Today our allies at In the Public interest have released a new report detailing the extensive relationship between six major financial institutions, including Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, and the private prison industry. Prison profiteers like the GEO Groups and CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America) rely extensively on credit, bonds and loans from banks in order to sustain their business in human suffering.
The report comes two weeks before the City of Portland will hear public testimony demanding companies, like Wells Fargo, to be placed on the city’s Do-Not-Buy-List due to their involvement in lending to and investing in private prisons. According to In the Public Interest, “by providing CoreCivic and GEO Group with debt, the banks are complicit with the private prison companies in contributing to mass incarceration, immigrant detention, and the privatization of reentry and rehabilitation.”
The report calls for banks to stop financing the private prison industry and recommends that municipalities, pensions, and endowments that either bank with the banks identified in the report, or own their stocks and bonds should exert pressure on the banks to stop lending to CoreCivic and GEO Group.
Don’t forget to save the date for November 30th from 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM when we will be at Portland City Hall to offer testimony in support of Portland Prison Divestment! Let’s make history! RSVP on Facebook
You can read the full report here. See press on this report at the International Business Times and Take Part.
Prison Industry Divestment Movement 