Private prison corporation of America created a vision that is being driven by the dominant model of business, more commonly referred to as “Managerial Capitalism” with shareholders being the number one priority.
As a manager at Private Prison Corporation of America (PPA), he was asked by his Supervisor to assess and recommend whether PPA should join other private prison corporations by making independent political expenditure and retain lobbyists to seek passage of the proposed Law on Safe Neighborhood Act & Associated Law enforcement.
After analyzing and researching the proposed law, it might reciprocate into profits for PPA, however that would be morally unethical and at the cost of no consideration to the stakeholders involved. This would provide the police unwarranted rights to determine a person’s legal status and potentially innocents to be incarcerated. The manager would recommend not to support the bill and stay out of the debate. His arguments to reinforce this stance are stated below.
“The growing political influence of private prison companies is the most chilling example of what happens when large corporations are able to spend large amounts of money to buy favor with elected officials.
As the size of the private prison industry grows, so too does its ability to corrupt the political process. The result is a vicious cycle in which more and more people end up behind bars.” http://www.everyvoicecenter.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/05/PICO_Report_Private_Prisons_Final .pdf.)
This citation endorses the manager’s view point as monetary expansion leads to unjust authority.
This further substantiates the claim that more people (innocent or guilty) would be incarcerated for an extended duration maximizing the profits of PPA. Unaccounted payments to political parties in order to successfully execute this strategy would jeopardize the privacy/safety of the stakeholders, conflicting the ethical and moral values.
Michael Cohen of the Washington Post reported that “the influence of private prisons creates a system that trades money for human freedom, often at the expense of the nation’s most vulnerable populations: children, immigrants and the poor”. – “Michael Cohen on Private Prisons”
The powerful statement above elucidates that what we require is a reform in terms of who we incarcerate and who we exonerate. The proposed law would oppress our citizens and all that would be only for short term profit maximization. In the words of Edward Freeman “Managing for stakeholders is about creating value without resorting to trade-offs”. This is exactly how we need to approach the situation, by balancing both ends.
“If private prisons step over the line from lobbying into bribery, they are subject to civil and criminal liability. As a result, submitting to limits on their political activities could reduce the costs associated with compliance along with the risk of public backlash” (18 U.S.C. §201.).
After the manager looks at the proposed law, he should ask himself “Am I okay with the consequences of this action?”. The manager and shareholders individually have ethical values and supporting this law would oppose every morale value they hold. Suppose the state law were to be implemented and the lobbying would be undisclosed, the manager would be acting on behalf of the shareholders and eventually this would seep out to public through error, shareholder actions or even lawsuits. This would defeat the entire purpose of implementing the law.
One of the reasons the manager would recommend against the proposed law is the occupancy clause in Private Prisons. PPAs’ would exponentially expand by securing contracts with minimum occupancy clauses of over 80% in various states which will ensure inflow of prisoners even when crime rates are lower. If the crime rates are low, this is how the PPA would still be making money out of it. That’s because the suspected people would not even be given a chance to prove their innocence and would be incarcerated based solely on suspicion by the police officers. He asks his supervisor to imagine a society where PPA would further expand having secured prisoners (innocent or guilty) and how that would make him feel being a part of this consequential action, it would be criminal to enforce this law and have the right to privacy taken away for the benefit and profit of one business. “Occupancy Clause – Mother Jones.com”
In the 2014 election cycle, the three largest private prisons [CCA, The GEO Group, Inc., and Management and Training Corp. (“MTC”)] “spent nearly $2 million lobbying in Washington, and PACs and employees of those three companies donated about $350,000 to sitting members of Congress…” which were undisclosed – “Prisons/Public Safety v Profit Motive, Open secrets Blog”
He suggests his supervisor that the top three private prisons (including PPA) spent nearly 2 million lobbying and when we were asked about it, all the companies denied lobbying for or against legislation policies or legislation that would determine incarceration for an individual. He further adds, if we cannot admit what we do openly doesn’t that already imply that it’s against the ethical and moral norms of the society? Why else would we have to secretively implement a strategy?
Contract Provision I: The contractor will “not lobby for or against policies or legislation that would determine the basis for an individual’s incarceration or detention. – “Contract Provision I”
Contract Provision II: The contractor will not “lobby for or against policies or legislation that would determine the basis for an individual’s incarceration or detention, the length of sentences or the criminalization of otherwise lawful behaviour. – “Contract Provision II”
Contract Provision III: The contractor will not lobby or make independent political expenditures in connection with obtaining, retaining, or renewal of any federal contract, grant, loan, or cooperative agreement. – “Contract Provision III”
Additionally proving that the manager is right in his stance, he provides the contract provisions to his supervisor. He continues “The following disclosures were recently published by PPA and GEO respectively where we ‘publicly’ stand against unjust incarceration and lengthy sentences of criminals, the law we are trying to preach is a definite opposite of this”. He further adds that supporting this law might have its fleeting advantages however downfall is inevitable in the future.
Collectively, suggesting that the crime rate has been on the downfall in the last few years, the only upside in implementing this law would be profit maximization and satisfying the interest of the Shareholders while innocent prisoners spend time rotting in prison. Even Milton Friedman Theory states “A business responsibility to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.”
The suggested solution would be to stand against the proposed law 1 and:
This proves the manager’s point that imposing this law would be detrimental and simply unethical to both, the PPA and the stakeholders affected by it.
The second law proposed revolves around the “Three Strikes Statue”. The amendment would require the new felony to be a serious one with two or more strikes to qualify for the 25 years to life prison sentence.
After analysing the proposed law, implementing it would mean prolonged prison sentences for a citizen committing a third strike. While the manager would agree that this point is fair, it would also mean that even citizens with ‘3 speeding tickets’ and ‘3 shoplifting attempts’ would be in prison for a minimum of 25 years to life depending on the judgement. This would bring undue harm to several citizens and would only maximize the inflow of prisoners to PPA, thereby increasing profits. Hence the manager recommends to …..
Here are the arguments to bolster his position.
“Utilitarianism is a philosophical and economic doctrine that the best social policy is that which does the most good for the greatest number of people. It is a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome.” – A Note on Five Traditional Theories of Moral Reasoning
The outcome here would be that citizens with three non-violent crimes would qualify, which would be against the utilitarianism law. The manager further adds that the aim is to implement a law which does most good for the largest number of audiences. This would contradict the moral values and root against what we intended.
“Those within government contracting businesses with the power to decide whether to make political expenditures cannot escape their own ethical obligations by pointing to their shareholders’ desire for profits.” – Goodpaster, K. (1991). Business ethics and stakeholder analysis. Business Ethics Quarterly, 1(1), 53–73.
Once we make a decision and it is misaligned, we cannot hold the shareholders accountable for it. It should be much before implementing the decision that our ethical and moral values would impede us from making an awry decision. Our conscience should consider guiltless citizens who would be sentenced to 25 years to life imprisonment for a felony that actually could be solved either by ceasing a license or paying off a parking violation.
This also implies that people with high monetary and influential status will have the power to strike a deal and decrease their sentence while people with insufficient resources will not have the similar opportunity.
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