I have been meaning to blog about this subject in greater depth than I have. You cannot understand the Prison Industrial Complex without having some knowledge about corrupting power of money in our political system. I have over the past few weeks cataloged the intersections between commerce and prisons.  I have also highlighted the various connections between the passage of racist and anti-immigrant laws like S.B. 1070 and the expansion of private prisons.  Local and now Investigative reporting is explicitly linking Jan Brewer and her administration to big money supporters in the private prison industry and questioning whether the passage of S.B. 1070 might be connected to this.  These are steps in the right direction but much more still needs to be done to inform the general public.  When even high profile escapes from private prisons do not deter local politicians in Arizona from endorsing and advocating for private prisons, one knows that public pressure opposing these entities is not strong enough.

If you don’t do anything else, this week please take some time to review the following information about the Corrections Corporation of America’s Political Action Committee. In several easy charts, you can review which politicians received contributions from this private prison juggernaut in the 2008 cycle and you can begin to connect the dots on your own between our politicians and the expansion of prisons across the United States.  You will be able to see that while more republican politicians have received contributions from CCA, there are several democrats who are also patrons.  This is an equal opportunity attempt to grease the wheels in their favor.