all of their pre-release housing centers under private contracts in 1981. Many of these are run by not-for-profit groups.(6)

The federal government is still leading the charge. President Clinton at the end of 1995 announced a proposal to put every new minimum- and low-security prison built by the Federal Bureau of Prisons under private management.(5)

Regarding prisons themselves, private companies worked their way in from the margins, beginning with pre-release programs, healthcare, food service, work release programs, and so on, before beginning with running whole prisons. Once running prisons, George Zoley, a Wackenhut vice president said they wanted to start in the less contentious area of lower security to earn "public" trust before getting into higher security, which they are now doing.(6)

Big capital's involvement from the start included the multi-nationals Bechtel and Wackenhut, and CCA. CCA got venture capital from the Massey Butch Investment Group, which also backed Hospital Corporation of America, the largest U.S. for-profit operator of hospitals.(8)

The most common expressed reasons for privatizing prisons are lower costs and less bureaucracy. In Texas, for example, where private prisons are booming, the state said it was spending $13 per prisoner-day in 1980, but $42 by 1990.(1) Less bureaucracy is said to be important because of the "need" created by the boom in imprisonment. Prisons have to be able to spring up much quicker than the government bureaucracies tend to move. 

With private prisons, a company can build a prison and then advertise available space to other governments that have overcrowded systems - empty cells are the ban of private prisons, whereas state-run prisons don't care a much. At the beginning of 1996, for example, Oklahoma planned to ship some 1,700 prisoners to private prisons in Texas. More than 500 were sent there beginning in December. Oklahoma was driven by overcrowding. The state's prisoner population was expected to be 19,751 by June 30. 10% more than the previous year (that includes inmates at state prisons and work centers, as well as those in pre-parole, specialized supervision and on electronic monitoring). Some of Oklahoma's human exports went to the Central Texas Parole Violator Center in San Antonio, which is run by Wackenhut. As of January 1995, 188 were there, 250 were at the Mansfield Law Enforcement Center in Mansfield, Texas, and 139 were at the Limestone County Detention Center in Groesbeck. The last two are run by Capital Correctional Resources, based in Jackson, Miss. Forty-eight wimmin were at the Odessa Detention Center, run by GRW Corporation in Brentwood, Tenn.(9)

Texas got into private prisons in 1989, to encourage the development of new prisons - not just for Texas prisoners but as government-created labor aristocracy jobs as well. Oklahoma is joined by Virginia, Missouri, Utah, and others in the practice of shipping prisoners to private prisons in Texas. CCA is building a 2,000-bed prison in Dallas.(2)

Wackenhut operates two 1,000-bed prisons outside Fort Worth, a 500-bed jail in Lockhard, three state jails, and some parole centers.(10) The company was building three more in January 1996.(2) By late 1995 Wackenhut jailed a total of 9,061 prisoners, including those in Australia and England.(11) In Florida, where Wackenhut is based, they have a contract to manage a 1,138-bed prison to be built in South Bay at a cost of $32 million. They already manage a 750-bed prison in Moore Haven. Wackenhut's contract with the state's Correctional Privatization Commission is for three years, with continuing two-year renewals.(12) Late in 1995 they had contracts coming up for another 6,638 beds at 8 facilities.(11)

Wackenhut also provides security for the 800-mile Alaskan pipeline, NASA, and dozens of airports and government buildings. Founded in 1954, Wackenhut by 1995 employed 53,000 people in 50 countries, with 1996 projected revenue of $1 billion.(13) They made headlines in recent months by protecting Amerikan firms in Russia, which are said to often receive extortion threats from organized crime.(14) Besides Wackenhut Corrections Corp., Wackenhut has divisions in Guatemala, Ecuador, Dominica, Canada, Puerto Rico, and UK. There are also WAckenhut Airline Services, Wackenhut Education Services, Wackenhut Health Services, and Wackenhut Sports Security, plus a few other subsidiaries.(15)

New states are jockeying to get in. The North Carolina legislature last year approved a limited proposal - two medium-security private prisons with space for a total of 1,000 prisoners, or jsut less than 3% of the 35,000 prison beds the state plans to have by 1998.(5)

Private prisons are only one part of the booming private repressive apparatus. This includes "gated" suburban communities, private security guards, and the widespread private hiring of police officers to do security jobs in uniform, to name a few examples.

In Denver there were almost 15,000 licensed security guards in September 1995, more than twice the 7,168 there were in 1990. The city has 101 licensed security companies. Wackenhut's Denver office tripled its business in the two and a half years before September 1995. At first people attributed the growth to Denver's escalating official "crime" rate in 1992 and 1993. But in 1994 the "crime" rate dropped 13% - and the security industry continued to boom. Pinkerton Security & Investigation Services in 1995 employed 400 security guards in Denver and was "looking to expand," according to a spokesperson.(16)

[see table from page 20]

Private Profit, State Interests 

It took a few years for private prisons to start making money, but there is no longer any doubt about their profitability. CCA's stock began 1995 at a little more than $8 per share, and ended the year at more than $37, a 385% increase. By early February 1996 it had passed $47.(3) So confident is CCA that they are riding a wave, they have started building a prison purely on speculation - with no contract - in west Tennessee.(5)

Wackenhut, which works in all forms of private security, has gained from recent events. After the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 their stock rose from $11.70 to $12.09 (+3%). After the Oklahoma city bombing in 1995 it went from $14.75 to $17.75 (+20%). Stock values for Pinkerton Security and Borg-Warner Security also went up after the bombing.(17) Wackenhut's corrections subsidiary only started public trading in July 1994; before that the rest of the company absorbed some prison losses.(8)

As of December 1995, Wackenhut ran food service in about 100 prisons. That's when they bought Service America's prison food service operations. 1996 revenue for WAckenhut's food service division was expected to top $80 million. That put the company in 27 states, with the addition of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington.(18) Two months earlier Wackenhut paid $3 million and for tow Australian security companies, one of whom serves Quantas Airways.(19) (See the corporate data table that accompanies this article for more details on prison-related companies.)

[see graphic from page 21]

Whether private prisons save money for the state is an open question, and not very relevant despite media hype to the contrary. As we will see, governments derive benefits from private prisons beyond saving taxpayer money, and all the cost savings come from innovations that the government is doing in their new prisons anyway.

What are the savings they claim? The media reports on studies unquestioningly, such as one by Charles Thomas, a University of Florida "expert on privatized prisons," who said private prisons save states 15-25% in building costs and 10-15% in operating expenses.(3) Some "academic" books on the subject feature articles by company representatives as objective experts.

One reason for reports of savings is that privately run prisons tend to be new, and newer prisons have technology and architecture to cut down on space and the number of guards. Newer prisons ahve less space per inmate, which cuts down on construction costs per bed. And they have designs for more electronic monitoring and more efficient use of guards to cut down on labor costs, which is the biggest cost in running a prison.

The Government Accounting Office did a study on prison construction and operating costs in 1992.(20) The first chart, not surprisingly, shows a clear relationship between gross square feet per inamte and construction costs per bed. The second chart shows an inverse relationship between inmate-staff ratios and operating costs per inmate per day - prisons with fewer staff cost less to run. The charts report on the GAO findings from a survey of government run prisons. This means that whether or not new prisons are privately built and operated, cost motivations alone will tend to push in these directions. 

However, this is also good for the oppressive goals of the institutions - less space and more technological control both increase the level of dehumanization and repression for prisoners. So we don't assume cost drives this either.

Still, where there are profits to be made efficiency matters. North Carolina, for example, runs some prisons for $45 per inmate day, but their system average is $63.50 because of so many old prisons, state officials say.(5) Almost all privately run prisons are new,(2) which makes comparisons with government prisons unreliable.

In a Tennessee study, CCA prisons there cost $35.38 per prisoner-day. The comparable government run prisons cost $35.76 per prisoner each day, a 1% difference that translated into only $150,000 per year. But the whole system in Tennessee costs $50 per prisoner day, so they falsely hyped private prisons as a way to save $15 per prisoner-day.(5) The mainstream press is happy to feed the hype by reporting questionable studies, as in the claim that "the private operation of two Florida prisons alone would save taxpayers $9 million over three years."(4)

Oklahoma is paying $35-$40 a day for their prisoners in Texas.(9) CCA's daily average charge in 1993 was almost $40 per day.(8)

Private prisons have an economic incentive to stay full because they bill the government for inmates days.(6) And the prison ahs to be fully staffed whether it's at just 80% of a full100% of capacity, so they make the most profits when it's full. That happens to dovetail with the government interest in efficiently increasing incarceration, of course. So if some states have had to release some prisoners because of overcrowding, the profit-driven trade in imprisonment, which takes in prisoners across state lines, solves the problem in a way that serves the combined interests of capital and state.

[see graph from pg 22]

Guard salaries are a touchy subject for labor aristocracy advocates. Government prison guard unions object to privatization. The New Jersey Pig Benevolent Association offered as evidence a Wackenhut ad offering to hire Florida prison guards for $19,400 per year. In contrast, government guards who go through training at the guard academy and get certified by the New Jersey Police Training Commission before becoming sworn officers, start at $31,000 and get up to $48,000 with 10 years' seniority. Benefits add another 44% to their total compensation.(4)

The Georgia Department of Corrections did a study in 1993 that showed starting salaries at private prisons were 19% less than those in government prisons.(2) In Colorado, wages for private security guards averaged $15,160 in 1994.(16) Private companies also use less overtime. Labor is 75% of the corrections department budget of states such as New Jersey,(4) so all of this is an incentive for states to use private companies. And it makes the question a typical one of the labor aristocracy fighting to keep their wages up and protect their jobs from downsizing and technology.

In the small city of Seal Beach, in Orange County, Cal., the city privatized their jail and in the first year saved more than $30,000 in salaries - and earned $85,000 from selling extra spaces to the BOP and to prisoners who chose (and could afford) to pay $65 per day to stay there instead of in the rougher country jail. In nearby Irvine, Cal., they turned over operation of the six-cell holding are to Wackenhut. They saved $70,000 in a year, due to lower labor costs, they say Wackenhut pays clerical workers less than half what the police officers used to be paid for this desk work.(21) And the anti-"crime" masses rest easier knowing those pigs have more time to be out busting heads.

Governments can also make profits without privatization. York County, Penn., for example, is building a new wing of their county jail so they have more cells to rent to the INS. Right now the county charges INS $50 per inmate-day, making a $26 profit, according to the county.(7)

Fascism and Democracy

Having a prison system is not necessarily fascist. Pre-capitalist societies had prisons and these were not a part of fascism. Likewise, socialist societies (of which there are none at present) also had prisons. Further, private operation of some aspects of a penal system is not necessarily fascist either, as this existed in early Amerikan capitalism. Privately operated whole prisons, however, basically originated in the united states in the 1980s.(22)

Privatization is a mechanism for the state and capital each to achieve their goals in cooperation. For a recent example we return to the private INS detention centers. 

Esmor Corrections ran the INS detention center in Elizabeth, N.J. Most of the prisoners there were busted at New York airports for immigration violations.(23) In June 1995 prisoners rebelled against oppressive conditions. They were arbitrarily strip searched, beaten and otherwise abused. They had bad food, lights on all night, were given dirty clothes, and had person al belongings stolen. They also had their cases tampered with and delayed. Prisoners went on a hunger strike against conditions almost as soon as it opened. After the rebellion was put down by police (Esmor guards called 911 and fled their posts), INS trashed the documents that many prisoners had saved for their cases and appeals. INS said they were destroyed in the rebellion, but eight Xerox boxes of documents were found in the trash afterwards.(7)

Esmor has a grim record. An INS report on the Elizabeth center said Esmor cut costs by taking prisoners to emergency rooms for medical care, where they are treated free, and by charging prisoners for petty expenses from lost clothing to drinking cups. Immigrant prisoners at the Seattle center barricaded themselves in their rooms to protest conditions last year. At an Esmor boot camp in Tarrant County, Texas, a drill instructor was indicted and three employees were fired after a scandal over coerced sex between guards and female prisoners. Esmor's first halfway house, in Manhattan in 1991, was criticized for problems with vermin, electrical problems and lack of food for prisoners. In Brooklyn last year two Esmor guards were indicted for bribery and conspiring to smuggle undocumented immigrants into the country.(1)

INSO closed the Elizabeth center shortly after the uprising, when their investigation turned up evidence that the prisoner charges were true.(23) However, Esmor lost nothing as a result. After the incident, the FBI investigated conditions at the detention center but pressed no charges against anyone from Esmor, although twelve guards at the nearby jail were charged for beating and torturing the immigrants that were imprisoned there after the rebellion. Esmor sold the contract, the equipment and the lease to CCA for $6.2 million and got out easy. Esmor still runs an INS center in Seattle which was not affected by the scandal.(7) Now the INS says the Elizabeth center will be "a national model" under the CCA contract. Guards' salaries will go up from $8 per hour to $14, and they will be required to have 160 hours of training.(23)

Other private prisons have been cited for abuses as well, including two Wackenhut centers charged by Texas state auditors with supplying deficient medical care and using excessive force.(1) Something was also wrong at the CCA-run America's West Tennessee Detention Facility in Tipton County, Tenn., where prisoners started a rebellion in October 1995. Officials covered up the causes: as CCA warden Patrick Casey put it, there were "frustrated and disgruntled inmates" looking for something to complain about. "In a given day, it could have been something they ate, something they didn't like… just about anything," he said. One likely cause was the distance between the private prison in Tennessee and the families and homes of the prisoners from North Carolina imprisoned there.(24)

There is nothing about any of these incidents in themselves that makes private prisons any better or worse than government-run prisons. One difference is in the accountability. With the INS center in Elizabeth, INS was able to transfer the contract to another company without anyone losing money and no public officials taking flak. In that sense, it is a political convenience for the state and a way to make money for capital. Prison corporations and governments have made good use of this type of relationship.

In the law permitting private prisons in North Carolina, the corporate guards will be considered "agents of the state," and allowed to use the same force as state guards.(5) And yet it's easier for the state to deploy private guards at times. For example, in Florida after some tourists were killed, the state hired 258 Wackenhut guards to patrol 48 rest areas on the highways. Journalists' investigations revealed that out of 20 guards, 14 had previously lost their badges at state jobs and would not have been allowed to do the same work for the state.(25)

Also in Florida, in Dania, Broward County, the Sheriff's office was having a hard time persuading people to let them put a work-release program in because of not-in-my-backyard fears. So they turned the site search over to Wackenhut, who was not required to hold hearings because they will own the property and sell a service to the Sheriff. With no public scrutiny of documents or potential sites, the company chose an old motel, over the objections of city residents and nearby businesses.(26)

So private prisons have some state powers but a lot of corporate immunity. With Wackenhut's South Bay prison, the state has said the company does not have to pay property taxes because they are a public service. That took $900,000 in taxes from the county, and the decision also affected other prisons, for a total of $2.5 million in annual property tax exemptions.(27)

Some people say private prisons are part of the "Crisis of confidence" in the state.(28) In the sense of surface public opinion that may be true. But underneath there is no doubt that privatization is serving the state interests. That is a fascist connection, because one trait of fascism is an anti-government populist style that actually serves capital and the state despite protestations to the contrary (like Pat Buchanan).

A good example of this is the dispute in Sussex, N.J., where the tow of 2,300 people replaced their four-member police force with armed uniformed security guards. The state attorney general filed suit to disband the new force.(29) There it was clearly a turf battle between bureaucracies, not a genuinely anti-government attitude.

Along with the state's interest, and capital's profits, there are towns full of labor aristocrats looking for money from prisons. "Many of the localities in Texas aggressively compete with one another for these prisons," said one quoted expert. "From their point of view, it's a clean, nonpolluting, recession-proof industry."(2) As a source of employment, private guards outnumber police by two-to-one.(28)

Besides the American Bar Association and the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Sheriff's Association and public employee unions oppose privatizing prisons on job-protection grounds.(4) Corrections officers have more and more of their own clout. California's corrections officers, who numbered 4,000 in 1980, reached 23,240 by 1995. Their union gave $900,000 to Pete Wilson in his 1990 campaign for California governor.(30)

Fascism is the middle classes and labor aristocracy - under bourgeois leadership - in opposition to the proletariat. So when private security guards replace unionized state employees, some people cry "anti-working class!" In contrast, MIM sees the prison trend in general and the privatization trend in particular as uniting the bourgeoisie and middle classes against the proletariat of oppressed nations. At the same time, it does shift the power away from the blue collar labor aristocracy and toward the white collar semi-proletariat and professional middle classes.

This is played out at the Newport News Shipbuilding yards, where Wackenhut was brought in to replace unionized guards. At the time, the shipyard said they were bringing in Wackenhut in response to guard union complaints about being made to work overtime, and they said there would be no layoffs.(31) But then later that year they laid off union workers and kept Wackenhut. In the third round of layoffs, they let go 19 of the previous security guards and kept more than 30 Wackenhut employees to watch the gates. At the same time they were planning to lay off union janitors and outsource the janitorial service. All that was in the typical vein of downsizing, as the industry faced defense cuts and international competition.(32)

CCA pays wages slightly above what government prison employees get, and most of their employees are not unionized. But they do hire fewer people than older prisons.(3)

Other opposition to profit-making prisons shows us the underlying forces at work. In an all-white rural Pennsylvania town an entrepreneur started a private jail. He talked to his friend Sen. Arlen Specter, who got Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry to send a stock of 55 (all Black) prisoners form the overcrowded DC jail. The Pennsylvania townspeople might have liked the idea of the prison, but not the idea of Black "criminals" in their midst. They took up armed vigilante patrols in case of an escape. In the outcry, the prisoners were sent back.(33)

In Colorado, the private guard company at the state capitol lost its contract after an incident in which "skinheads poured paint all over the Indian buffalo statue on the Capitol grounds. The security guards sat, locked in side and watched."(16)

Private security has a populist legitimacy because Amerikan settler mentality says profit-making is more legitimate than government. And among the settler nation the federal government in particular has earned a reputation for helping oppressed nations at the expense of Amerikans. (This is seen in the "victims' rights" movement, the opposition to affirmative action, and so on.) So this leads people to support private prisons and security forces.

In Florida, St. Lucie County hired Wackenhut to run the metal detectors and X-ray machines at entrances to county courthouses. Sheriff's deputies who previously checked people and packages were to be offered jobs with Wackenhut.(34) In Denver, where they already had guards in the middle- and high-schools, the school administration announced plans to hire outside security firms as full-time district workers to guard elementary schools.(16)

"Efficiency" or cost savings can't explain the Amerikan urge for more security. In Baltimore, for example, the 100-block Charles Village area of the city applied a tax to itself to fund private security in the hope of eliminating petty crime and restoring a "feeling" of security. Johns Hopkins University and the local hospital chipped in as well, with Hopkins donating $55,000, a security vehicle, and a guard to patrol near the university.(35) The Wackenhut guards cost $22,600 per month. In the first six months of the program they assisted in an average 2.5 arrests per month, or $9,000 per arrest.(36)

Overlapping Interests at the Top

From the actions of the state and capital regarding private prisons, we can see their common interests. From an analysis of the specific relationships involved we can concretely prove this overlapping interest and see more about how it works. 

Throughout the industry, corporate leaders have histories of working for the state's repressive apparatuses. Like the military industry, these companies are so close to the state as to be profit-making extensions of state power - who also exert influence over the state's direction.

Richard R. Wackenhut, the president and CEO of Wackenhut Corp. since 1986, is a perfect individual example of the overlapping state and private roles in repression. He went to college at the Citadel, then Harvard, and then worked for the Air Force's Defense Investigative Services before joining the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations - jobs requiring top security clearance. A few years later he went to work for his father's company, which he now runs.(37) Richard's father, George R., was in the U.S. Army in WWII, then in the Army's Office of Special Services from 1950-51, and a special agent in the FBI from 1951-54, before becoming a private security executive. His Who's Who listing includes awards such as "Vigilant Patriot award All Ams. Conf. to Combat Communism," "Labor Order of Merit 1st Class," and "CEO of YR." He was on the National Council of Crime and Delinquency, a member of the Law Enforcement Council, and the Governor's War on Crime. They're both Christian Scientists.(38) They're both poster-boys for imperialism and the repressive apparatus of capital and the state.

Other examples in the industry abound. Chester Lambdin was superintendent of the maximum-security Martin Correctional Institution before quitting to move into a superintendent job at the new Wackenhut prison in South Bay.(39) Esmor's management team is led by the former Sheraton Hotel manager James Slattery, who hired two executive officers who both worked for CCA. James Poland, Esmor's vice president for operations, worked 15 years for the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.  Ray Jordan was a Fort Worth police officer and then Texas Parole Division supervisor before going to Esmor to run their Fort Worth halfway house.(1)

When Seal Beach, Cal., started their private jail, they got Bud Grossman, a retired regional director of the BOP to do the remodeling and then operate the jail. The city splits expenses and profits with Grossman's company, Corrections Services. Most of the employees at the jail used to be cops, or at least went to police academy. The commander of the Seal Beach jail worked 32 years for the BOP and then was commander at the Terminal Island jail.(21) For that matter, CCA founder and CEO Thomas Beasley went to West Point and eventually became state chairman of the Republican party in Tennessee, and ran Lamar Alexander's first election campaign.(6) Beasley is now one of the top personal contributors to Tennessee Gov. Don Sundquist's re-election campaign, for obvious reasons.(4)

So, if privatization represents an "anti-government" mood in the minds of the middle class and labor aristocracy, in practice these institutions are run by ambassadors between capital and the state, with allegiances to both, and in the interests of both.

Conclusion

In the advanced imperialist countries, the unity of the big bourgeoisie - the international bourgeoisie - and the state is all but complete. So to speak of capital and the state uniting in private prisons as an element of fascism is perhaps moot. The private prison industry is much smaller than the military industry or the auto industry, which are quite integrated into the high levels of the state already.

In the political sense, however, there is an important piece of fascism happening here. Just as the military industry has a role in imperialist aggression and expansionism, so to does the private prison and security industry have a role int he repressive apparatus within the country. And from the point of view of the middle class and labor aristocracy who are so important to fascism, the prison boom and its privatization are seen as populist victories for "normal" people - against the "special interests" and minority groups who are perceived as winning "special privileges." This is a middle class expression of national oppression.

Private prison and the prison system generally are part of the recruitment of the middle classes and labor aristocracy to the bourgeoisie's social agenda of imperialism. This is therefore a fascist trend, and we can conclude form this that the more Wackenhut (or some similar company) controls the Amerikan prison system, the more fascist this society will be. 

Notes:
1. Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Nov. 5, 1995.
2. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Jan. 10, 1996, p. B2.
3. Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Feb. 8, 1996. p. E01.
4. The Record (New Jersey), Sept. 3, 1995. p.A1.
5. Greensboror News & Record. Jan. 1, 1996.
6. Aric Press, "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Private Prisons in the 1980s," in Douglas C. McDonald, ed., Private Prisons and the Public Interest. Rutgers U. Press: New Brunswick, 1990.
7. New York Times, July 7, 1996. p. A1.
8. New York Times. Aug. 14, 1994, p.C1.
9. Tulsa World, Jan. 30, 1996.
10. Austin American-Statesman. Jan. 17, 1996, p.B1.
11. Palm Beach Post, September 23, 1995, p.13B.
12. Palm Beach Post, Dec. 22, 1995, p.2B.
13. Sun-Sentinel, April 22, 1995. p. 10B.
14. Journal of Commerce, Sept 25, 1995.
15. Standard & Poor's Register of Corporations, Directors & Executives.
16. Rocky Mountain News, Sept. 24, 1995.
17. Palm Beach Post, April 25, 1995, p.5B
18. Palm Beach Post. Dec. 13, 1995, p.7B
19. Palm Beach Post. Sept. 13, 1995. p.4B
20. State and Federal Prisons: Factors that Affect Construction and Operations Costs. GAO. May 1992 (GAO/GGD-92-73).
21. Los Angeles Times, Aug. 20, 1995. p.B1.
22. "Proprietary Prisons," by Charles Logan, in Law, Society, and Policy. Vol. 4. "The American Prison: Issues in Research and Policy." Lynne Goodstein and Doris Layton MacKenzie, eds. Plenum Press: New York. 1989.
23. The Record (New Jersey), Jan. 18, 1996.
24. The Commercial Appeal. December 3, 1995.
25. Orlando Sentinel, Aug. 30, 1995. Baltimore Sun, Sept. 18, 1993. p. A3.
26. Sun-Sentinel, Jan. 31, 1996.
27. Palm Beach Post, April 21, 1994. p.1B.
28. Press, op cit., p. 20.
29. Baltimore Sun, June 23, 1993.
30. Baltimore Sun, Jan. 27, 1995. p.A17
31. Daily Press (Newport News, VA.), April 3, 1995.
32. Daily Press (Newport News, Va.), Oct. 19, 1995.
33. Press, op cit., p.31.
34. Palm Beach Post, Oct. 24, 1995. p. 2B
35. Baltimore Sun, Oct. 17, 1995. p.1B
36. Baltimore Sun, Dec. 7, 1995. p.A30
37. Palm Beach Post, May 22, 1995. p.71.
38. Who's Who in America 1996.
39. Palm Beach Post, February 22, 1995. p.1B
40. Nashville Banner, Jan. 26, 1996.