In “Morals Before Profit,” the Weekly wrote about local immigrant rights groups organizing to pressure former U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcini to resign from the board of Corrections Corporation of America—a private company that’s been used as an example of what’s wrong with our state government’s love affair with the private prison industry. Go to another story we wrote “No Disclosure,” for a look at the American Friends Service Committee’s report on private prison abuses in Arizona and across the country.
A press conference will take place on Tuesday, April 24, with the coalition, now called Fuerza Comunitaria Contra la Industria Carcelaria, with community members affected by detention in CCA facilities and Beau Hodai of In These Times. It all takes place at ground zero for this campaign: DeConcini, McDonald, Yetwin & Lacy, P.C., 2525 E Broadway Blvd., at noon.
From Fuerza’s press release:
Tucson, AZ —Tucson’s Fuerza! Coalition will hold a press conference and vigil outside Senator DeConcini’s law firm to call attention to the connections between anti-immigrant legislation and prison industry profiteering. On April 24th, lifetime Tucson resident and three-term Democrat Senator Dennis DeConcini is expected to testify at a U.S. Senate Hearing in Washington D.C. against SB1070. Yet Senator DeConcini is a Corrections Corporation of American (CCA) shareholder and Board member and profits directly from the incarceration of Tucson families due to SB1070. As the nation’s largest private prison company and leading jailer of immigrant detainees, CCA stands to profit substantially from recent legislative attacks on migrant communities and supports laws like SB 1070. The day before the U.S. Supreme Court considers Arizona’s SB 1070 and people take to the streets in Phoenix against racism and deportation, Fuerza! holds CCA responsible for its targeting of migrant communities in Arizona and calls on Senator DeConcini to immediately resign from the CCA Board and denounce the company.
(Update: CCA requested a correction on this story. Here is our response.)
This article appears in Apr 19-25, 2012.
more bias bullshit from the leftwing paper tucson weekly
ALEC member company CCA and its lobbyists basically drafted (or at least co-wrote) SB1070 for ALEC member then-senate-president Russell Pearce and his republicans to put through the AZ legislature.
What a load of crap…..whinning a-holes who have to show ID when involved in a car stop
CCA is a corrupt organization that needs to be dealt with. I am a former employee of the company who is a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against them for discriminatory practices and defamation of character. I support what these people are doing.
I am at a loss of understanding why DeConcini is against SB 1070, which was designed to fill private prisons, yet is still allowed to stay on the board of CCA. The bottom line is not adding up here. Usually, these private prison companies have shown themselves to be very grateful at election time. Is that it for DeConcini? The payoff comes later and he still looks like an intelligent Senator?