American Friends Service Committee

Week of April 20, 2015

A few selections from AFSC staff members: 

• Private Prison Lobbyists Pay Millions To Keep Immigrants Locked Up via International Business Times
  “In 2010, the Department of Homeland Security adopted a bed quota that required Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain about 34,000 individuals on any given day. The quota certainly did not benefit immigrants – but it did prove to be extraordinarily lucrative for the private prison companies that picked up the new business.”
  
  
• Millions Spent Lobbying By Private Prison Corporations To Keep A Quota Of Arrested Immigrants via ThinkProgress
  “Private prison corporations spent $11 million over six years to lobby Congress to keep immigrants in detention centers, a new report released Wednesday found.”
  
  
• Citizens Stand For Economic Equality With #BlackWorkMatters And The #FightFor15 via HuffPost Black Voices
  “ #BlackLivesMatters is a hashtag that has taken the Internet by storm and symbolizes a movement around the validation and protection of black lives around the globe. However, while the campaign includes the fight against many issues plaguing the African American community, one particular civil rights focus took the main stage on Wednesday: #BlackWorkMatters.“
  

THE TREATMENT INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

It’s not just prisons that corporations profit off of!

We just released this new report that shows the ways in which corporations are profiting not just from managing prisons, but other also other “treatment” related services–prison medical care, forensic mental hospitals, halfway houses and home arrests–which pose a tremendous threat for states seeking to reform their criminal sentencing practices.

afsc.org/tic

Change is possible! Our newest issue of Quaker Action focuses on corporate influence on public policy and grassroots efforts to change that. You can read select content online at www.afsc.org/quakeraction