The Business of Detention
"When we first began to look at the phenomenon of immigrant detention in the United States, the obvious step to take as investigative journalists was to follow the money. We found that the trail of taxpayer dollars led primarily to the Corrections Corporation of America, a company that had been on the brink of bankruptcy as recently as 2001. Our desire was to present a picture of how the nation’s largest private prison company had partnered with the federal government to detain close to a million undocumented immigrants until they were deported, and in the process fill their empty beds and increase revenue by X percent. CCA now has close to 10,000 new beds under development in anticipation of continued demand."
RENEE FELTZ and STOKELY BAKSH online.
[The reporters "are graduate journalism students at Columbia University and fellows in the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism. This summer, they will be working with News21, a Carnegie-Knight news initiative." This is a remarkably rich - and developing - work. Take time to explore all the stories, videos and graphics, and their ongoing blog.]