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by Troy Van Denover
In a research paper by Gregmar I. Galinato, WSU Pullman and Ryne Rohla, now working for the Office of the Attorney General Washington State Private prisons proliferated in the U.S. since the mid-1980s. In 1984, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA, now CoreCivic) established the first privately-owned and -operated incarceration facility in Hamilton County, Tennessee (Mattera et al., 2001). The private prison industry experienced substantial growth through the late-1980s and early-1990s where annual industry revenues rose from $14 million in 1984 to $120 million in 1994 (Mattera et al., 2001). The capacity of private incarceration facilities increased from 3000 beds in 1984 to 20,000 beds in 1990, followed by annual increases of 50% until 1994 where it slowed to an annual increase of 25% for the latter half of the decade (Mattera et al., 2001).2 One hypothesis raised concerns the impact of private prisons on incarceration rates in the U.S., which is highest in the world (Walmsley, 2018). The American Civil Liberties Union asserts private prisons significantly increased the incarceration rate in the U.S. since the mid-1980s (Shapiro, 2011). Stringent crime laws along with the private prisons may have contributed to the rise in incarceration rates. For example, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 ("1994 Crime Bill") increased funding for law enforcement and expanded punishments for a variety of offenses including weapons crimes, immigration violations, hate crimes, sex crimes, and gang-related crime. Such laws can facilitate underlying mechanisms which causally relate the increase in private prisons to incarceration rates. One potential mechanism is through lobbying and direct contributions to politicians and officials in exchange for favorable policies which increase incarceration rates (Ashton and Petteruti, 2011). Two prominent examples illustrate the plausibility of this mechanism. First, in the “Kids for Cash” scandal in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, two judges received money from two private juvenile detention centers in exchange for harsh judgements on juvenile offenders to increase the number of residents in the centers (May, 2014). The judges sentenced minors convicted of misdemeanors to internment in private youth correctional facilities in exchange for $2.6 million in kickbacks. Second, lobby groups for private prisons supported California's three-strikes rule and Arizona's anti-illegal immigration law for harsher penalties on crimes and longer sentences (Cohen, 2015). CoreCivic lobbied for increased appropriation measures from the Office of Federal Detention Trustee and for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to maintain or increase the “bed quota,” a policy mandating a minimum of 34,000 inmates at any given time regardless of illegal immigration levels (Ashton and Petteruti, 2011). Another mechanism is overcrowding in public prisons (Wilson, 2014), which might dissuade judges from assigning marginal convicts to prison. Private prisons may reduce this capacity constraint, leading to more incarcerations. The role of these mechanisms remains unstudied. There is also gap in the literature in understanding the channels by which private prisons influence incarceration levels such as incentivizing arrest rates leading to more trials, influencing guilty verdicts, or changing the individual likelihood of incarceration over probation. Scot Weybright, Washington State University Today Current U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi was previously a paid lobbyist for Ballard Partners who represented wealthy special interests including The GEO Group, a private prison company that has faced criticism for safety violations, providing inadequate health care, and poor management practices. according to the U.S. Senate Committee of the Judiciary. The GEO Group looks to rake in upwards of billions of dollars with the increased incarceration of those unlawfully detained by ICE and the current rounding up of the homeless and mentally ill. What You Can Do A Pennsylvania lawmaker is proposing legislation to prohibit state and local contracts with private prison facilities and corporations in Pennsylvania. State Representative Perry Warren (D-31) says he intends to introduce legislation to prohibit private prisons in Pennsylvania, highlighting a range of issues associated with them. Rep. Warren argues that criminal justice is the responsibility of the U.S. government, not for-profit private entities. The memo says that 99,754 individuals were incarcerated in privately owned prisons in the U.S. in 2020, according to the Sentencing Project. He added that private prisons have a history and are often associated with questionable behavior and poor service when compared to state-run facilities. According to the Office of Justice Programs, private prisons are often accused of prioritizing profit over inmate well-being, which can lead to increased violence, understaffing, poorly maintained facilities, and other issues. The memo claims that private prison companies have little incentive to rehabilitate inmates. “While we cannot change federal law, we must take action as a state to end the privatization of corrections, prisons and immigrant detention centers at the state and local level. There is no acceptable reason for private entities to be in charge of the custody, care and rehabilitation of any incarcerated individual,” the memo says. The bill has not yet been submitted for introduction. Please contact your state representatives to urge them to support State Representative Perry Warren in submitting this bill and getting it passed in Pennsylvania. We can lead the way locally and affect the national policy in the coming year.
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by Jennifer John
Human trafficking is a topic I had only a vague understanding of, but I have learned more about it recently. It’s a much bigger and more complicated problem than I had realized. You might also be uncertain of what exactly it is. According to the government, “Human trafficking is the exploitation of a person through force, fraud, or coercion for labor, services, or commercial sex. Under U.S. law, causing anyone under 18 to engage in a commercial sex act is trafficking.” The traffickers control their victims in many ways, such as giving them false promises of love or a better life, including fake job offers, making them pay back a debt, threatening them with acts of violence, and/or applying psychological pressure. I had thought part of trafficking involved moving the victims from one place to another, but transportation isn’t required. Human trafficking is about exploitation, not movement. Some people are trafficked in their own hometown. (1) Who is at risk for human trafficking? According to the Polaris Project National Survivor Study, “Prior to their trafficking, survivors reported experiencing other vulnerabilities at alarmingly high rates.
Another disturbing statistic from The Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative is that globally, 25% of human trafficking victims are children. Among these individuals:
According to The Community Policing Dispatch website, the following groups are at a higher risk of becoming a victim.
Who are the traffickers? What are their demographics? From the Bureau of Justice Statistics Human Trafficking Data Collection Activities, 2024, “Of the 1,070 defendants charged with any of the three types of human trafficking offenses in U.S. district court in fiscal year 2022, 91% were male, 58% were white, 20% were black, 18% were Hispanic, 95% were U.S. citizens, and 71% had no prior convictions.” (5) During this research, I found an article in the Times Leader from January 11, 2025. It’s an article called “Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Region Designated a ‘Hot Spot’ for Human Trafficking.” The author of the article had interviewed Tammi Burke, chief program officer at the Victims Resource Center, and Mackenzie Jennings, the agency’s human trafficking advocate. The team at the Victims Resource Center works every day to identify survivors and connect them to safety and support. From 2023 to 2024, the number of identified victims in their care jumped by nearly 50%, and new cases are coming in daily. Sex trafficking is a multi-billion-dollar industry, and traffickers are in it for the money. Unlike drugs or guns, a victim can be sold repeatedly. Traffickers sometimes push victims into crimes like theft, prostitution, or drug possession — crimes committed under threat, which often lead to the victim’s arrest while the trafficker remains free. Reporting trafficking is complex. Many victims don’t see themselves as victims — some develop a trauma bond with their trafficker, while others fear the police, blame themselves, or have been told their families will be hurt if they try to escape. These layers of fear, manipulation, and dependency are exactly why awareness matters so much. By learning the signs and speaking up, communities can play a powerful role in helping survivors break free and begin to heal. Nationally, Pennsylvania ranks ninth in the number of human trafficking cases reported. There are several hotspots in Pennsylvania. Ranked in the top 10 are Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, the Poconos, and Bloomsburg. I was shocked to learn that traffickers can make as much as $125,000 per victim per year. Jennings and Burke said later in the article, “Many traffickers work together — they have their own victims, but also sell victims to one another. Traffickers throughout Luzerne County could have 2 victims or as many as 20.” Right now, Luzerne County has no safe shelter for survivors. Learn the signs. Speak up. You could save someone’s life. If you suspect trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline: 1-888-373-7888 or text “HELP” to 233733. (6) In the additional resources below is a three-minute YouTube video you might want to check out from the “Alliance to End Human Trafficking.” References:
Additional resources: by Brian Dugas
Once again Northeast Pennsylvania is being targeted by corporations looking to take advantage of its rich natural resources and easy access to enormous markets. It began with the Anthracite Coal Mines which fueled the industrial revolution, but left a legacy of environmental destruction and societal upheaval that still remains to this day. Next it was the fossil fuel industry drilling and building pipelines to transport the fracked gas found in the Marcellus Shale field. Now we have a new industry coming our way that takes advantage of many of the same natural resources, and is able to capitalize on the same infrastructure built for fracking. Data Centers - I think that most of us are taking advantage of the new AI resources available through Google and other apps. Corporations are working hard to incorporate AI into their businesses as well, replacing the inefficient humans that need things like breaks, medical benefits and vacations. In fact there is significant risk being posed by the unregulated growth of AI, but that is a topic for another day. I put a short Ted Talk on the UUCWV FaceBook page for those of you who are interested in learning more. Please sign up for the Facebook account if you haven’t done that yet. Communication may become a valuable asset in the near future. Back to data centers - these facilities are needed to house and operate the massive computers required to run the computations required for AI operations. They have enormous energy, water, and land requirements, and there are 6 of them planned for NEPA in the near future. When I’m talking massive I’m talking a scale unimagined in the past. There is already one of the largest data centers in PA operating at the Berwick Nuclear Power plant, using 25% of the energy that the plant produces. The enormous increase in energy production along with the amount of water that is needed to cool these massive computers is hard to imagine. 5 Million gallons of CLEAN water a day for each facility. NEPA is famous for its natural resources which will serve this industry well. Water from the Susquehanna and the Delaware Rivers, the close proximity to the Marcellus Shale field, and the pipelines needed to transport the gas needed to produce the energy are already in place. Additionally, there are plenty of wooded areas available to clear in order to build their new facilities. Places that already have data centers report an increase in noise, light, and air pollution, along with an increase in the cost of energy for the other consumers using power. And this is already in motion in NEPA and across PA, there are numerous videos of contentious community meetings where residents want to learn more, and are actually resisting the construction of these data centers in their communities. It is very important for communities to get ahead of the problem by learning more about what they are doing, and passing ordinances and regulations that restrict and regulate the companies. And guess who's coming to town? Blackstone - Blackstone plans to invest $25 billion in data centers and energy generation in northeast Pennsylvania. It also plans to partner with Allentown-based PPL Corp. to build natural gas generation plants. PPL Corp. is investing $6.8 billion through 2028 to expand grid capacity in order to support increased power demand from data centers. If you had an issue with all the pipelines built for Marcellous Shale, they have more in mind. TC Energy announced plans to invest $400 million to modernize its gas pipeline network in Pennsylvania. The bottom line is that we can allow the industries that have abused NEPA throughout history to do what they want, whenever they want, or we can stand up, organize, and let our voices be heard before it’s too late. The NEPA Climate Reality group has taken this issue on as one of its primary missions, and there is a growing coalition of environmental organizations across the state getting engaged. Anyone interested in getting involved can speak to me, or contact any of these organizations. Join us at the next Social Action Committee meeting this Tuesday, at 8:00PM. The Zoom Link is in the announcements. |
The Social Action Minute
One of the most popular features of our Sunday services is our Social Action Minute. During this time, a member of the Social Action Committee speaks on a topic of their choice in order to bring awareness and a call to action to the members of our Congregation. These are the archives of the Social Action Minutes presented at our Sunday services. If you missed a service, or are interested in the topic, you can revisit it and get information here. Archives
January 2026
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