INSTITUTE INDEX: Under activist pressure, more banks drop private prisons
At a December 2018 protest outside a Chase bank in Manhattan, activists targeted the company's role in financing problematic projects, including private prisons. Chase has since committed to ending its relationship with the private prison industry. (Photo by Michael Nigro/Rainforest Action Network via Flickr.)
Month in which the stock prices of private prison giants CoreCivic of Tennessee and GEO Group of Florida peaked following the election of President Donald Trump, whose administration reversed an Obama-era policy phasing out private prison contracts: 4/2017
Month in which executives from both companies told investors and Wall Street analysts that they expected ICE contracts to be good for business: 8/2018
Percent of the total U.S. prison population held in private facilities today: 9
Percent of immigrant detainees held in private facilities: over 70
Amid mounting public and investor concerns about private prisons, percent of stock market value both companies have lost since the Trump-era peak: about 50
Year in which the corporate accountability committee of Families Belong Together, a broad coalition of organizations fighting Trump's family separation policy, joined with the Backers of Hate campaign to press banks to stop working with private prison companies: 2019
Month in which GEO Group's last remaining banking partner announced it would cut ties with the company: 8/2019
Total number of banks that have now taken steps to distance themselves from private prison companies: 8
Total value of credit lines and term loans that banks have pledged to not renew with GEO Group and CoreCivic: $2.35 billion
Percent of total financing currently available to these private prison companies that amount represents: 87.4
Number of banks that are still offering credit lines and term loans to CoreCivic: 5*
Of the five banks still working with CoreCivic, number headquartered in the South: 4
Before it committed to divesting from GEO Group, amount Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America agreed to lend the company: $90 million
Number of additional years that will keep the bank tied to the private prison company: 5
* Citizens of Providence, Rhode Island; First Tennessee Bank of Memphis, Tennessee; Pinnacle Bank of Nashville, Tennessee; Regions of Birmingham, Alabama; and Synovus Bank of Columbus, Georgia.
(Click on figure to go to source.)
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Sue Sturgis
Sue is the former editorial director of Facing South and the Institute for Southern Studies.