Bank of America Pulls Out of Private Prisons

Profit incentives lose importance when the public interest of safety and rehabilitation is at risk.

2016 graph, by the Sentencing Project

(SALEM, Ore.) - Bank of America, the second-biggest U.S. bank, just announced they will stop financing private prisons and immigrant detention centers. Grassroots activists are lauding these actions as the success they've been working years to achieve.

“We have decided to exit the relationship with companies that provide prison and immigration-detention services," Vice Chairman Anne Finucane told Bloomberg Wednesday.

Over time, activists have increased pressure demanding all Wall Street banks cut their ties to institutions unduly incarcerating individuals and families.

"This announcement is a huge victory in the fight towards ending mass incarceration and detention of Black and brown people across the United States," said the Daily KOS.

"Getting corporations to stop using our money to back racism and hate is one step closer to cutting off all funding for ANY company that profits from abusing people of color."

This news comes on the heels of another landmark move, as employees of Wayfair walked out of work en masse last week in protest of their company’s decision to furnish the prison camps that are detaining migrant children along the southern border.

In March, JPMorgan Chase & Co. also broke off its relationship with the industry when it was deemed too risky, and Wells Fargo & Co. is halting loans to the private prison industry as well.

"We are reaching a critical moment in this country where every single corporation and government entity responsible for the mass incarceration and detention of Black and brown communities cannot be complicit any longer," said the Daily KOS.

"Protests are happening outside prisons and detention centers every day. Workers are refusing their valued labor in the name of justice.

"This fight is not easy. It won’t get any easier. But we celebrate our victories as they come."

Sources: Daily KOS; Bloomberg; the Nation; American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU); others

SEE ALSO: New Report Calls for More Disclosure from Private Prison Profiteers

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Rita June 30, 2019 9:32 pm (Pacific time)

now they will just finance companies that finance private prisons instead.

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