Speaker 1: For more than thirty years. We've put service at the
Speaker 1: center of everything we do, working side by side with government.
Speaker 1: We serve people, we serve ideals, We serve the public good.
Speaker 1: Corrections Corporation of America has been under screeting before, Bakers
Speaker 1: sparred over the treatment of inmates and privately run cour
Speaker 1: Civic jail watching while an enmy was beaten, failed to
Speaker 1: turn over, understaffed, putting employees at risk people even keeping
Speaker 1: people safe. We are cour Civic. Welcome to Calling Bullshit
Speaker 1: podcast about purpose washing, the gap between what companies say
Speaker 1: they stand for and what they actually do, and what
Speaker 1: they would need to change to practice what they preach.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, time onto you, and I've spent over
Speaker 1: a decade helping companies define what they stand for, their
Speaker 1: purpose and then help them to use that purpose to
Speaker 1: drive transformation throughout their business. Unfortunately, at a lot of
Speaker 1: organizations today, they're still a pretty wide gap between word. Indeed,
Speaker 1: that gap has a name. We call it bullshit. But,
Speaker 1: and this is important, we believe that bullshit is a
Speaker 1: treatable disease. So when the BS detector lights up, we're
Speaker 1: going to explore things that a company should do to
Speaker 1: fix it. In this episode, we're going to take a
Speaker 1: look at Course Civic, a private risen company whose purposes
Speaker 1: quote to provide high quality, compassionate treatment to all those
Speaker 1: in our care. We operate safe facilities that provide education
Speaker 1: and effective reentry programming to help individuals make positive changes
Speaker 1: so they can return to the community successfully. That sounds
Speaker 1: like a worthy purpose, but Course Civic operates in an
Speaker 1: industry that raises some profound questions about the nature of
Speaker 1: for profit incarceration. Questions like what happens when your purpose
Speaker 1: and your business model are in direct opposition to one another,
Speaker 1: what role does the government play in helping or hindering
Speaker 1: Course Civic from achieving its purpose? And ultimately, do we
Speaker 1: see any gaps between word and d. With the help
Speaker 1: of an A c O. You attorney, a professor of
Speaker 1: immigration rights, and the director of the Nolan Center for Justice,
Speaker 1: We're about to find the answers to understand the story
Speaker 1: of Course Civic. We first need to understand the story
Speaker 1: of private prisons in America, and to do that, we
Speaker 1: really need to understand our country's entire history of punishment
Speaker 1: and incarceration. Historically, punishment for those convicted of a crime
Speaker 1: tended to be direct, immediate and public convicts were shackled
Speaker 1: and put on display in the town square or sometimes
Speaker 1: whipped or in extreme cases, publicly put to debt. Some
Speaker 1: would argue this was barbaric, but one redeeming quality was
Speaker 1: it was completely transparent. Everybody knew what the state was
Speaker 1: doing to its citizens. But in sev seven, the Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: Prison Society implemented the separate confinement theory of punishment. Instead
Speaker 1: of inflicting immediate pain or shame on a criminal, the
Speaker 1: separate confinement theory emphasized isolated confinement of the prisoners to
Speaker 1: give them ample time to ponder their mistakes and make
Speaker 1: their peace with God, also known as penance, hence the
Speaker 1: term penitentiary. Both a philosophical and architectural punishment strategy, separate
Speaker 1: confinement quickly became the dominant practice in states throughout America.
Speaker 1: This practice moved the punishment of citizens by the government
Speaker 1: out of public view. It now took place behind paul
Speaker 1: walls and locked gates. In eighteen sixty, with the Civil
Speaker 1: War now over, the thirte Amendment finally abolished slavery. However,
Speaker 1: within that amendment, the six word clause except as punishment
Speaker 1: for crime, legally permitted prisons to lease out prisoners as
Speaker 1: involuntary servants to private industry. This convict leasing clause resulted
Speaker 1: in a dramatic increase of prisoner primarily black men, and
Speaker 1: normalize the practice of prison labor. The concept of a
Speaker 1: federal prison was established in eighteen ninety one with the
Speaker 1: Three Prisons Act, and by nineteen thirty Congress stepped in
Speaker 1: once more to create the Bureau of Prisons to manage
Speaker 1: the growing number of federal penitentiaries. In the subsequent decades,
Speaker 1: the Bureau of Prisons nearly doubled the number of inmates
Speaker 1: and prisons. It also modernized its practices during this time,
Speaker 1: making quote rehabilitation and treatment the leading doctrines in corrections. Then,
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties, as a reaction to the Vietnam
Speaker 1: War protests, uprisings in l a and in Harlem, and
Speaker 1: the Watts Right, President Johnson called for a quote war
Speaker 1: on crime. The American people have had enough of rising
Speaker 1: crime and lawlessness in this country. President Nixon campaigned as
Speaker 1: the law and order President. I pledged to you, the
Speaker 1: wave of crime is not going to be the wave
Speaker 1: of the future. In America and then President Reagan declared
Speaker 1: his war on drugs our society. By the time President
Speaker 1: Clinton left office, prison populations had risen more than under
Speaker 1: the previous two administrations combined. Because each administration had doubled
Speaker 1: down on who could be the toughest on crime, they
Speaker 1: were now more prisoners than prisons to hold them. America
Speaker 1: had a prison problem, and so three entrepreneurs from Tennessee
Speaker 1: did what entrepreneurs do. They came up with an idea
Speaker 1: to solve this problem, and the private prison was born.
Speaker 1: The Corrections Corporation of America was founded in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: three by then chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party Thomas Beasley,
Speaker 1: American Correctional Association President T. Don Huddo, and real Estate
Speaker 1: CFO Robert Krantz. At the time, forty one states had
Speaker 1: been declared by the federal courts to be operating their
Speaker 1: prison systems in an unconstitutional fashion. Corrections Corporation of America
Speaker 1: saw an opportunity to capitalize on what they said was
Speaker 1: a complacent government operation that was overwhelmed with demand. The
Speaker 1: system is and has been in a downwards viral for
Speaker 1: many many years, overcrowding and virtually every facility at the federal, state,
Speaker 1: and local level. Corrections Corporation of America was founded in
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighty three with one goal in mind, provide
Speaker 1: an innovative alternative to the administrative and budgetary constraints of
Speaker 1: the existing corrections and detention systems. Their two years later,
Speaker 1: with over one point eight billion dollars in annual revenue,
Speaker 1: and now renamed Course Civic, the company is the largest
Speaker 1: private prison corporation in the United States, operating approximately eighty
Speaker 1: correctional and detention facilities. Until recently, I had never even
Speaker 1: heard of Course Civic. They first caught my attention on
Speaker 1: Newsweek's list of the most Responsible Companies of one that
Speaker 1: made me curious, So I did a little googling issues
Speaker 1: ranging from inadequate safety equipment to extreme procedural hundred grievances
Speaker 1: alleging mistreatment and excessive force, from medical issues to alleged
Speaker 1: officers claimed the conditions inside the detention identified serious concerns
Speaker 1: regarding detainee care, and I was amazed at what my
Speaker 1: research revealed. Increasing violence and deadly violence. That's Sharon Brett,
Speaker 1: legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas.
Speaker 1: When these things started to come to our attention and
Speaker 1: we are tracking them. We said, it sounds like there's
Speaker 1: something bigger going on here. Sharon's story of the a
Speaker 1: c l U and other Kansas public defenders trying to
Speaker 1: shut down Course Civics Leavenworth facility was only one of
Speaker 1: a long list of alarming reports. Course Civic says its
Speaker 1: purpose is to provide high quality, compassionate treatment to all
Speaker 1: of those in their care, to operate safe facilities, and
Speaker 1: to help individuals make positive changes so they can return
Speaker 1: to the community successfully. So is that actually true or
Speaker 1: is it just a bunch of bullshit? Get out your
Speaker 1: BS detectors, folks and set them on high, because this
Speaker 1: one gets deep. More on that right after this before
Speaker 1: you head to the break. We'd love to hear what
Speaker 1: you think about the show. Maybe you were inspired to
Speaker 1: take action, Maybe you disagree with today's bullshit rating. Either way,
Speaker 1: we want to hear about it. Leave us a message
Speaker 1: at two one two five oh five three zero five,
Speaker 1: or send a voice memo to CBS podcast at co
Speaker 1: collective dot com. You might even be featured on an
Speaker 1: upcoming episode Welcome Back to better understand the private prison
Speaker 1: business model and to figure out if it's even possible
Speaker 1: for cour Civic to truly live their purpose. I first
Speaker 1: spoke with an attorney with deep expertise in the criminal
Speaker 1: justice system, Sharon Brett, legal director at the a c
Speaker 1: l U Kansas. Okay, well, let's get into it. Sharon,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us today. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Bullshit Podcast. Thanks for having me. I want to
Speaker 1: start out by just delving into your experience with the
Speaker 1: Leavenworth Prison, which is a Coursivic facility, and I wonder
Speaker 1: if you could just talk about why you and other
Speaker 1: public defenders decided to take action there. We heard from
Speaker 1: a number of people through our legal intake system at
Speaker 1: the a c l U of Kansas that there were
Speaker 1: problems at Coursivic Love and Worth that were increasing over
Speaker 1: the last eight to ten months or so. The facility
Speaker 1: was getting more violent, there was more drugs and contraband
Speaker 1: inside the facility. There are fewer staff members around, and
Speaker 1: so it seemed like the facility was really struggling just
Speaker 1: to cover the basic shifts. And when we talked with
Speaker 1: our partners at the Federal Public Defenders Office in Kansas,
Speaker 1: they have been hearing the same thing from their clients,
Speaker 1: and they had atually had seen the same stuff from
Speaker 1: their clients when they had gone to visit their clients
Speaker 1: or speak with them over the phone, and that became
Speaker 1: alarming to us. Right, So what did you discover as
Speaker 1: a result of stepping in. We talked to some former
Speaker 1: correctional officers at Percivic and they had talked about how
Speaker 1: they had quit because they felt unsafe at their job.
Speaker 1: We talked to what individual who had been stabbed multiple
Speaker 1: times by people incarcerated at the facility. Yeah, he'd been
Speaker 1: sent to local hospitals for treatment three different times, and
Speaker 1: he finally said enough is enough. And there's a point
Speaker 1: over the summer where the locks didn't work on a
Speaker 1: lot of the cells inside the facility. What I mean,
Speaker 1: whether they deserve to be in there or not is
Speaker 1: a completely different issue. But once they're in there, it
Speaker 1: seems like you want doors that have locks that work.
Speaker 1: And you you mentioned something when you were relaying the
Speaker 1: story that stuck out to me. Are there, in general
Speaker 1: fewer guards in private prisons than in regular government facilities?
Speaker 1: There certainly shouldn't be. There's no separate set of standards
Speaker 1: that apply to correctional facilities that are run for profit.
Speaker 1: I see, and but were there fewer at Leavenworth than
Speaker 1: than they're needed to be? That's what we understand. And
Speaker 1: this location, I understand is contracted with the US Marshalls Service.
Speaker 1: Is that correct? Yes, So the facility run by Coursivic
Speaker 1: and Love and Worth is under a contract with the U.
Speaker 1: S Marshall Service, which means that it holds people who
Speaker 1: are facing federal charges but who have not yet been
Speaker 1: convicted or have pled guilty to those charges. So it's
Speaker 1: all people who are pre trial on federal charges inside
Speaker 1: that facility. I see. Okay, And could you just for
Speaker 1: our listeners talk a little bit about how private prison
Speaker 1: contracts generally work. They sort of work how any other
Speaker 1: business contract would work. So you have an entity that
Speaker 1: needs a service. In this case, the service is the
Speaker 1: caging of human beings who are facing federal charges, and
Speaker 1: they put in a bid for that contract, and there's
Speaker 1: regulations on the federal government side that governed the type
Speaker 1: of care that needs to be provided. And obviously, because
Speaker 1: this private company is assuming the role of the jailer
Speaker 1: for the federal government, the private company has to comply
Speaker 1: with things like the United States Constitution just as the U. S.
Speaker 1: Martial Service would. Can you tell us a little more
Speaker 1: about the executive order from President Biden which prevents Courcivic
Speaker 1: from renewing the leaven Worth contract and what that might
Speaker 1: mean for cour Civic and other private prisons. So one
Speaker 1: of the first things that President Biden did when he
Speaker 1: took office was issued this executive order which called on
Speaker 1: the U. S. Martial Service and the Federal Bureau of Prisons,
Speaker 1: which holds the post trial that convicted population on federal charges.
Speaker 1: Called on those two entities, which fall under the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice, to end contracts with private detention companies like
Speaker 1: cours Civic and the Geo Group and others, So once
Speaker 1: they reach their term of expiration, the contract would be done,
Speaker 1: that relationship would end, And Biden's executive order prevented the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice from entering into any new contracts to
Speaker 1: hold federal detainees or federal prisoners at a facility run
Speaker 1: by a private corporation. Why did they do that. I
Speaker 1: think it came from this recognition that private companies are
Speaker 1: not going to place the constitutional rights of the people
Speaker 1: that they detain over their profit votives. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: big question. Mark for me when I read Course civics
Speaker 1: stated mission. They say their mission is to operate safe
Speaker 1: facilities that provide education and effective reentry programming to help
Speaker 1: individuals make positive changes so they can return to the
Speaker 1: community successfully, which is a great mission. It's just that
Speaker 1: many of those tenants are in direct opposition to the
Speaker 1: business model. In other words, there's so many incentives to
Speaker 1: cut corners on safety, on mental and physical health, on nutrition,
Speaker 1: on rehabilitation. I'm interested in how they justify that if
Speaker 1: you have heard them speak to that, and I also
Speaker 1: wonder how the government justifies that. Well. One thing I
Speaker 1: think is unique about prison corporations is that the public
Speaker 1: truly lacks access to what's actually happening inside the walls,
Speaker 1: and the shareholders of that company lack access to what's
Speaker 1: happening inside those facilities. So they can have such a bold,
Speaker 1: beautiful mission statement like the one Course Civic has and
Speaker 1: completely and utterly failed to live up to it, and
Speaker 1: no one would have any idea. Frankly, there's a large
Speaker 1: portion of America and a large portion of our politicians
Speaker 1: who don't really care what's happening to people who are incarcerated.
Speaker 1: That begs the question, do we know if Course Civic
Speaker 1: is measuring any of these things? In other words, does
Speaker 1: data exist that we don't have access to? Not that
Speaker 1: I've seen, So I can't find data on their website
Speaker 1: about a lot of things that I would typically look
Speaker 1: for in measuring whether they're running a constitutional prison. And
Speaker 1: maybe it's worth saying, for a moment, backing up a
Speaker 1: little bit and talking about the work that I did
Speaker 1: before I came to the sail you, because I think
Speaker 1: it's a little bit relevant here, please do yes. So
Speaker 1: for a while, I started my career as an attorney
Speaker 1: with the Department of Justice in the Civil Rights Division,
Speaker 1: so not the part of the Department of Justice that
Speaker 1: houses federal prisoners, but the part of the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice that investigates state and local facilities for constitutional violations
Speaker 1: within their prisons in jails. So I have years of
Speaker 1: experience going into facilities that are under consent decrees with
Speaker 1: the federal government because they run unconstitutional prisons and jails,
Speaker 1: and there's you look at those consent decrees and there's
Speaker 1: a whole list of things that the facility needs to
Speaker 1: be measuring to show that they're in compliance with the
Speaker 1: Constitution and you don't see that type of data or
Speaker 1: that reporting on coursivis website, and it's certainly not stuff
Speaker 1: that's talked about in their shareholder calls either, because what
Speaker 1: they're trying to do in those calls is get people
Speaker 1: to invest in their company. So if they were producing
Speaker 1: data such as the numbers of incidents of force inside
Speaker 1: the facility, the number of sexual assaults occurring inside a facility,
Speaker 1: the number of complaints received by people incarcerated there, and
Speaker 1: whether any of those had merit, they wouldn't be raking
Speaker 1: in the profits. I think if they were actually reporting
Speaker 1: on the numbers of what's up actually happening inside. Does
Speaker 1: the Freedom of Information Act apply to cour Civic coursivis
Speaker 1: a private entity, so there are some case law that
Speaker 1: says that they don't have to respond to those foyer requests,
Speaker 1: and I think this has been something that's been fought
Speaker 1: in courts before, but it's a real concern. So there's
Speaker 1: just this lack of access to what's actually happening inside
Speaker 1: of there. And I will say even state agencies or
Speaker 1: or state facilities that are subject to state based open
Speaker 1: records laws, or the federal government which is subject to FOIA,
Speaker 1: it still can be very, very difficult to get data.
Speaker 1: Do for profit private prisons legally infringe on a person's
Speaker 1: civil liberties? In other words, are they legal? I think
Speaker 1: that they are legal entities. Right. The federal government has
Speaker 1: the authority to contract out for services to private corporations.
Speaker 1: They do that all the time for all sorts of
Speaker 1: different things. Right. They do it in the military, they
Speaker 1: do it in industry. I think it's how private prisons
Speaker 1: run their business that's unconstitutional. Right, How how would you
Speaker 1: say the government is implicated in the supply and demand
Speaker 1: of this business model? In other words, have we created
Speaker 1: a culture of mass incarceration without a doubt? And that's
Speaker 1: not just on the private prison industries backs, right, that's
Speaker 1: on politicians dating back decades. But mass incarceration is here.
Speaker 1: It has been here for a long time. And I
Speaker 1: want to take a moment to mention because I haven't
Speaker 1: mentioned it yet here, but I think it's an important point.
Speaker 1: The vast majority of people who are incarcerated across our
Speaker 1: country are people of color, and this system disproportionately impacts
Speaker 1: minorities and disproportionately impacts people without economic means, and so
Speaker 1: there's an element of what these private corporations are doing here,
Speaker 1: which is reinforcing white supremacy and reinforcing a deeply racist
Speaker 1: criminal legal system in our country and allowing that to perpetuate.
Speaker 1: Some of the statistics are eye popping. One out of
Speaker 1: every three black boys born today can expect to go
Speaker 1: to prison in his lifetime, one in every six Latino
Speaker 1: boys compared to one of every seventeen white children. And
Speaker 1: the fastest growing prison population is female. But I will
Speaker 1: say that the prison population has begun to go down
Speaker 1: overall in the country, and I think that's as we
Speaker 1: recognize that prisons are not the answer to many of
Speaker 1: the problems that plague society, and that we really need
Speaker 1: to be reinvesting in our communities, in jobs, in education,
Speaker 1: in housing. That's the way that you prevent crime, not
Speaker 1: by incarcerating people. We will never incarceraate ourselves out of
Speaker 1: a crime in the United States. It's not possible to
Speaker 1: do that, and in fact, lots of studies have shown
Speaker 1: that long periods of incarceration actually don't do a whole
Speaker 1: heck of a lot for reducing the crime rate. What
Speaker 1: we need to be doing is investing in communities instead.
Speaker 1: I read also as a part of this, there are
Speaker 1: a number of states that spend more on incarceration than
Speaker 1: they do on education. And that's telling right, that's telling
Speaker 1: you where our priorities are. So the famous saying is
Speaker 1: that budgets are a moral document. And when you look
Speaker 1: at a budget and you see how much money goes
Speaker 1: towards policing and how much money goes to its corrections,
Speaker 1: and you compare that to how much goes towards alleviating
Speaker 1: food and security, towards education, towards transportation, it really shows
Speaker 1: you where our values are. Now, I want to delve
Speaker 1: into the realm of essentially your opinion around the morality
Speaker 1: of these things, because I read a book called Inside
Speaker 1: Private Prisons and American Dilemma in the Age of Mass Incarceration,
Speaker 1: which was an amazing book, and in it there was
Speaker 1: a quote from a prisoner and it reads, I realized
Speaker 1: that someone has found a way to make money off
Speaker 1: of my mistakes, my pain, my misfortune, and that right
Speaker 1: there was the biggest blow to the head. It was, Oh,
Speaker 1: my god, our country is so obsessed with incarcerating us
Speaker 1: and thinks we are such bad people that they're now
Speaker 1: making money off of us being bad, What sort of
Speaker 1: hope for us is there? And that really, I don't know.
Speaker 1: That just resonated with me. It's like it's it almost
Speaker 1: adds to the punishment in a way, to know that
Speaker 1: you are a commodity when you think about it. The
Speaker 1: existence of private prison companies is an acceptance of the
Speaker 1: idea that we can and should be profiting off the
Speaker 1: caging of human beings, that we need to be putting
Speaker 1: more people into the criminal justice system so that we
Speaker 1: can fill the beds, and these private facilities in turn
Speaker 1: a profit right. The facility makes money if all of
Speaker 1: its beds are filled, and they make less money if
Speaker 1: we as a country begin to decarceorate. So you see
Speaker 1: the private prison lobby pushing back against what I think
Speaker 1: has been a trend across the country of people saying
Speaker 1: the war on drugs was a mistake. The tough on
Speaker 1: crime mentality of these politicians is wrong, long and immoral,
Speaker 1: and we need to be decarcerating. We need to be
Speaker 1: thinking about ways to keep people out of the criminal
Speaker 1: justice system. That doesn't help private prison companies. Private prison
Speaker 1: companies want the machinery of incarceration to continue to churn
Speaker 1: because that's what makes them money, and so there's something
Speaker 1: inherently immoral about that at its base. One other topic
Speaker 1: that I wanted to touch on was I've read arguments
Speaker 1: for private prisons that that are along the lines of
Speaker 1: the government tends to be bad at things like innovation
Speaker 1: and private organizations. Private businesses are where innovation really happens.
Speaker 1: And so Coursivic says its mission is better outcomes and
Speaker 1: a safer society. That's a great mission. It's also an
Speaker 1: invitation for innovation. But looking through all of the available data,
Speaker 1: I didn't see very much innovation going on in Coursivic
Speaker 1: facilities or any private prisons. Are you aware of any
Speaker 1: innovation taking place? Not by course Civic, but I I
Speaker 1: would push back on the idea that we should care
Speaker 1: the most about. There's no innovative way to cage a
Speaker 1: human being, right There's so there's nothing innovative about the
Speaker 1: private prison model. I could understand innovation in other industries,
Speaker 1: but we're talking about mass caging of human beings. When
Speaker 1: you frame it in that light, and you're like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: private prisons could innovate here, like you could hear how
Speaker 1: ridiculous that sounds, right? I grant you that that sounds
Speaker 1: sound ridiculous. However, just one idea. For instance, what if
Speaker 1: governments mandated perform and space contracts with goals like recidivism reduction,
Speaker 1: for instance, to truly incentivize the system, to try to
Speaker 1: prevent people from winding up back in the system. Sure,
Speaker 1: maybe there's a contract that could improve outcomes, but I
Speaker 1: would posit that the private corporation would say that, well,
Speaker 1: that's not the business I'm in, Like, that's that's not
Speaker 1: going to help me maximize my profit. And they are
Speaker 1: there to turn a profit. Whatever their mission statement is.
Speaker 1: Businesses have to fulfill their mission statement in a way
Speaker 1: that earns their shareholders money, and so I just don't
Speaker 1: see them being willing to do something like that in
Speaker 1: a meaningful way that actually changes outcomes for people. All right, Sharon,
Speaker 1: is there anything else on this topic that you think
Speaker 1: listeners ought to know. The one thing that I think
Speaker 1: is worth mentioning here is that Biden's executive order only
Speaker 1: applies to the Department of Justice contracts. So a trend
Speaker 1: that we are seeing across the country right now is
Speaker 1: that as these contracts expire and are not renewed, pursuant
Speaker 1: to the executive order. Private corporations like Coursivic and Geo
Speaker 1: Group are looking to other federal agencies for contracts to
Speaker 1: try to fill those beds, such as ICE. So they
Speaker 1: are looking to turn these empty facilities into immigration detention facilities,
Speaker 1: which raises a whole host of additional concerns, one of
Speaker 1: them being that we were able to know what was
Speaker 1: happening inside of Courcivic in part because the people who
Speaker 1: are incarcerated at that facility in leaven Worth were all
Speaker 1: pre trial, meaning they had to be able to contact
Speaker 1: their lawyers whenever they wanted, and their lawyers had to
Speaker 1: be able to contact them to prepare for their defense.
Speaker 1: So the federal public defenders were able to sound the
Speaker 1: alarm on what was happening here because they had this
Speaker 1: right of acts us that's inherent for pre child attention facilities.
Speaker 1: If this turns into an ICE facility, that access goes away,
Speaker 1: and that means we will have even less of an
Speaker 1: idea of what's happening inside. And these are people who,
Speaker 1: by many many arguments, should not be in a detention
Speaker 1: setting at all, agreed, and that's that's a big part
Speaker 1: of course civics business as I understand, of all the
Speaker 1: private prison companies, Coursivic is the one that is biggest
Speaker 1: into immigration detention. And we could just see it get
Speaker 1: worse because of the ending of the contracts with BOP
Speaker 1: and the US Martial Service and then turning those facilities
Speaker 1: into ice facilities just so they can keep the beds
Speaker 1: field and still have money made on that institution. And
Speaker 1: why why do we put them in prison? What is
Speaker 1: the rationale? That is a question for somebody who is
Speaker 1: in favor of detaining people who are awaiting de quortation.
Speaker 1: It's it's not the area of law that I have
Speaker 1: expertise in, and I've feel deeply that that these individuals
Speaker 1: can safely be in the community and should not be
Speaker 1: detained in warehouses like they are right now. Sharon. We
Speaker 1: have something on calling BS that we call the B
Speaker 1: S scale. So on a scale of zero to one
Speaker 1: hundred being the worst total BS and zero being the
Speaker 1: best zero BS, what score would you give Course Civic.
Speaker 1: I mean, so one fifty is not an option here?
Speaker 1: Is that? Is that what you're saying? It max is
Speaker 1: out at a hundred, But if you want to go
Speaker 1: to a hundred fleas I think you know what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say here and it's and it's a hundred beautiful.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thanks for thank you for coming on
Speaker 1: the show. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: been great to be here. The conversation with Sharon confirmed
Speaker 1: a couple of concerns that I initially had about privatization
Speaker 1: of the prison system. Course Civic lacks transparency, and the
Speaker 1: business model is pretty troubling. Ideally, in a purpose led company,
Speaker 1: the purpose and the business model are aligned. In other words,
Speaker 1: the more the company succeeds at delivering on its purpose,
Speaker 1: the better it does financially. In the case of Courcivic,
Speaker 1: and to be fair other private prison companies, that doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to be the case, and that corrodes trust. So folks,
Speaker 1: it's time to make the call. Is Courcivic a bullshitter?
Speaker 1: Based on what I've heard so far? I got to
Speaker 1: agree with Sharon and call BS. But remember, on this
Speaker 1: show we believe b S is a treatable condition. So
Speaker 1: after the break, we'll hear from two more experts in
Speaker 1: incarceration and prison reform about some ideas that might just
Speaker 1: help Courcivic actually deliver its purpose stick with us. Before
Speaker 1: the break, we concluded that there is a pretty sizable
Speaker 1: gap between word and deed at Core Civic. So we've
Speaker 1: called b s now. The question is what should CEO
Speaker 1: David Heineger and his leadership team due to fix it.
Speaker 1: The cure is positive action. So I've asked two experts
Speaker 1: in the law and in prison reform to join us
Speaker 1: to propose some concrete things that cour Civic should change
Speaker 1: to better practice what it preaches, says our Hernandez, and
Speaker 1: David Sefabian says a welcome to the show. Could you
Speaker 1: tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Nand this
Speaker 1: I'm professor at Ohio States at University, where I hold
Speaker 1: the Gregory Williams Charing Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. And
Speaker 1: I'm the author of Migrating to Prison, America's obsession with
Speaker 1: locking up immigrants and the commigration law. Great to have
Speaker 1: you here. Thank you. And David Sefabian, welcome to Calling Bullshit.
Speaker 1: Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm David s. Fabian. I am the director of the
Speaker 1: Nolan Center for Justice, the American Conservative Union Foundation. I
Speaker 1: am a former White House official or former chief of
Speaker 1: staff for a member of Congress and someone who has
Speaker 1: spent a year in federal prison, and I've seen all
Speaker 1: sides of the criminal justice debate, and my passion is
Speaker 1: fixing the system. So let's get right into some ideas
Speaker 1: for cour Civic. Say sorry, I'm going to ask you
Speaker 1: to go first. In two minutes or less, what's the
Speaker 1: number one thing that cour Civic should do to better
Speaker 1: live up to their mission. I think Corsivic actually has
Speaker 1: a lot of its disposal by providing wrap around services
Speaker 1: that support people as they're going through what are, in
Speaker 1: some circumstances, very high stakes legal proceedings. And this happens
Speaker 1: um in the context of the migrants who are being
Speaker 1: held by Course Civic on behalf of government agencies like
Speaker 1: the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. Those are individuals who
Speaker 1: are in the midst of legal proceedings before the nation's
Speaker 1: immigration courts, and so Course off it could, for example,
Speaker 1: focus its resources on providing case management services, providing access
Speaker 1: to social workers who would be able to help people
Speaker 1: navigate the stress and the anxiety that goes along with
Speaker 1: legal proceedings in which very meaningful, life changing, life altering
Speaker 1: decisions are to be made, and also ensure that its locations.
Speaker 1: Its facilities are located in places where others can access
Speaker 1: them and by by others. And I'm talking about low years.
Speaker 1: So so don't locate your facilities in the middle of
Speaker 1: uh the Arizona Desert, for example, but instead and in
Speaker 1: or near large metropolitan areas where legal services organizations are present,
Speaker 1: where courts are located. And I also think that journalists
Speaker 1: play an important role here in maintaining oversight of these facilities,
Speaker 1: and so locating facilities in places where you do have
Speaker 1: larger media markets would actually provide a separate and independent
Speaker 1: source of eyes and ears to what's happening inside these facilities.
Speaker 1: That would think ultimately improve the likelihood of success for
Speaker 1: the government agencies with which course of your contracts thank
Speaker 1: you say sorry? Okay, David, You're next in two minutes
Speaker 1: or less. What is the number one thing cours Civic
Speaker 1: should be doing better to deliver on what they say
Speaker 1: that they stand for. Well, let me just before we
Speaker 1: get to that, I think I want to challenge those
Speaker 1: are on something, or maybe it's we're going to challenge
Speaker 1: the topic. There are too fundamentally different missions for companies
Speaker 1: like Course Civic and the solutions that says are and
Speaker 1: others have suggested differ based on the mission set. So,
Speaker 1: for example, when you're talking about detention based on criminal charge, right,
Speaker 1: you know private prisons in the kind of way people
Speaker 1: most think about them. You know my understanding and I
Speaker 1: have two or course IT facilities. My understanding is that
Speaker 1: they do provide wrap around services for people who are
Speaker 1: serving a sentence based on criminal conduct. And they do
Speaker 1: that for a number of reasons. One is they're often
Speaker 1: contractually obligated to do so, and two because providing those
Speaker 1: types of services healthcare, mental health, and hygiene education, those
Speaker 1: wrap around services reduce recidivism, which goes directly to core
Speaker 1: Civics mission statement. Right. That is a different value proposition
Speaker 1: than immigration detention, where the end state is going to
Speaker 1: be one of two things. Either the folks who were
Speaker 1: being detained our return to their home countries or they're
Speaker 1: going to be admitted to the United States under under
Speaker 1: immigration procedures. In either case, the value proposition of providing
Speaker 1: a full suite of wrap around services is different. All right,
Speaker 1: what's the end goal? The end goal and the immigration
Speaker 1: detention is to figure out what we do with people
Speaker 1: A recidivism is not the driver in that circumstances, whereas
Speaker 1: recidivism is the driver for people who are serving a
Speaker 1: criminal sentence. So I think that that's an important point.
Speaker 1: I came back from a trip in where we saw
Speaker 1: European prisons, and what was fascinating about the way that
Speaker 1: the Europeans handle their incarceration system is the same people
Speaker 1: that are designated to guard inmates are also the people
Speaker 1: that are providing social services, so their social workers first,
Speaker 1: in their guard second. That is a totally different model
Speaker 1: than what we have primarily in the United States. And
Speaker 1: that is the type of thing where you know, people
Speaker 1: who were detained can build bonds, can find mentors, and
Speaker 1: the people that are paid to guard them and to
Speaker 1: make sure that the facilities are safe are also contributing
Speaker 1: to their potential rehabilitation. So that's where I see areas
Speaker 1: were Corsific and other companies and quite frankly, other entities
Speaker 1: government and non government can improve. I think that's an
Speaker 1: interesting idea as well. So it's it's my turn, and
Speaker 1: then we'll just see where the conversation takes us. You know,
Speaker 1: as I've been reading about this and talking to folks,
Speaker 1: it's become clear to me that you know, there are
Speaker 1: lots of issues, but I think the main issue, the
Speaker 1: issue that causes people to mistrust in many cases, the
Speaker 1: whole idea of a private prison is the business model.
Speaker 1: It is misaligned with the stated mission of the company.
Speaker 1: If you say that you're trying to create safe environments
Speaker 1: that emphasize education and safe return to society, it's pretty
Speaker 1: hard to reconcile that with the profit motive. There are
Speaker 1: just huge incentives to cut corners everywhere in safety, in
Speaker 1: mental and physical health care, nutrition, education, or any other
Speaker 1: rehabilitation services that you might want to engage in. So
Speaker 1: one of the biggest complaints that I've heard about and
Speaker 1: read about is lack of access to actual data about
Speaker 1: conditions and about outcomes inside Course Civic facilities. Because these
Speaker 1: are private facilities, they aren't subject to things like the
Speaker 1: Freedom of Information Act, So as an act of altruism,
Speaker 1: almost to build trust, Course Civic needs to get radically transparent,
Speaker 1: more transparent than the law requires, more transparent than shareholders demand.
Speaker 1: So my idea is for Course Civic to proactively publish
Speaker 1: all of the data about their outcomes, good, bad, and ugly,
Speaker 1: anonymized appropriately of course, rather than waiting for the government
Speaker 1: to mandate it, or or some other group to complain
Speaker 1: about it. Do it because it's the right thing to do,
Speaker 1: and because to aligned with with the corsific mission. I
Speaker 1: can I challenge and something before we go down at
Speaker 1: rabbit hole, I encourage it. So I think that the
Speaker 1: way you've set that up is not merely unfair, but
Speaker 1: really inaccurate. I don't think that you can square the
Speaker 1: statement that the traditional profit margin issues of a private
Speaker 1: sector entity go to everything from the conditions of incarceration
Speaker 1: or the quality of the food or the quality of
Speaker 1: the healthcare. And let me just give you a couple
Speaker 1: of examples. I was incarcerated. The food that we received
Speaker 1: and I was in a federal federal facility. The food
Speaker 1: that we received expired food out of femal warehouses. There
Speaker 1: is no guarantee whatsoever that because the prisoners are being
Speaker 1: imprisoned by federal employees that the circumstances are any better.
Speaker 1: And and you know what really troubles me is, as
Speaker 1: a former government contracts lare I understand how performance based
Speaker 1: contracting works. And it's a simple concept. It sounds complicated
Speaker 1: and it's simple. The idea is you set forward standards,
Speaker 1: and if the contractor hits those standards, they're rewarded, and
Speaker 1: if contractor doesn't hit those standards, they're penalized. And after
Speaker 1: a certain point, if they continue not hitting those standards,
Speaker 1: the contract is cut. You can't do that with unionized employees.
Speaker 1: You cannot do that with government institutions. It is not
Speaker 1: possible to do that. I hear that, But my idea,
Speaker 1: to be clear, is for Coursivic to proactively publish all
Speaker 1: of the data about outcomes, which I don't think they
Speaker 1: do unless I've got that wrong. There there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of coverage of it being very hard to get
Speaker 1: information out of Coursivic. In two thousand and five, for instance,
Speaker 1: there was a bill called the Private Prison Information Act,
Speaker 1: which attempted to force any private entity contracting with the
Speaker 1: government to agree to release information about its operations under
Speaker 1: the same requirements as the Freedom of Information Act, and
Speaker 1: course Civic actively lobbied against it, and it was defeated.
Speaker 1: And so it's actions like that that leave you with
Speaker 1: the strong impression that they have something to hide, even
Speaker 1: if they don't. I totally agree with you that that's
Speaker 1: a self inflicted wound that creates a trust gap. I
Speaker 1: am all for transparency. It's pretty hard to advocate on
Speaker 1: criminal justice matters, and I don't advocate on private prison
Speaker 1: issues whatsoever, but it's hard to advocate criminal justice matters
Speaker 1: when you don't have data to rely on. But I
Speaker 1: will point out one thing, and since you know, kind
Speaker 1: of the operating theme underneath all of this is private
Speaker 1: prisons are worse than public prisons. That there's not a
Speaker 1: whole heck of a lot of disclosure coming out of
Speaker 1: the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Either. That's true, but you
Speaker 1: can get it at it ostensibly through the Freedom of
Speaker 1: Information Act. And and the problem there is fragmentation right
Speaker 1: like it's it's there is no central database. I actually
Speaker 1: think we have a lot of information about what course
Speaker 1: if it does specifically explicitly, I should say, because of
Speaker 1: the fact that it is a publicly traded corporation. As
Speaker 1: a result, it files annual reports with the Securities and
Speaker 1: Exchange Commission, It files quarterly reports with the SEC anytime
Speaker 1: it's looking to to issue a new round of bonds,
Speaker 1: it issues statements it's trying to lure investors. It holds
Speaker 1: a conference cause that I've tuned into, and so as
Speaker 1: a result, I actually think we have a lot of
Speaker 1: information about coursifics operations, and FOYA is a meaningful transparency law,
Speaker 1: but it's not the only transparency law in the United States.
Speaker 1: The States also have transparency laws, and so when it
Speaker 1: comes to coursifics operations, on behalf of states government agencies,
Speaker 1: sometimes state transparency laws government secrecy laws actually allow access
Speaker 1: to more information than does the Freedom of Information Act
Speaker 1: at the federal level. But I'd say that that of
Speaker 1: the many shortcomings with coursivics operations, it's not a lack
Speaker 1: of nation about what is happening in its decision making processes.
Speaker 1: And I would just jump on and actually take it
Speaker 1: one step further, and that is all across the criminal
Speaker 1: justice system, there is a lack of independent oversight regardless
Speaker 1: of whether the operator of the facility is a private
Speaker 1: sector entity or a public sector entity. There just is
Speaker 1: an independent oversight. Yeah, that's a great point and much needed.
Speaker 1: I agree, David. Can I follow up on your idea
Speaker 1: around rethinking the role of guards. It seems very logical
Speaker 1: to me that one possible advantage of privatizing government functions
Speaker 1: like prisons is that private companies tend to be better
Speaker 1: at innovation. Like if you say your mission is better
Speaker 1: outcomes and a safer society, that's a great mission, and
Speaker 1: it's also an invitation for innovation. But I don't see
Speaker 1: much of it at core Civic. So a do I
Speaker 1: have that right and and be what other kinds of innovations?
Speaker 1: My cour civic explorer, I would say that it is
Speaker 1: difficult to drive innovation when the broader terms of custody
Speaker 1: are governed not by the entity managing the people, but
Speaker 1: are are governed by sets of rules and laws that
Speaker 1: are imposed by Congress and by the Bureau of Prisons
Speaker 1: or by the state direct corrections departments. For example. You know,
Speaker 1: we know that people age out of crime, right We
Speaker 1: know for a fact that the older you get, the
Speaker 1: less likely that the person is going to reoffend. And
Speaker 1: so one of the ways to leverage that, take advantage
Speaker 1: of it, to reduce costs and reduce population is to
Speaker 1: move people as they age beyond the walls, you know,
Speaker 1: still holding them accountable, still putting restrictions on them, but
Speaker 1: moving them outside of a traditional prison environment, whether it's
Speaker 1: cour civic or anybody else. You cannot do that under
Speaker 1: current law. They are charged with holding people until the
Speaker 1: court says that they're no longer to be held, and
Speaker 1: so those types of innovations are really stifled by what
Speaker 1: I would argue is a flexible and desperately in need
Speaker 1: of updating criminal justice system. I would add to that
Speaker 1: that they're oftentimes there has to be a reason to innovate,
Speaker 1: and so long as they're meeting the expectations of their
Speaker 1: governmental partners, their governmental customers, and reaping the financial rewards
Speaker 1: of that, then there is no reason to innovia. So
Speaker 1: I actually think that the federal and state governments that
Speaker 1: contract with Course Civic are actually very key actors in
Speaker 1: the likelihood of Course Civic innovating. By demanding innovations, they
Speaker 1: hold the keys to the government treasury, and as a result,
Speaker 1: if they want to see Course Civic move in a
Speaker 1: particular direction, then they have the power to do that. Right.
Speaker 1: What if government's mandated performance based contracts with goals like
Speaker 1: recidivism reduction, for instance, to truly incentivize innovation. Why isn't
Speaker 1: that going on? Well, you're starting to see that. You're
Speaker 1: starting to see that at some of the state levels.
Speaker 1: I know they've implemented performance based contracting in Pennsylvania, for example,
Speaker 1: with some of their private sector companies. You know, it
Speaker 1: takes a little bit of time to put together meaningful
Speaker 1: performance metrics to judge a company by how they're doing things.
Speaker 1: You have all kinds of questions across the private prison
Speaker 1: spectrum in terms of what is to be measured, how
Speaker 1: it is to be measured, what are the stretch goals
Speaker 1: versus regular goals versus penalty levels. It's not easy to
Speaker 1: do performance based contracting, and it really requires somebody with
Speaker 1: knowledge in the contracting space and somebody knowledge in the
Speaker 1: criminal justice space. Now, I will tell you this, one
Speaker 1: of the things that I think everybody would love to
Speaker 1: see is performance space contracting based on recidivism numbers. And
Speaker 1: the biggest challenge there is something very simple. Everybody defines
Speaker 1: recidivism in a different way. So we need to be
Speaker 1: able to compare apples to apples when it comes to corsifics,
Speaker 1: largest contracts in of the company's revenue came from the
Speaker 1: Immigration and Customs and forth mean agency. So we just
Speaker 1: shy thirty of the company's entire revenue in each of
Speaker 1: those years coming from a single government agency. So let
Speaker 1: me talk a little bit about that single government agency
Speaker 1: ICE and the standards that exist. So ICE actually has,
Speaker 1: going back more than a decade now, issued what it
Speaker 1: calls performance based National Detention Standards. This is a series
Speaker 1: of rather long and detailed expectations that it imposes on
Speaker 1: all of the government contractors, including Course Civic. And yet
Speaker 1: the agency has never been willing to make these binding.
Speaker 1: That is, it has never actually required these companies, including
Speaker 1: cours Civic, to meet those detention standards and certainly not
Speaker 1: imposing consequences for failing to meet those detention standards. Is
Speaker 1: the agency is just unwilling to a contract. That's been
Speaker 1: true under President Obama, that's been true under President Trump,
Speaker 1: and you know, we'll see how things shake out under
Speaker 1: President Biden. But I'm not holding my breath because the
Speaker 1: politics have not changed sufficiently to turn the agency into
Speaker 1: one that is willing to say two companies like Corcivic,
Speaker 1: you actually have to meet these attention standards, and if
Speaker 1: you don't, there are the severest consequences are coming for you,
Speaker 1: and by that we mean we're cutting you off. Shocker
Speaker 1: that a federal agency can't figure out how to do
Speaker 1: good performance based contracting. I think though, that well two things.
Speaker 1: One is, it's difficult to criticize a company for not
Speaker 1: going beyond the terms of the contract if that's not
Speaker 1: the measure by which the agency intends to hold them accountable. Right.
Speaker 1: But I think the second point is, again, immigration is
Speaker 1: a different set of metrics and performance for private prison companies.
Speaker 1: The goal of incarceration for people who have been convicted
Speaker 1: of the crime, one of the goals is rehabilitation. That's
Speaker 1: arguably the most important after segregation and maintaining public safety.
Speaker 1: That is a different matter than the goal of detention.
Speaker 1: For immigration, which is purely a segregation matter. Is taking
Speaker 1: people who have been identify fight as being here illegally
Speaker 1: and holding them until they can determine what they do
Speaker 1: with them. And re entry is is a different animal
Speaker 1: altogether when you're talking about immigration detention versus criminal justice detention. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think when when we're talking about it, almost a
Speaker 1: third right cent of revenue coming from the Immigration Customs
Speaker 1: Enforcement Agency. Even if I'd say the position that David's
Speaker 1: articulating that this is a different form of incarceration, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a rather significant form of incarceration for for
Speaker 1: this particular company. For Cours civic, and so I would
Speaker 1: hope that they would be thinking about the complexities um
Speaker 1: and the distinctions between this and other forms. I think
Speaker 1: we all in the criminal justice community kind of get
Speaker 1: caught up in the vernacular all the terms, you know,
Speaker 1: justice impacted or ex offender or re entry. Here's what
Speaker 1: we're really talking about. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: when that person walks out of prison, are they likely
Speaker 1: to reoffend and revictimize people in their community. That is
Speaker 1: a totally different matter than immigration, where the outcome at
Speaker 1: the end of the incarceration is likely deportation. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would take issue with with that point, but I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that it's actually relevant to what coursifc does, and
Speaker 1: of Coursivic does what it's asked to do by the
Speaker 1: government agencies that it contracts for, and so I would
Speaker 1: agree with your earlier point, David, that it's a little
Speaker 1: hard to criticize the company for not doing what it's
Speaker 1: not being asked to do. I think here the criticism
Speaker 1: is rightfully placed with those government agencies and with the
Speaker 1: elect officials who ultimately make the policies, the laws and
Speaker 1: the policies that direct the operations of those government agencies,
Speaker 1: And so I'd prefer to focus on my energy on
Speaker 1: thinking about to what extent is Congress as the bureau prisons, immigration, cousins,
Speaker 1: Enforcement Agency, et cetera. You know what extent are they
Speaker 1: poorly incentivizing Courcivic to live up to its desires to aspirations,
Speaker 1: at least as articulated earlier by Thai referencing it's it's
Speaker 1: it's missions. I want to build on the direction that
Speaker 1: this this conversation has has taken in this movie of us,
Speaker 1: maybe slightly away from course Civic, But I'll start with
Speaker 1: just a question. Do we think that private prisons and
Speaker 1: the privatization of the prison system is a result of,
Speaker 1: or related to the US culture of of mass incarceration.
Speaker 1: The reason I bring this up is because back in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one when Dwight Eisenhower, when he was leaving office,
Speaker 1: his final warning to the American people was about the
Speaker 1: rising power of what he called the military industrial complex.
Speaker 1: And today we see the U S engaged in what
Speaker 1: have become called forever Wars. Do either of you worry
Speaker 1: that we're seeing the rise of the prison industrial complex.
Speaker 1: Government and the private sector wrapped together around the most
Speaker 1: vulnerable members of society essentially feeding off their misery. I
Speaker 1: think that that might have been a plausible narrative going
Speaker 1: back into the early two thousand's, particularly the aspect related
Speaker 1: to the private sector company. There is I won't use
Speaker 1: the term collusion, but there's certainly alignment between incarceration and
Speaker 1: economic development. It's perceived by local officials. Have you ever
Speaker 1: tried to close a federal prison or even a state prison.
Speaker 1: You get protesters all over the place because it's loss
Speaker 1: of jobs. So it's not a prison industrial complex per se,
Speaker 1: but certainly some of the actors in the criminal justice
Speaker 1: system have a bias towards maintaining prisons that have to
Speaker 1: be filled. And most of those actors are people who
Speaker 1: are feeding at the trough, whether they are corrections officers,
Speaker 1: prison administrators, vendors selling food to the commissaries, all the
Speaker 1: way up and down the chain to prosecutors and law enforcement.
Speaker 1: I would echo that m concerning I actually say at
Speaker 1: the state level, this is actually a much more pressing
Speaker 1: issue because there you're dealing would local elected officials, often
Speaker 1: state legislators and county commissioners, sheriffs, who really quite clearly
Speaker 1: is see prisons as economic development opportunity these or economic
Speaker 1: development engines, and it's not at all abstract because those
Speaker 1: are the people who live in those communities. And often
Speaker 1: these are very rural communities, they're isolated communities. These are
Speaker 1: places where well paying jobs, decent paying jobs, are hard
Speaker 1: to come by. And so the thoughts that your two
Speaker 1: hundred person private prison facility is about to close down
Speaker 1: means that two hundred of your constituents are about to
Speaker 1: go out of a job. And that's a concern for
Speaker 1: any elected official who's thinking about re election. It's also
Speaker 1: just a concern for a neighbor right, who's thinking about
Speaker 1: livelihoods of the people who live down the street from them, right,
Speaker 1: who make that community. Whatever, whatever the community is, they
Speaker 1: are that community. Okay, this has been a great conversation, um,
Speaker 1: but there are a couple of things that I need
Speaker 1: to do to wrap us up. I want to each
Speaker 1: of you to give Course Civic a B S score,
Speaker 1: So on a scale of zero to one hundred being
Speaker 1: the worst total b S and zero roal being the
Speaker 1: best zero bs. What would you give Course Civic based
Speaker 1: on how they are are delivering on their mission? Say sorry,
Speaker 1: why don't you go first, Yeah, I think i'd say
Speaker 1: they're they're sevent bs. We'll take it. And David, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody in this space is perfect. I
Speaker 1: think there's always room for improvement. But I don't think
Speaker 1: the core Civic is the company that has been demonized,
Speaker 1: or I don't think the company reflects some of the
Speaker 1: allegations out there. I'd give him a fifteen. That's great.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here today, both of you.
Speaker 1: This was this was a lot of fun. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate you taking the times. So, folks, it's time to
Speaker 1: give Course Civic our official BS score. As you've heard today,
Speaker 1: this one is complicated, so actually a little hard to
Speaker 1: make this call because our experts were so divided. Sharon
Speaker 1: gave them a hundred, says are seventy and David gave
Speaker 1: them fifteen. Because their business model doesn't align with their purpose,
Speaker 1: and because they lack transparency, I've decided to give Course
Speaker 1: Civic a sixty eight. To weigh in with your own
Speaker 1: score or to leave us a message, visit our website
Speaker 1: Calling Bullshit Podcast dot com. We'll track Course Civic's behavior
Speaker 1: over time to see if they can bring that score
Speaker 1: down you'll also be able to see where they rank
Speaker 1: on BS compared to the other companies we feature on
Speaker 1: this show. And if you're running a purpose led business
Speaker 1: or you're thinking of beginning the journey of transformation to
Speaker 1: become one, here are three things you should take away
Speaker 1: from this episode. One, your business model and your purpose
Speaker 1: need to align. That's one of the first principles of
Speaker 1: being purpose led. It's why being purpose led is different
Speaker 1: than engaging in corporate social responsibility. That old fashioned model
Speaker 1: held that companies could make their money anyway they wanted
Speaker 1: and then spend some of their profits on good causes
Speaker 1: to solve their souls. In course civics case, they make
Speaker 1: money on the number of prisoners in their facilities, not
Speaker 1: on successfully rehabilitating them and reintroducing them to society. That's
Speaker 1: a problem. Two. Action is always the cure. Today we
Speaker 1: discussed actions for cour civic like actively engaging with the
Speaker 1: government to create contracts that give them financial incentives to
Speaker 1: achieve their purpose of successfully reintroducing people to society and
Speaker 1: reducing recidivism, and ideas like hiring social workers as prison guards,
Speaker 1: or ideas like becoming proactively transparent with their data and
Speaker 1: holding themselves accountable for hitting the key metrics outlined in
Speaker 1: their purpose, the actions for your company will undoubtedly be different.
Speaker 1: The point is doing is believing and three hope is
Speaker 1: not a strategy, and neither is hiding. Unlike many of
Speaker 1: the organizations we've covered this season, cour Civic isn't a
Speaker 1: household name, but that definitely does not mean that they
Speaker 1: won't eventually be held accountable. Reform in this industry is inevitable.
Speaker 1: So no matter what industry you're in, if you're hoping
Speaker 1: to exist behind the scenes and under the radar and
Speaker 1: get away with being accountable only to your shareholders and
Speaker 1: not to your broader stakeholders, it's time for a new strategy.
Speaker 1: And David Heineger, CEO of Course Civic, if you ever
Speaker 1: want to come on this show to talk about any
Speaker 1: of of topics and ideas we've discussed today, you have
Speaker 1: an open invitation. I'd like to thank everyone who joined
Speaker 1: us today, Sharon Brett, David Sefabian, and say Sar Hernandez.
Speaker 1: You can find all of them on social media. We
Speaker 1: have all of their handles on our website, Calling Bullshit
Speaker 1: podcast dot com, and check out Saysar's books migrating to prison,
Speaker 1: America's obsession with locking up immigrants, and the krimmigration law.
Speaker 1: If you have ideas for companies or organizations we should
Speaker 1: consider for future episodes, you can submit them on the
Speaker 1: site too, And if we unlock something important for you today,
Speaker 1: Subscribe to the Calling Bullshit podcast on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: And thanks to our production team, Hannah Beal, Amanda Ginsburg,
Speaker 1: Andy Kim d s Moss, Hailey Pascalites, MICHAELA. Reid, Parker Silzer,
Speaker 1: Basil Soaper and me John Zulu. Calling Bullshit was created
Speaker 1: by co Collective and is hosted by Me Time onto you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening before you go, we'd love to hear
Speaker 1: what you think about the show. Maybe you were inspired
Speaker 1: to take action, maybe you disagree with today's bullshit rating.
Speaker 1: Either way, we want to hear about it. Leave us
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