Shifting Power and Profits Away from Private Prisons and Immigrant Detention

It was an honor to share space at Confluence this year with my friend and colleague Tanay Tatum-Edwards, Founder and CEO of FreeCap, and to be joined by a number of asset managers and philanthropic leaders who came in asking not just how do we comprehensively divest from the prison industrial complex,but what next? I personally love to spend time collectively imagining the “what next,” which so many of us are actively building through our actions and capital investments today.

We began the session with one question: “How many people can confidently say they’re not in any way financially supporting the prison industrial complex?” The Zoom room guessed correctly with their collective shrugs and head shakes, as we dove into the nuances of exposure to the private prison and immigrant detention industry. Namely, that when we talk about prison investment, we’re not merely talking about the direct holdings of GEO Group and CoreCivic stock, but interrogating our connections to an ecosystem of prison financers, ancillary companies, ETFs, and indexes.

So much of the design of private prison financialization is about making it not immediately transparent to any typical investor who might want to know what your money is actually doing, whether your investment is  in your 401k or your bank account or your investment portfolio or your organization’s endowment. At both Tanay’s company (FreeCap Financial), and my financial activist educational initiative (Real Money Moves), we see it as our responsibility to unveil those ties as step one to recognizing where capital can be yielded as a tool for democratizing safety, instead of commodifying exploitation.

Close to 80% of immigrant detention centers in the US are privately owned. Throughout our conversation, we illuminated victories of the past few years against these operations, including the grassroots #FamiliesBelongTogether campaign that helped influence the majority of big bank financing away from the industry, encouraged pension funds to boldly divest, and organized robust shareholder advocacy that pressured companies to prioritize a commitment to formerly incarcerated employees.

At the same time, we made sure to discuss how far we still have to go. Private corporations are winning contracts to manage repressive regimes of e-carceration. There is a federal ban on DOJ use of private prisons, but they did not address immigrant detention center contracts. And there remains the fact that every day during the Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of detainees continue to be locked up for profit. All this means is that our work is far from done.

With that, participants wanted to know where they should actively be directing money to build alternatives to incarceration. As impact investors, at Candide Group we work with families, foundations, and influencers who want their legacy to be one of contributing to real social change, especially for Black, Indigenous, and other historically marginalized and exploited communities. Our work as advisors is primarily through influencing direct investments and funds, across multiple sectors, geographies, and issue areas. The solutions to mass incarceration, and the disparate effects of racial capitalism at large, must be multi-faceted and transformative. I was excited to bring in live impact examples from our clients’ portfolios, such as a recent investment in ChiFresh Kitchen, a Black worker-owned food cooperative launched by formerly incarcerated women. Then there are companies like Everytable, Firebrand Artisan Breads, and Cornbread restaurants, who are thinking about not only creating jobs for those with criminal records, but actual power-shifting through their structures.

Investing in the antithesis to incarceration, however, doesn’t only mean investing in companies that focus on those returning from jails or prisons. For countless Black and brown individuals in our country, incarceration or detainment remains a looming fear of the near future. Therefore, robust community wealth building, opportunities for success, and safeguards from racist policing systems must be highly prioritized. It was at this point in the conservation that we were able to point to the beautiful transformative justice work of institutions like RESTORE Oakland. Then we emphasized the importance of infusing capital to justice-focused CDFIs that are best equipped to lend in their own Black and Native communities (as we do with Olamina Fund). And we praised the powerful vision of social enterprises like Navajo Power, who are working to make sure that tribal and impacted communities are receiving both the environmental and economic benefits of clean energy for generations to come.

Our money has multiplier effects, and not every pool of capital is necessarily the right vehicle to fund every social change strategy we need. However, all of our money has the potential to contribute (and is already contributing) to either lifting up or locking up communities.

What’s your money up to?

Disclosures: The securities identified and described do not represent all of the securities purchased, sold or recommended for client accounts. These specific companies highlighted are ones that have an explicit commitment to formerly incarcerated individuals, by way of their employment practices and mission statements. The reader should not assume that an investment in the securities identified was or will be profitable. Investments in private placements are subject to significant risks, including loss of the entire investment and are for accredited investors only pursuant to a specific investment’s offering documents. This information is provided for informational purposes only. T, this communication should not be deemed to be investment, legal or tax advice.