Prisons are big business, and business is good. The coming years look positively rosy for the private prison industry as it anticipates - and lobbies for - a wave of immigrants and prisoners of the war on terrorism.

Essentially, the "corrections" industry makes money by putting people behind bars for the government. Following the logic of the market, prison companies turn more profit with more people in jail. Stricter laws, longer sentencing and new categories of criminality are all positive signs in this "growth industry." Prison profiteers may be filling a dubious public need for more jails, but at the same time, they are driving expansion by creating the beds and then forcing the public to fill them. It's the old story of, "If we build it, they will come."

Case in point: Laredo, Texas. The Laredo area could soon be the site for an immigrant "superjail" with beds for 2,800 people, making it the largest private prison facility in the country.

The U.S. Marshals Service is asking companies to submit bids on building a prison that must be located within a 50-mile radius of a new federal courthouse in Laredo. Wackenhut Corporation, which boasts 21 percent of the private prison business in the United States, is collaborating with Webb County officials on one such proposal. Although the details are sketchy at this point, it appears Wackenhut is following a strategy used in deals inked with other counties in South and West Texas. The company identifies an economically impoverished area and assaults its leadership with promises of jobs, money and rejuvenation if only they will sign on the dotted line. Many Texas towns, stricken with permanent hard times from the demise of the agriculture and oil economy jump at the opportunity. The town I grew up in - Yorktown, Texas - even had a sign at the city limits which read, "Yorktown, Texas. A Great Place to Live. Where Your Neighbors Still Care. The Heart of Future State Prison Expansion."

The truth of the matter is that many jails are built on speculation, with the hope that prisoners may materialize to fill the beds. And if they don't, the fine print of the contract guarantees that the local government suffers, not the company. In short, risk is socialized while profit is privatized.

For example, Reeves County in West Texas is at extreme risk of defaulting on their $40 million bond note because they are unable to fill their jail. In this county of 15,000 people, such a loss would devastate the economy, perhaps permanently. Things have gotten so bad that the county has hired Tom DeLay's brother to lobby in Washington for more prisoners. Such the twisted logic of the industry goes.

Like much of politics in Laredo, things look mighty incestuous between the government and company officials. Wackenhut's attorney in the deal is Carlos Zaffirini, husband of state Senator Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, who is known as a "tough-on-crime" Democrat. Furthermore, Mr. Zaffirini is attorney for County Judge Louis Bruni who oversees the County Commissioner's Court. The members of this court have reinstated themselves as a Public Facility Corporation in order to issue revenue bonds to finance the superjail. The corporation, unlike the court, can issue bonds without a public referendum based on potential profits from the jail, which means that in the event of a default, the county would be responsible, not Wackenhut. Tellingly, Bruni told the Laredo Times that Wackenhut was the only private prison company to "visit us" about a proposal.

The pressure to fill the Laredo superjail is great. As facilities pop up around the state - new 500-bed facilities are in the works for Sierra Blanca and Encinal - stakeholders in both the private and public realm will be looking to the federal government to provide them with prisoners. This economic pressure generates political backing for stricter immigration laws. Steve Logan, CEO of Cornell Corrections, has shamelessly commented that Sept. 11 brought many benefits for the industry because of the "heightened focus on detention" of immigrants and suspected terrorists. In the '80s and '90s, drug offenders provided the fodder for the rapacious boom in incarceration. Now that the U.S. prison population has topped 2 million, the industry is looking to immigrants to sustain growth.

The idea of private prisons is fundamentally flawed. They do harm to our democratic process, our judicial system and our struggling communities. Laredoans and all Texans should oppose the construction of any new private prisons.

Wilder is an anthropology senior.

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