September 22, 2023
  • 12:08 pm Fall Convocation 2022: “The State of this University is Strong”
  • 9:37 pm Ogrin Brings the Thunder in Toros 12-3 rout; team plays for playoff championship tomorrow
  • 7:00 am Outstanding Professor Award Recipient’s Mic Drop Moment at Last Month’s Virtual Ceremony
  • 9:10 am Bookworms of the World Unite!
  • 7:46 pm Breaking News: All Students Living in Campus Housing Required to Receive COVID-19 Vaccine
  • 9:00 am CSUDH Esports Creates International Competition
  • 9:35 am Spring Commencement Ceremonies Get Brighter
  • 3:46 pm Breaking News: Spring Commencement Ceremonies Recieve Stadium Upgrade
  • 8:00 am Testing the Teachers (and All the Educators)
  • 9:30 am CSUDH Educators and School Employees, Vaccinated Next
  • 10:30 am For White People Only: Anti-Racism Workshop Addresses Racial Bias and Unity
  • 2:43 pm Greatness Personified: Remembering Kobe Bryant
  • 10:02 am Straight Down the Chimney and Into Your (Digital) Hands: Special Holiday Edition of The Bulletin!
  • 2:44 pm Did You Wake up Looking this Beautiful?
  • 11:43 am A Long History for University’s Newest Major
  • 5:15 pm Issue 5 of Bulletin Live! Collector’s Item! Worth its Weight in Digital Paper!
  • 4:06 pm Special Election Issue
  • 4:03 pm Three best Latinx Halloween & Horror Short Films available now on HBO Max
  • 9:49 am Issue 3 of CSUDH Bulletin Live if You Want It
  • 3:24 pm Hispanic Heritage Month Update
  • 2:00 pm South Bay Economic Forecast Goes Virtual
  • 3:52 pm BREAKING NEWS: Classes for Spring to be Online, CSU Chancellor Announces
  • 9:39 am “Strikes” and Solidarity
  • 8:30 am March Into History: Just 5 in 1970, CSUDH Growth Shaped by Historic Event
  • 8:30 am Will the Bulletin Make Today Tomorrow?
  • 9:04 am Different Neighborhoods Warrant Rubber Bullets or Traffic Control For Protesters
  • 5:07 pm STAFF EDITORIAL: Even Socially Distant, We All Have to Work Together
  • 5:47 pm Transcript of CSUDH President Parham’s Coronavirus Announcement
  • 10:46 am Cal State Long Beach Suspends Face-to-Face Classes; CSUDH Discussing Contingency Plans
  • 5:26 pm Things Black People Should be Able to Get Away with This Month
  • 10:25 am Latinx Students Need a Place to Call Home
  • 2:35 pm Will Time Run Out Before Funds for PEGS? [UPDATED]
  • 8:41 am Year of the Rat? What’s That?
  • 6:20 am Artist Who Gave Life to Death and Inspired Countless Others Gets His Due at Dominguez Hills
  • 5:16 pm Why I’m Rooting for Dr. Cornel West
  • 5:00 pm Under Fire from the Feds, Vaping’s Future is Cloudy
  • 3:28 pm We’re Going to Need a Bigger Boat; Tsunami 3.0 Hits Campus, Enrollment Swells
  • 1:22 pm THE FIRST ISSUE OF THE BULLETIN IS HERE
  • 4:48 pm University Weathering a Wave of New Students
  • 9:21 pm The Bulletin’s Public Records Request Offers Springboard to Launch Gender Equity Discussion at CSUDH
  • 4:27 pm Black is the New Black: Raising the Capital on the “B” Word
  • 10:53 am Guns Up for Arrest: Student advocacy group pushes for CSU No Gun Zones–Including the Police
  • 4:09 pm Staff Editorial: Words on the First
  • 8:42 pm Carson Mayor Blasts Media, Landmark Libel Case in Keynote Address
  • 9:27 am Free Speech Week Calendar of Events Update
  • 6:02 am Food for Thought: 40% of Students are Food Insecure
  • 3:12 pm Academic Senate Rejects CSU GE Task Force & Report
  • 3:06 pm Work To Be Done
  • 5:56 pm ASI Elections: What You Need to Know
  • 8:02 pm CSUDH President Parham Announces Cancer Diagnosis
  • 9:47 am CSUDH Art Professor’s 20-Year Journey Results in First Local Showing of Film
  • 9:13 pm Free Speech or Free Hate area?
  • 9:08 pm CSUDH’s Best & Brightest Shine at Student Research Day
  • 9:05 pm Academic Senate Approves Gender Equity Task Force
  • 12:37 pm When Dr. Davis speaks, Toros Pay Close Attention
  • 3:38 pm Investing in the Future: Dr. Thomas A. Parham Reflects on the Past Eight Months and Contemplates​ the University’s Future
  • 3:24 pm Green Olive to Open By End of Feb; Starbucks Not Until Fall
  • 3:20 pm Gov. Newsom’s Proposed Budget Hailed for Extensive Funding Increases
  • 3:08 pm Out of the Classroom: Labor and Community Organizing Course Aims to Teach Students How to Organize for Social Justice
  • 2:54 pm The Other Route in Professional Sports
  • 9:02 am Hail to the New Chief, CSUDH President Thomas Parham
  • 3:36 pm Career Center Holds Major/Minor Fair
  • 5:34 pm After Unexpected Delay, Undocumented Becomes More Intimate Theatrical Production
  • 1:30 pm What to Expect When You’re Expecting New Buildings
  • 7:49 pm CSUDH offers qualified students free laptops
  • 1:17 pm Peaches, Peaches, Peaches
  • 1:14 pm Bonner Crowned: The Fearless Leader
  • 1:10 pm A Legacy Defined: Cilecia Foster
  • 1:03 pm The Toros Sweep Stanislaus State, Start CCAA Championships 

By Jordan Darling, Editor-in-Chief 

An Introduction to Private Prisons

Private prisons have been in America since San Quentin opened in California in 1852. But their numbers swelled in the 1980s with the Reagan Administration’s “War on Drugs.” 

Critics of the private prison system focus their rebuke of the system on the inhumane way that private prisons are run. Opposers say that private prisons offer limited rehabilitation, little to no training for employees and poor medical care for inmates. Supporters of the institutions support the financial gain from the creation of jobs in areas where the prisons are located and the burden that is taken off of  state and federal systems from overcrowding.    

In 2016 the Obama administration announced a plan to phase out private, for-profit prisons, but the next year the Trump Administration reversed Obama’s decision. Private for-profit prisons played a large part in the Trump Administration’s  immigration policies,with those companies branching into immigrant detention centers in border states. 

California led the charge against these private detention centers, and the union that represents CSUDH’s instructors, played a large part in it by petitioning a large investment fund to pull its funding from the two largest for-profit prison providers. CFA’s work against was closely followed by a bill signed by the governor that pushes private prisons out of California by 2028. 

The Major Players

CalPERS is the largest pension fund in the United States with a reported $3.5 billion in assets and 1.9 million members as of 2018. The pension fund covers the entire CSU system including the 1,600 staff and faculty at CSUDH. 

The CFA is the union for CSU faculty which encompasses 28,000 employees throughout the 23 CSU’s. 

CoreCivic/GEO Group are the two largest private prison/immigration detention center management companies in the United States. CoreCivic has 77 facilities in the United States with six located in Calif. 27 percent of their contracts are with ICE. 

Robert (Rob) Bonta, Assemblymember for the Calif. Legislature, representative of the 18th Assembly District, encompassing the central East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Dates You Need to Know

Dec. 3, 2018, bill AB 33 was introduced and AB 32 was reintroduced by Assemblymember Rob Bonta. AB 33 would have prohibited California public retirement funds from renewing investments in private for-profit prisons and AB 32 prevents the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation signing new contracts with private for-profit prisons.

“It’s time we redirect our criminal justice system to value and prioritize effective prison rehabilitation programs, which will help minimize recidivism rates and maximize successes for inmates upon their reentry into society,” Bonta said.The second hearing for AB 33 was canceled by request on the author on April 24, 2019. 

April 14, 2019 the California Faculty Association, CFA, adopted a resolution to “actively engage CalPERS” on the matter of investing in private prisons at their 89th assembly. This came after the initial discussion in the fall 2017 assembly.      

“There must be a process when there is a standard of living and you are dealing with human life there should not be a profit involved period.” Samila Amanyraoufpoor, Political Action Chair for the CSUDH chapter.

Oct. 11 2019, Governor Gavin Newson signed bill AB 32 into law prohibiting the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation from signing new contracts with private, for-profit prisons, effectively ending their presence in the state by Jan 1, 2028. 

Oct. 21 2019,CalPERS, announced that it would be cutting financial ties and selling its $8.86 million position with two of the largest private, for-profit prison management companies in the United States, CoreCivic and GEO Group.  

In Conclusion

California is seeing a large scale divestiture from private for-profit prisons. Financially the state will no longer support the institutions, this is in direct opposition of the Trump administration’s policies regarding immigration detention. 

The divestiture is a step forward for humanitarian advocates. “As far as investments that was the first step but on a personal level, we are activists too. Activists are still working against them. As an individual we are still working on the quality of life of inmates.” Amanyraoufpoor said. California is the first state to divest fully. 

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