To: Sherry Appleton (WA-23), Sherry Appleton (WA-23), and Christine Rolfes (WA-23)
Shut Down For-Profit ICE Detention Centers and Prisons
Stop wasting taxpayer dollars on for-profit prison quotas established by private prison profiteers like the GEO Group, which lobbies for more strict laws to put more people in prison. The recent hunger strike by 750 of the 1,300 people being held in the Tacoma ICE Detention Center makes it clear that the GEO Group is continuing their history of human rights abuses and corruption.
Why is this important?
For-profit prisons have quotas, they don't want to end recidivism, they want a captive population. We have family members in ICE to meet quotas. We have more mentally ill family members in for-profit prisons than in mental health institutions. We have more prisoners than China, which has one billion more people than the USA does. We don't want to pay for these prisons-for-profit anymore. Put that money into mental health care, advocates, health services and affordable housing. Our communities need more support and services, not more prisons.