His announcement Donald Trump For the reopening of his infamous prison, it looks like the great declarations made by the US president to change the political agenda or to stir up his followers. But Trump’s message was not only the aim of impressing. It was a calculated step in adapting the US criminal system to the new government’s goals: the new business “opportunities” opened by the management of migration with hard recipes and artificial intelligence applications.
The only president in American history elected with a conviction of 34 felonies on his back and was exempt from any sentence a few days before he sworn in in January, he announced last Sunday that he ordered the relevant services ‘To grow and rebuild Alcatraz’ In order to enclose there “America’s most ruthless and violent offenders”. is a one ‘Symbol of law and order’ and that it is his own response to “Radical judges, those who want trials for every person who is illegally in the country, that is, millions of trials.”
Cost of $ 80 billion
Alcatraz was the worst and most expensive US federal prison when it was closed in 1963. But it is not excluded that it reopen as a private prison, such as 158 penitentiary institutions managed by companies in 27 of the country’s 50 states. The total population of prisoners in federal and local prisons is estimated at 1.8 million people, of which 8% are held in facilities controlled by private companies.
The US has the largest number of prisoners in the world proportional to their population, while total prison costs exceed $ 80 billion a year. The exact number of prisoners is difficult to reflect at a specific time due to bureaucratic issues as well as the disputes from state to state in the recording of those who “go” to prisons for successive offenses, those who are temporarily detained, etc. For the private security sector, it concerns a turnover of many billions that will increase dramatically if the Trump policy continues for mass arrests and deportations of irregular immigrants. By no means, these companies maintain privileged relations mainly with Republican politicians, contributing millions to their election campaigns locally and national.
100,000 new booking beds
The “tsar” of Trump’s border, Tom Humanhe recently estimated that it would need almost 100,000 temporary booking beds to implement the deportation plan, twice as many as today. Since the needs are defined as a “temporary nature”, the cooperation of the federal authorities with private companies already offering services so as not to burden the State with the construction of new prisons. This first collaboration dates back to 1983-1984 and concerned the detention of irregular immigrants, in the name of the congestion of state institutions and the urgent needs.
According to data gathered and analyzed by the “New York Times”, two companies have the lion’s share of prison. In the early 2025, the Geo Group had 14,000 immigrant detention positions, Corecivic 10,000 seats, other companies another 12,000, while the State had only 4,000 beds. The two largest companies in the industry made $ 2 billion in turnover last year, earning significant profits from the detention of irregular immigrants. Their shares were launched after Trump’s electoral victory and continue their upward trend. The Trump government and Congress committees are looking for ways to finance the deportation plan by adding another 45,000 temporary detention positions, while the daily cost is estimated at $ 165 per head.
Relations of power
During his first presidential term, Trump had abolished his predecessor’s decree Barack Obama which provided for gradual elimination of private prisons, while the Joe Biden He had avoided restoring it, despite revelations about human rights violations, mismanagement and corruption that had led to the closure of certain facilities. Trump is now coming back heavier. Private prisons are in constant contact with government officials and one of them (Corecivic) said it has submitted a plan to triple the number of its beds within a few months, apparently its profits. Companies’ executives acknowledged that to some extent in prison in the cells of existing facilities.
At the same time, the Trump government is looking for countries where irregular immigrants arrested in the US, from Salvador and Rwanda to Ukraine could be “relocated”. An indication is the Washington Post’s revealing report that Washington is pushing Kiev to receive immigrants from third countries deported by the US.
Another parameter is the imposition of stricter control and monitoring of prisoners with artificial intelligence systems (AI). These systems record and analyze not only telephone communications but also discussions of prisoners with each other. For companies involved, the testing of advanced systems in a controlled environment is a tempting opportunity, especially when it comes to the name of crime repression and prevention.
Recording, control and interpretation systems of those who are reserved between prisoners have already been installed in many prisons in Alabama, Georgia, New York and other states. Of particular interest to the issue have been expressed by members of Congress, pointing out the dangers of misinterpretations and failures, while at the same time considering that when these systems are “trained”, they could help reduce crime. And what would be a better field of advanced tests than a renovated, state or private, Alcatraz with the most dangerous foods in the country?
