Delaney Hall and its profits are moral stains
By: Michael Gottesman
Your Turn
Guest columnist
..... In Newark, just miles from some of the wealthiest corporate headquarters in America, human beings are reportedly being held in condition that many advocates, family members and detainees themselves describes as abusive, degrading and exploitative.
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At the center of this controversy is the GEO Group, the private prison corporation operating Delaney Hall under a lucrative federal contract with ICE. GEO stands to earn tens of thousands of dollars annually from the facility.
..... And now, according to multiple reports, detainees inside Delaney Hall have launched hunger strikes and labor strikes protesting overcrowding, poor medical care, rotten food, retaliation and a work program that reportedly pays about one dollar per day.
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Think about that for a moment. People who have not been convicted of crimes, people who are often being held for civil immigration proceedings - and criminal sentences - are allegedly cleaning facilities, performing kitchen work and maintaining operations for pennies an hour while a private corporation profits from keeping labor costs near zero.
..... That may satisfy the technical definitions buried inside detention contracts and federal loopholes. But morally, what exactly should we call it?
..... When vulnerable detainees are pressured into labor for the equivalent of slave wages inside a locked detention facility run for corporate profit, the distinction between "voluntary work program" and coercion begins to collapse.
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Supporters of these programs argue that detainees choose to participate. But choice inside detention is complicated. If a detainee has no meaningful income, has limited access to commissary items, has inadequate supplies or needs basic necessities, ks "working" for one dollar a day really voluntary? Or is it economic coercion wrapped in bureaucratic language?
Benefits to corporations
..... Reports emerging form Delaney Hall are deeply disturbing. Roughly 300 detainees recently began hunger and labor strikes alleging inhumane conditions. Family members and advocates have decried overcrowding, inadequate medical treatment, food complaints, excessive heat and retaliation against organizers. GEO and federal authorities deny many of the allegations and maintain that the facility complies with federal detention standards.
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But even if conditions met every technical standard on paper, New Jersey residents should still ask themselves a larger question:
..... Should corporations profit form detention at all?
..... The business model itself creates a dangerous incentive structure. The more detainees housed, the more revenue generated. The lower the operating costs, including labor costs, the greater the profit margin.
..... America has a long and ugly history of exploiting captive labor. We should be extremely cautious whenever incarcerated or detained populations become a source of cheap labor benefiting private entities. That concern becomes even more urgent when many detainees are still awaiting hearings, seeking asylum or fighting deportation cases.
..... These are human beings with constitutional rights and human dignity - not inventory on a balance sheet.
..... New Jersey should not become synonymous with privatized detention and dollar-a-day labor. Public officials, courts, journalists and citizens should demand independent oversight , transparency and accountability for what is happening inside Delaney Hall.
..... Because if we accept a system where corporation and profit form detaining migrants and paying them pennies for labor while they await due process, then we are normalizing something profoundly dangerous.
..... And history teaches us that systems built on dehumanization rarely stop where they begin.
..... Michale Gottesman is founder of the New Jersey Public Education Coalition.