ENDOWING INJUSTICE

YALE UNIVERSITY’S INVESTMENT IN
CORRECTIONS CORPORATION OF AMERICA
A Report Prepared by the Graduate Employees & Students Organization at Yale (GESO)

Executive Summary

This report provides details of Yale’s approximately $1.5 million investment (through
its investment manager, Farallon Capital Management) in Corrections Corporation of
America (CCA), the largest private prison company in the United States.
The private prison system has come under serious criticism. One recent article concludes, “Chronic employee turnover and understaffing, a high rate of violence, and
extreme cost-cutting make the private prison model a recipe for disaster.”*
There is a history of prisoner abuse at CCA prisons. Amnesty International reports:
There have also been reports of torture and ill-treatment in several facilities run by
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the second-largest private prison
operator in the USA. In August 1998, up to 20 Wisconsin inmates in CCA-run
Whiteville Correctional Facility in Tennessee, were allegedly ill-treated by a Special
Operations and Response Team (SORT) following an attack on a guard: the treatment reported included prisoners being kicked, slammed into walls, subjected to
racist abuse and electro-shocked by stun guns and stun shields. One prisoner said
that he was handcuffed, stripped, forced to kneel on the floor, sexually assaulted
with a shampoo bottle by a guard and shocked with a stun gun; another inmate
reported being stripped, kicked and shocked in the stomach and testicles with a
stun gun.†
Over the last 25 years in the United States, public and private funding of the explosive
growth of the prison population has come at the detriment of investments in education
and other social needs. CCA, as part of ALEC, a national network of conservative legislators, has helped draft model punitive criminal justice legislation.
The American prison system
Percentage of U.S. Prison Population by Race
affects people of color disproportionately. This report calls on Yale
67.9%
% of Prison Population16
University to divest its holdings in
% of Total US Population17
CCA and to mitigate the effects of
42.7%
prisons on the New Haven communi36.5%
ty by:
• Providing a fair share contribution
18.6%
13.7%
12.2%
to the New Haven Public Schools
and $1.5 million to prison education
and re-entry programs.
White
Black
Latino
• Investing in hiring qualified applicants from the local community for campus jobs, and providing increased training for
current and potential employees.
• Changing the dialogue on campus about crime, prisons and race.
* Miller, Joshua, “Worker Rights in Private Prisons.” In Andrew Coyle, et al, eds. Capitalist Punishment: Prison
Privatization & Human Rights. Clarity Press, Inc., 2003, p. 150.
† Amnesty International. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A Briefing for the UN Committee against Torture.
May, 2000, p. 25. At the time of this report, CCA was the second largest operator of private prisons, today
they claim to be the largest.
Executive Summary

Yale University and the Private Prison Industry
In short, if colleges and universities (or other institutional investors) set about the business of self-regulation, they will have challenging work to perform. And we are persuaded
that it will be important work. The application of negative injunctions, to be sure, will not
rebuild cities or make deserts bloom, but it can limit or halt the destruction of life, of opportunity, and of beauty. That may not be enough, but it is a great ideal.
1

—The Ethical Investor

In 1972, Yale University adopted the guidelines for ethical investment set forth in The
Ethical Investor, a publication drafted by Yale law professor John Simon along with two
Yale graduate students, Charles Powers and Jon Gunnemann.2 The Ethical Investor provides a “social injury” or “grave social injury” standard of scrutiny for ethical investment,
defined in its guidelines as:
The injurious impact which the activities of a company are found to have on consumers, employees, or other persons, particularly including activities which violate
or frustrate the enforcement of rules of domestic or international law intending to
protect individuals against deprivation of health, safety or basic freedoms.3
This report discusses one such grave social injury: investment in Corrections
Corporation of America (CCA), “the nation’s largest owner and operator of privatized correctional and detention facilities and one of the largest prison operators in the United
States behind only the federal government and three states.”4
Through the world’s largest hedge fund, Farallon Capital Management, LLC
(Farallon) Yale University invests approximately $1.5 million in Corrections Corporation
of America.5 At least twenty-five other public and private colleges and universities6 invest
in Farallon, which owns 5.5% of CCA.7

Prison Dependency: Private Prisons and American Punishment in Context
Our company continued to benefit from an environment characterized by growing prison
populations and a restricted supply of new prison beds resulting from budgetary constraints.
Growth in the nation’s prison population continues to fuel the need for our services among
our existing customers and is motivating additional states to consider the merits of partnering
with CCA for outsourced corrections management.
— Corrections Corporation of America. Capitalizing on Our Strengths: CCA 2004 Annual Report8

Approximately half of the prison inmates in the world are in the US . . . we have incarcerated in US prisons and jails at county, state or federal level approximately 1.8 million. The
sum of all the rest of countries on the face of the earth is about 1.8 million, counting the
People’s Republic of China, which says it has one million people locked up. A country like
England has 60,000 people incarcerated. So the international market is not very interesting
when compared with the domestic market.
—Former CCA president Doctor Crants, 1994.9

Private prison companies including Corrections Corporation of America are for-profit
corporations, which own, manage, and operate private prisons, jails and immigration
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detention facilities across the United States. CCA operates 63 corrections facilities in 19
states and the District of Columbia. On its website, CCA states that it is “the nation’s
largest owner and operator of privatized correctional and detention facilities and one of
the largest prison operators in the United States behind only the federal government and
three states.”10 CCA relies upon an increasing United States prisoner population and the
overcrowding of state and federal prisons for its future growth.
In its 2003 annual report, CCA assessed the continual increase in the United States
prison population. “The 2002 Bureau of Justice Statistics
report documents the largest increase in the nation’s prison
Bureau of Justice Projections for
population in three years—more than 36,000 inmates—as well
lifetime likelihood of serving time
in prison:
as growing demand in areas predisposed to utilizing the private
“Nearly 1 in 3 black males [is] likely
sector, which also have no immediate source of relief for their
to go to prison [in their lifetime]
expanding inmate populations.”11 CCA thrives on the expanbased on constant 2001 incarceration
rates”
sion of the U.S. prison population, literally calculating its
“1 in 19 black females compared
future success based upon the number of prisoners who will
with 1 in 118 white females [is] likefill its beds.
ly to go to prison [in their lifetime]”
—Thomas P. Bonczar, Bureau of
The United States incarcerates more people than any other
Justice. Prevalence of Imprisonment
country
in the world. As of mid-year 2004, the U.S. imprisoned
in the U.S. Population, 1974-2001
approximately 2,131,180 people, far outpacing any other country.12 While the United States leads the world in incarceration,
61.3% of US prisoners are black and Latino. In 2004, approximately 1 in 58 black and
Latino residents of the United States were in prison or jail, in contrast to 1 in 253 whites.13
In Connecticut and Pennsylvania, Latinos are incarcerated at seven times the rate of
whites.14

World, National and Local Imprisonment
The Five Largest World Prison Populations15
Country
United States

Total Population,
in millions

Prison Population,
in millions

Prisoners per
100,000 Residents

293.6

2.13

726

1,312.3

1.55

118

Russian Federation

143.1

.79

550

Brazil

180.7

.33

183

India

1,039.9

.32

31

China

Page 2

Percentage of U.S. Prison Population by Race
67.9%

% of Prison Population16
% of Total US Population17

42.7%
36.5%

18.6%
13.7%

12.2%

White

Black

Latino

Percentage of Connecticut Prison Population by Race
76.6%
% of Prison Population18
% of Total CT Population19

42.4%
29.4%

27.5%

10.0%

White

Black

10.1%

Latino

While the United States’ over-reliance on imprisonment and the stark racial disparity
in American punishment has prompted increased public scrutiny of the criminal justice
system in general, private prison expansion has received particularly intense criticism.

Cruel and Unusual: CCA and its Prison Conditions
“She was slammed into an object with such force that it fractured her skull, broke four
ribs, and damaged her liver.”
—Medical Examiner on the extreme force used by CCA guards in death of Estelle Richardson

In 2001, the American Civil Liberties Union issued a statement of priorities for
prison reform in America. It urged the elimination of private prisons, arguing that profit
should not be a factor in the decision to place offenders in prison. Moreover, the ACLU
found that private prisons posed a grave safety risk for prisoners, prison staff, and the
broader public.
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Cost-conscious private industry has little financial incentive to meet constitutional
standards. A company’s loyalty lies primarily with its stockholders. A 1998
Department of Justice report cited the inexperience and lack of training of staff at
an Ohio private prison and detailed the resulting excessive use of force by staff.
After two stabbing deaths, several escapes and medically-related deaths, a lawsuit
resulted in a $1.65 million settlement to be paid by the private corporation to the
prisoners.20
The Ohio private prison under Department of Justice investigation was a CCA-operated prison. On July 28, 1998, then-Ohio Governor George Voinovich requested that the
United States Department of Justice investigate the Northeast Ohio Correctional Facility
in Youngstown. Many of the prison’s inmates were from out of state, specifically,
Washington, D.C. In a letter to then-Attorney General Janet Reno, Governor Voinovich
noted, “Although the prison has been housing inmates for little more than a year, a number of serious incidents there have caused me great concern for the safety of Ohio’s citizens in the Youngstown and northeastern Ohio area.”21 According to this letter, there had
been 13 inmate stabbings, two of which were fatal. Additionally, two prisoners’ deaths
raised questions about the adequacy of the medical staff and services at the prison.
Moreover, corrections officials were forced to solicit federal court intervention in order to
ensure CCA’s contract compliance with the City of Youngstown.22 A subsequent Bureau of
Prisons report on private prisons cited numerous problems of the Youngstown Facility
including a potentially fatal lack of training for its staff. According to the report, “CCA
failed to supply a sufficient number of, and adequately trained, staff. For example, where
CCA had one corrections officer assigned to watch two pods housing 128 inmates, an
Ohio prison would have assigned four guards. Furthermore, guards armed with shotguns
were never trained to use a firearm.”23
The conditions of the Youngstown facility are not unique in CCA’s history of
prison management. On October 1, 2004, the Colorado Department of Corrections
detailed similar conditions at another CCA-owned and operated prison, Crowley County
Facility. Crowley County Facility incarcerated prisoners from Colorado, Washington State,
and Wyoming. In response to a prison riot in July 2004, the Colorado Department of
Corrections conducted an investigation of prisoner and staff complaints, general prison
conditions, and the specific events of the riot. The Department of Corrections elaborated
its findings and recommendations in its After Action Report. The report detailed a series of
prisoners’ complaints including: “misuse of force,” inadequate food quality, and disregard
for grievances. Prisoners and staff alike cited lack of training of guards assigned to key
posts.24
The Colorado Department of Corrections Prison Monitoring Unit had observed
Crowley Prison prior to the riot and identified a series of problems including inadequate
and poor quality food service, inadequate staffing for medical and mental health treatment,
and a deficient inmate grievance process.25 The Colorado Department of Corrections conclusions included that the staff and administration of Crowley County Correctional Facility
delayed in responding to inmates’ food service complaints and failed to respond in a timely manner to the Private Prison Monitoring Unit’s prior recommendations.26
The conditions at Crowley County Correctional Facility and Northeast Ohio
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Correctional Facility raise serious concerns about the ability of Corrections Corporation of
America and other private prison corporations to curtail profit considerations in order to
operate prisons and ensure conditions that accord with constitutional standards. In particular, CCA’s employment practices have been linked to the inferior conditions of its prisons;
at the end of 2004, only about 1200 of the company’s 15,420 employees were unionized.27
A 1999 article in Corrections Professional reported that guards at one of CCA’s Oklahoma
facilities earned only $8.25 per hour.28 In 2000, The Corrections Yearbook reported that the
average salary of guards in private adult prisons was $17,628 and the maximum salary was
$22,082. In 2003, “a state official in Colorado said that CCA was paying its employees in
the state an average of $8,000 a year less [than] the salaries of public-sector correctional
officers. In August 2003 the union at the D.C. Correctional Treatment Center held a press
conference to complain about inadequate pay and forced overtime.”29 CCA’s failure to
report its wages to The Corrections Yearbook prompted the journal to stop reporting private prison guards’ salaries altogether after 2000.30
Grassroots Leadership31 cited poor pay as one of CCA’s self-defeating labor practices,
which has lead to high turnover rates in recent years. The organization uncovered a 1999
Tennessee Department of Corrections report, which found that the turnover rate at one
CCA prison was 104.8 percent and 81.7 percent at another. At public Tennessee prisons
the turnover rate averaged 34 percent. In 2003, an analysis of CCA records for Tennessee
found that turnover rates exceeded 60 percent. In July 2001, a newspaper reporter analyzed records of CCA’s Tulsa Jail and found that 72 percent of staff hired when the facility opened in 1999 were no longer there.32 A recent article on private prisons concluded:
Private corrections is structurally flawed. The profit motive drastically changes the
mission of corrections from public safety and rehabilitation to making a quick
buck. Chronic employee turnover and understaffing, a high rate of violence, and
extreme cost-cutting make the private prison model a recipe for disaster.33
Crowley and Youngstown are clear examples of such a recipe. In fact, in its official
report on the Crowley County riot, the Colorado Department of Corrections concluded
that “High staff attrition rate and inexperience has contributed to lack of ability to appropriately respond to emergencies.”34
If Crowley and Youngstown seem extreme but isolated incidents, a closer look at the
past several years of CCA’s history is instructive. Although far from exhaustive, the following is a description of several instances of abuse and neglect at CCA prisons and jails.
• In 1999, Michael Jerome Edwards, a prison transportation driver for the CCA
owned TransCor America, was convicted of improper sexual activity with a person in custody and sexual assault. According to the appellate transcript, testimony admitted at the
trial claimed Edwards:
terrorized complainant by forcing her to raise her shirt and bra to expose herself
to other passengers and appellant. Appellant also reached into the female prisoners’ compartment and penetrated complainant’s vagina with his fingers, a flashlight, and handgun; he kept a shotgun on a rack above the female prisoners’ heads;
he conducted “screen tests” for entertainment, whereby he would slam on the
van’s brakes, forcing prisoners to hit their faces against the wire screens; and he

Page 5

intimidated and humiliated the women prisoners by illuminating their faces and
exposed breasts at night with flashlights.35
Edwards appealed the sexual assault conviction, but the appeals court upheld his conviction.36
• In December 2000, a federal jury awarded William Pacetti, a teenager who was
incarcerated at a CCA juvenile prison, $125,000 in compensatory damages and $3 million
in punitive damages for abuse he suffered at the hands of one of the guards.37 According
to Mother Jones, Pacetti had alleged that CCA guards hog-tied him and beat him.38 In
early 2001, CCA settled 16 civil suits brought against them by teens who alleged abuse
while they were at a CCA-run juvenile facility.39
• On October 24, 2001 Shane Spencer was incarcerated at CCA’s Tulsa Jail.
Intoxicated when he was arrested, Spencer was left unattended in his cell for the entire
night. The next morning, Spencer was dead. His family received a $200,000 settlement
from the city of Tulsa for Spencer’s death; a civil suit against CCA was settled for an undisclosed amount.40
• In October 2000, two CCA Huerfano County Correctional Center guards pled guilty
to beating Daniel Murphy, a prisoner in Colorado, while his hands were cuffed and his
ankles were shackled in response to the prisoner’s assault on a guard.41 According to one
of the plea agreements:
The defendant [one of the guards] and others then escorted Murphy to the intake
area. The defendant ordered Murphy to bend at the waist and put his head against
the wall. When he started to comply, another officer slammed Murphy’s head
against the wall. Murphy turned toward the defendant and the defendant forcefully
kneed the inmate in the common peroneal nerve in the thigh, causing him to fall.
The officers helped Murphy back up and the other officer gave Murphy a knee
strike to the other thigh. The defendant then, with no justification, gave Murphy
another knee strike to the thigh, causing him to fall back down to his knees. The
other officers pushed Murphy and began kicking him. They kicked him multiple
times. All of this happened while Murphy was still restrained, causing him pain and
physical injury. During the beating, various officers made comments to the inmate
about how he should not have assaulted an officer. The defendant noticed there
was blood about Murphy’s nose, which the defendant then cleaned up.42
The two guards were sentenced to two years in prison. 43
• In April 2001 prisoners at Cibola County Correctional Center staged a peaceful
protest over conditions at the facility. CCA responded by spraying seven hundred prisoners with tear gas.44
• In March of 2004, Estelle Richardson, a 34-year-old mother of two, was sentenced to
a CCA prison in Nashville for food stamp fraud and probation violation. Richardson was
listed in the prison records as “mentally deficient and psychologically impaired,” and was
segregated from other prisoners beginning in0 April.45
A CCA employee filed a report noting that Richardson had asked for medical help on
June 29th. According to the Complaint filed in a lawsuit against CCA, Richardson’s need
for medical attention was a result of injuries received on June 27th or 28th as the “result of
the use of excessive force” by four CCA employees. On July 2nd, Richardson was assaultPage 6

ed by a guard, “who used excessive force, causing her to bleed
from her head with large amounts of blood.” A fellow inmate
“Of the 8,700 state inmates housed
reported that Richardson “had been bleeding for about a week
outside of their home states, more
over her ear.” Richardson attempted to use a sanitary napkin to
than 6,000 are in CCA prisons—sent
stop the bleeding.46
there from Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii,
Indiana, Wisconsin and Wyoming.”i
On July 4, Richardson had an altercation with guards over
The private prison industry has
cleaning her cell. The following day she was found unresponbeen denounced for its exacerbation
sive in her cell. According to the Tennessean, the autopsy
of prisoners’ isolation and separation
from their families.
report found that “she was slammed into an object, perhaps a
This issue came to a head in 2004
wall, with such force that it fractured her skull, broke four ribs,
when Connecticut contemplated
and damaged her liver.”47 Nashville’s medical examiner said,
sending up to 2,000 inmates to an
Ohio CCA prison. “Think about what
“It’s a restricted area. There’s a limit to what you can do. If she
this does to the families left here in
had fallen from a high window or if she had been hit by a car, I
Connecticut,” remarked one spouse of
would expect to see these types of injuries. Given the environa Connecticut prisoner.ii
Although Connecticut has not
ment she was in, I cannot come up with a way for her to injure
implemented a contract with CCA,
herself this way.”48
families in other states have borne
Both the Nashville Police Department and the Medical
the great impact of estrangement:
Examiner ruled Estelle Richardson’s death a homicide.49
“virtually no Hawaiian families can
afford to visit the 1,400 inmates
• In September 2004 Jonathan Magbie was sentenced to 10
from the islands held at CCA prisons
days at CCA’s Correctional Treatment Facility in Washington,
in Oklahoma and Arizona… the conD.C. for marijuana possession. Paralyzed as a child and unable
sequences include sky-high phone
bills and a recidivism rate that,
even to breathe on his own, Magbie spent his last few days
according to state officials, is higher
between Correctional Treatment Facility and Greater Southeast
for inmates sent to the mainland
Community Hospital. Upon his sentencing Magbie was found
than for those held in Hawaii.”iii
to be in need of acute medical services and was sent to
Southeast Community Hospital. He was discharged the very
next day, back to Correctional Treatment Facility. Within the next few days Jonathan
Magbie was dead.50
In its 2000 report, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A Briefing for the UN Committee
against Torture, Amnesty International detailed the treatment of prisoners in private prisons. With respect to Corrections Corporation of America, they wrote:
There have also been reports of torture and ill-treatment in several facilities run by
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the second-largest private prison
operator in the USA. In August 1998, up to 20 Wisconsin inmates in CCA-run
Whiteville Correctional Facility in Tennessee, were allegedly ill-treated by a Special
Operations and Response Team (SORT) following an attack on a guard: the treatment reported included prisoners being kicked, slammed into walls, subjected to
racist abuse and electro-shocked by stun guns and stun shields. One prisoner said
that he was handcuffed, stripped, forced to kneel on the floor, sexually assaulted
with a shampoo bottle by a guard and shocked with a stun gun; another inmate
reported being stripped, kicked and shocked in the stomach and testicles with a
stun gun. Other cases included the misuse of stun shields during cell searches by
SORT teams in the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown, Ohio;
and allegations of excessive force, including the use of stun shields, against Alaska
Page 7

prisoners in the Central Arizona Detention Center in Florence, Arizona, in August
1998. Amnesty International is seeking information on CCA company policy
regarding electro-shock stun weapons and has urged that the company suspend
their use in the facilities under its control.51
Amnesty International also expressed concern about the relationship between corporate profit motive and human rights, noting “Many penal experts have expressed concern
that private for-profit companies have a particular interest in cutting costs which can lead
to low investment in staffing, training, health care and rehabilitation programs - all of
which can lead to poor conditions or ill-treatment.52 In addition to widespread concern
over the ways in which profit motive has led to ill-treatment of prisoners and inferior conditions at CCA’s prisons, public apprehension has mounted over the relationship between
the private prison industry, profit, and public policy.

Profiting from Public Policy: CCA and the Private Punishment Industry
We are compensated for operating and managing prisons and correctional facilities at an
inmate per diem rate based upon actual or minimum guaranteed occupancy levels. The significant expansion of the prison population in the United States has led to overcrowding in the
state and federal prison systems, providing us with opportunities for growth.
—Corrections Corporation of America.53

The Criminal Justice Task Force is dedicated to developing model policies that reduce
both crime and violence in our cities and neighborhoods. The Task Force is accomplishing
this by approving model bills that hold criminals accountable for their actions and provide
swift and certain punishment for their crimes.
—American Legislative Exchange Council.54

Private prison corporations do not simply wait and respond to the demand of state
and federal prison populations in order to fill their beds. Instead, CCA, as part of a
national network of conservative legislators, has helped draft model punitive criminal justice
legislation. The Sentencing Project, a national advocacy and research organization, reports
that Corrections Corporation of America is a major contributor to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).55 ALEC is a leading Washington, D.C.-based policy
advocacy organization that supports conservative legislation and legislators. ALEC’s nine
task forces produce model legislation which its legislative members then modify and introduce at the state and national levels. ALEC’s corporate members obtain a seat at the legislative table and negotiate legislation favorable to their interests. According to ALEC’s
background statement, “since its founding, ALEC has amassed an unmatched record of
achieving ground-breaking changes in public policy. Policies such as mandatory minimum
sentencing for violent criminals, teacher competency testing, pension reform, and
Enterprise Zones represent just a handful of ALEC’s victories in the states.”56 In 2000,
Brad Wiggins, CCA Director of Business Development, became co-chair of ALEC’s
Criminal Justice Task Force. Before Wiggins, then-CCA vice-president John Rees cochaired the Task Force.57
In 2002, ALEC boasted over 2400 legislative members and 300 private companies and
Page 8

foundations, making it an enormously influential organization.58 Its 2400 legislative members represent approximately 40 percent of state legislators across the country.59 ALEC
offers four private sector membership rates, $5,000, $10,000, $25,000, and $50,000.60
Membership in one of its nine task forces, which produce the model legislations, costs an
additional fee. ALEC’s membership brochure boasts that its member legislators introduced 1,245 pieces of legislation based on ALEC models in 2001, 200 of which passed.61
In the past ten years, ALEC has drafted model criminal justice legislation specifically relating to prison labor and industry. They include the Private Correctional Facilities Act
(allows state governments to contract with the private sector to perform services currently
performed by a corrections agency),62 which has passed in several states including
Arkansas, Mississippi, Virginia, and Connecticut, and the Prison Industries Act.63
Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, punitive laws based on ALEC models have
passed in numerous states. They include the Habitual Offender/Three Strikes Act (mandating life imprisonment for the third felony conviction), which passed in 11 states. The
Truth in Sentencing Act, which requires that prisoners serve at least 85% of their sentence
thereby limiting their access to parole, passed in 25 states, including Connecticut.64

Recommendations
Public resistance to privatization of correctional and detention facilities could result in
our inability to obtain new contracts or the loss of existing contracts: The operation of correctional and detention facilities by private entities has not achieved complete acceptance by
either governments or the public. The movement toward privatization of correctional and
detention facilities has also encountered resistance from certain groups, such as labor unions
and others that believe that correctional and detention facilities should only be operated by
governmental agencies. Moreover, negative publicity about an escape, riot or other disturbance or perceived poor conditions at a privately managed facility may result in publicity
adverse to us and the private corrections industry in general. Any of these occurrences or continued trends may make it more difficult for us to renew or maintain existing contracts or to
obtain new contracts, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.
—Corrections Corporation of America, from 2003 10-K tax filing.65

As this report has demonstrated, CCA’s business practices constitute a “social injury”
in the sense used in the The Ethical Investor. Under the guidelines set out in the The
Ethical Investor, Yale should sell the stock that it holds in a company when “it is unlikely
that, within a reasonable period of time, the exercise of shareholder rights by the university (together with any action taken by others) will succeed in modifying the company’s
activities sufficiently to eliminate at least that aspect of social injury which is grave in
character.”66
Given that CCA’s pursuit of profit through incarceration inherently leads to social
injury, it is the conclusion of this report that Yale must divest from CCA.
Another major investor with ties to higher education has already divested from
CCA. Prior to 2001, Sodexho Alliance, a Paris-based catering company, was CCA’s largest
shareholder. Sodexho also served over nine hundred colleges and universities across the
Page 9

United States.67 In 1999, however, student activists from across the country joined the network, Not With Our Money!, and embarked on a campaign to demand that Sodexho
dump its 10% stake in Corrections Corporation of America. During the campaign, students at Oberlin boycotted their cafeterias; activists at Ithaca College staged a 36-hour sitin, which was followed by a similar action at the University of Texas. Students at SUNYBinghamton and Earlham College used student organization funds to provide alternative
food services to over 1,000 people; activists waged a sleep-out at Oberlin. The campaign
spread to 60 colleges and universities, and direct actions took place at over 50 campuses
across the country, resulting in several college and university administrations ended their
contracts with Sodexho.68 By May 2001, Sodexho had decided to sever its ties with
Corrections Corporation of America.
Over the last 25 years in the United States, public and private funding of the explosive
growth of the prison population has come at the detriment of investments in education
and other social needs. The results of this choice are starkly visible in New Haven, where
the public education system is failing while the state of Connecticut spends tens of millions
of dollars incarcerating New Haven residents, most of them for non-violent offenses.
Yale, one of the wealthiest universities in the world, sits in New Haven, one of the
poorest cities in the nation. It is incumbent on Yale to use its wealth and influence to
expand educational and employment opportunities, not to profit from increasing incarceration rates. Although Yale cannot single-handedly change societal and political trends that
have created this situation, it can take several simple steps on its campus and in New
Haven: 1)Invest in the New Haven public schools. 2)Invest in hiring qualified applicants
from the local community for campus jobs and provide increased training for current and
potential employees. 3)Change the dialogue on campus about crime and expand education
on the effects of increased incarceration, particularly on communities of color.
1. Yale is a tax-exempt institution with an endowment of $15 billion. New Haven’s tax
base is small because of the vast quantity of untaxed property—largely owned by Yale.
In 2005, 15 New Haven schools that failed to make adequate yearly progress under the
No Child Left Behind law, with 12 of those schools having failed two years in a row.69
Yale should provide the City of New Haven with a fair-share contribution to help
improve city schools. In addition, Yale should dedicate the $1.5 million they currently
invest in CCA to programs that directly address populations affected by the prison system by funding prison arts and education programs, family visiting programs, and prisoner re-entry programs. Yale should dedicate a portion of these resources to community
programs for New Haven’s youth, in particular its youth who have experienced incarceration.
2. Yale should invest in the community, by hiring New Haven residents. In addition, Yale
should fund additional training for current and prospective employees. There is a particular need for training programs devoted to promoting people of color out of the lowest wage scales, where they are disproportionately concentrated.
3. Yale must not allow an atmosphere of racial profiling on its campus. Vague campuswide announcements identifying the race or age of alleged perpetrators of crimes near
the Yale campus contribute to an atmosphere of racialized fear, which disproportionately burdens local youth of color, as well as students of color at Yale. Descriptions such as
Page 10

“The robber was a black male in his late teens or early twenties” serve no apparent safety function, but do considerable harm by creating generalized suspicion of youth of
color on campus.70 The Yale administration should not issue such statements in its official messages, and should be careful that its safety messages and policing practices do
not create unnecessary tension between students, faculty, and the larger Yale community. The Yale administration should promote better education and more dialogue on
campus about prisons and race. One important resource for such dialogue in the past
was the Center for the Study of Race, Inequality and Politics (CSRIP). The administration should commit institutional resources to reinstating this center and staffing it with
dedicated faculty. In addition, it should commit to broadening its curriculum on the
role of prisons in US society.
Three decades ago Yale set the standard for institutional ethical investing with the
publication of the Ethical Investor. Today Yale has the opportunity to demonstrate its leadership in ethical investing by divesting from CCA and investing in New Haven.

Notes
1 John G. Simon, et. al. The Ethical Investor: Universities and Corporate Responsibility. (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1972), 14.
2 Yale University, Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility. Fiscal Year 2003-2004 Report.
http://www.acir.yale.edu/2002PublicReport.html#private)
3 John G. Simon, et. al. The Ethical Investor: Universities and Corporate Responsibility, 171
4 http://www.correctionscorp.com/aboutcca.html.
5 According to Yale’s most recent tax form, Yale owns 88% of Farallon Capital Institutional Partners II, LP
(FCIP II). In turn, FCIP II owns 47,100 shares of CCA according to the most recent 13 G filing with the
SEC (May 19, 2005). See http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/909661/000090966105000064/
0000909661-05-000064.
6 Other private and public universities investing with Farallon Capital Management, LLC include Bowdoin
College, Brandeis University, Case Western Reserve University, Christian Theological Seminary, The
Cleveland Institute of Music, Denison University, Drew University, Duke University, Indiana University and
Foundation, Marine Biological Laboratory, Michigan State University, Mills College, National University,
Oberlin College, Princeton University, Scripps College, Tufts University, University of Michigan, University
of Nevada Foundation, University of Pennsylvania, University of Richmond, University of Texas System,
Virginia Tech Foundation, Washington University, Whitman College. See http://www.unfarallon.info/partners.asp.
7 Securities and Exchange Commission. May 19, 2005, form 13-G
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/909661/000090966105000064/0000909661-05-000064.txt.
8 Corrections Corporation of America. Capitalizing on our Strengths: 2004 Annual Report, p. 2.
9 Doctor C. Crants. Chief Executive magazine. May 1998; cited in Philip Mattera, Mafruza Khan and Stephen
Nathan, Grassroots Leadership. Corrections Corporation of America: A Critical Look at its First Twenty
Years. December 2003, p.48.
(http://www.soros.org/initiatives/justice/articles_publications/publications/cca_20_years_20031201/CCA_
Report.pdf).
10 http://www.correctionscorp.com/aboutcca.html.
11 Corrections Corporation of America. Leading the Industry for 20 Years: 2003 Annual Report, p.5
12 Kings College, London. International Centre for Prison Studies. World Prison Brief
(www.prisonstudies.org).
13 This figure was calculated from midyear 2004 Bureau of Justice prison population statistics (Paige M.
Harrison and Allen J. Beck. Prisoner and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004. Washington, D.C.: United States
Department of Justice Statistics, 2005, p. 11 (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/pjim04.pdf). ) and
2003 Census figures for blacks and Latinos, which reported that the combined U.S. population of blacks
and Latinos was 75,492,000; the census calculates 197,326,000 white residents. United States Census
Bureau. Statistical Abstract of the United States 2004-2005. Black, African American Tables from the
Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2004-2005, p. 14. http://www.census.gov/statab/www/sa04baa.pdf.
14 The Sentencing Project. Hispanic Prisoners in the United States. Washington, D.C.: The Sentencing Project,
2003. (http://www.sentencingproject.org/pdfs/1051.pdf).
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15 Kings College. International Centre for Prison Studies. World Prison Brief: Highest to Lowest Rates.
www.prisonstudies.org.
16 Paige M. Harrison and Allen J. Beck. Prisoner and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004. Washington, D.C.: United
States Department of Justice Statistics, 2005, p. 11 (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/pjim04.pdf).
17 United States Census Bureau. Statistical Abstract of the United States 2004-2005. Black, African American
Tables from the Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2004-2005, p. 14. “White” and “Black” are those
reporting only one race. http://www.census.gov/statab/www/sa04baa.pdf.
18 Connecticut Department of Correction. July 1, 2005 Statistics: Incarcerated Population.
(http://www.ct.gov/doc/cwp/view.asp?a=1505&q=296494).
19 United States Census Bureau. Statistical Abstract of the United States 2004-2005. Black, African American
Tables from the Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2004-2005, p. 24.
http://www.census.gov/statab/www/sa04baa.pdf.
20 American Civil Liberties Union. Policy Priorities for Prison Reform. January 31, 2001, p. 2
(www.aclu.org/Prisons/Prisons.cfm?ID=5013&c=26).
21 George Voinovich. Letters from Ohio Governor George Voinovich to Attorney General Janet Reno.
(http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/youngstown/append1.htm).
22 Op. Cit.
23 Federal Bureau of Prisons. Private Prisons in the United States, 1999: An Assessment of Growth,
Performance, Custody Standards, and Training Requirements. (Washington, D.C., 2000), p. 98.
(http://www.bop.gov/news/research_projects/published_reports/pub_vs_priv/oreprcg2000.pdf).
24 Colorado Department of Corrections. After Action Report, Inmate Riot: Crowley County Correctional
Facility July 20, 2004. pp. 13-14 (http://www.doc.state.co.us/after_action/after_action_report.pdf).
25 Ibid., 15.
26 Ibid., 65.
27 CCA 10-K for year ending December 31, 2004, p. 19,
http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1070985/000095014405002154/g93600e10vk.htm.
28 “Poverty Figures has COs Sizing Up Their Jobs,” Corrections Professional. November 8, 1999, cited in
Philip Mattera, Mafruza Khan and Stephen Nathan, Grassroots Leadership. Corrections Corporation of
America: A Critical Look at its First Twenty Years. December 2003, p. 39.
29 Ibid., p.39.
30 Ibid., p. 39. Philip Mattera, Mafruza Khan and Stephen Nathan, Grassroots Leadership. Corrections
Corporation of America: A Critical Look at its First Twenty Years. December 2003. CCA’s labor practices
have also been challenged through a 2002 gender discrimination case. The U.S. Department of Labor audit
found that female applicants with equal or better qualifications than their male counter parts were turned
down because of their gender. CCA paid $152,000 in back wages to settle the suit. “Failure to hire pay
agreed for 96 women.” The Daily Oklahoman, August 29, 2002.
31 Grassroots Leadership produced Corrections Corporation of America: A Critical Look at its First Twenty
Years as a joint project of the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First and Prison Privatisation
Report International.
32 Philip Mattera, Mafruza Khan and Stephen Nathan, Grassroots Leadership. Corrections Corporation of
America: A Critical Look at its First Twenty Years. December 2003. pp.39-41
33 Miller, Joshua, “Worker Rights in Private Prisons.” In Andrew Coyle, et al, eds. Capitalist Punishment:
Prison Privatization & Human Rights. Clarity Press, Inc., 2003, p. 150.
34 Colorado Department of Corrections. After Action Report, Inmate Riot: Crowley County Correctional
Facility July 20, 2004. p.65 (http://www.doc.state.co.us/after_action/after_action_report.pdf).
35 Michael Jerome Edwards, Appellant v. The State of Texas, Appellee. 97 S.W.3d 279; 2003 Tex. App. January
9, 2003. LEXIS 127.
36 Michael Jerome Edwards, Appellant v. The State of Texas, Appellee. 97 S.W.3d 279; 2003 Tex. App. January
9, 2003. LEXIS 127.
37 Corrections Corporation of America 10-K, December 31, 2001, p. 52.
38 Yeoman, Barry, “Steel Town Lockdown.” Mother Jones. May/June 2000.
39 Corrections Corporation of America 10-K, December 31, 2001, p. 52.
40 Michael Overall, “City Settles In Death of Prisoner at CCA-Operated Tulsa Jail” Tulsa World. November 9,
2003, p. A1. MoreLaw.com http://www.morelaw.com/verdicts/case.asp?n=03%2DCV%2D126&s=
OK%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20&d=28230.
41 “Plea Agreement and Statement of Facts.” United States of America v. Joseph Torrez, District Court of
Colorado, Criminal Case No.: 00-CR-453-5
42 “Plea Agreement and Statement of Facts.” United States of America v. Joseph Torrez, District Court of
Colorado, Criminal Case No.: 00-CR-453-5
43 Karen Abbot. “Ex-Prison Guards Sentenced to 2 Years for Beating Prisoner.” Denver Rocky Mountain
News January 16, 2001.
44 Tom Purdom, “Armed guards stop protest,” The Gallup Independent. April 24, 2001. http://www.gallupindependent.com/1999-2001/4-24-01.html.
45 Christian Bottorff, “Inmate found dead had many fights, records say,” The Tennessean. August 4, 2004.

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46 Vilella v. CCA et. al., “Second Amended Complaint.” US District Court, Middel District of Tennessee,
Nashville Division, #3-04-0661. CCA denies the allegations “Answer to Second Amended Complaint of
Defendant Corrections Corporation of America.” 9/1/2005.
47 Christian Bottorff, “Autopsy of Inmate points to homicide,” The Tennessean. September 15, 2004.
48 Christian Bottorff, “Autopsy of Inmate points to homicide,” The Tennessean. September 15, 2004.
49 Nashville Police Department press release, July 7, 2004.
http://www.police.nashville.org/news/media/2004/07/07a.htm.
50 Henry E. Cauvin. “ D.C. Jail Stay Ends in Death For Quadriplegic Md. Man; Care Provided by Hospital,
Corrections Dept. in Question.” Washington Post. October 1, 2004.
51 Amnesty International. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A Briefing for the UN Committee against Torture.
May, 2000, p. 25.
52 Ibid., p. 24-5.
53 Corrections Corporation of America. Leading the Industry for 20 Years: 2003 Annual Report, 13.
54 www.alec.org.
55 The Sentencing Project. Prison Privatization and the Use of Incarceration. P. 4. (http://www.sentencingproject.org/pdfs/1053.pdf).
56 American Legislative Exchange Council. Background About ALEC, The ALEC formula for Success
(www.alec.org).
57 Brigette Sarabi and Edwin Bender. Prison Payoff: The Role of Politics and Private Prisons in the Incarceration
Boom. Western States Center & Western Prison Project, November 2000. p.4. The current co-chair is Janet
Scott of Walmart.
58 American Legislative Exchange Council. Membership Brochure. 2001., p. 2.
http://www.alec.org/meSWFiles/pdf/ALECMembershipBrochure.pdf.
59 Brigette Sarabi and Edwin Bender. Prison Payoff: The Role of Politics and Private Prisons in the Incarceration
Boom. Western States Center & Western Prison Project, November 2000. p. 3.
American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC Leaders in the States.
www.alec.org/me/SWFiles/pdf/2005%20Leaders%20in%20the%20states.pdf.
60 American Legislative Exchange Council. Membership Application Form.
http://www.alec.org/meSWFiles/pdf/Private$levels.pdf.
61 American Legislative Exchange Council. Membership Brochure. 2001., p. 2.
http://www.alec.org/meSWFiles/pdf/ALECMembershipBrochure.pdf.
62 Full text of the Private Correctional Facilities Act is available at via the Heartland Institute:
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=6263
63 According to Brigette Sarabi and Edwin Bender, The Prison Industries Act requires prisoners to work for
private companies and had passed in Mississippi by 2000. Brigette Sarabi and Edwin Bender. Prison Payoff:
The Role of Politics and Private Prisons in the Incarceration Boom. Western States Center & Western Prison
Project, November 2000. p.4
64 Brigette Sarabi and Edwin Bender. Prison Payoff: The Role of Politics and Private Prisons in the Incarceration
Boom. Western States Center & Western Prison Project, November 2000. p.4.
65 Corrections Corporation of America, from 2003 10-K tax filing, p. 25.
http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1070985/000095014405002154/g93600e10vk.htm.
66 John G. Simon, et. al. The Ethical Investor: Universities and Corporate Responsibility. (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1972), 174.
67 Abby Ellin. “A Food Fight Over Private Prisons.” New York Times. April 28, 2001.
68 Kevin Pranis. “Campus Activism Defeats Multinational’s Prison Profiteering.” In Tara Herivel and Paul
Wright, eds. Prison Nation: the Warehousing of America’s Poor. New York: Routledge, 2003. pp.156-163
69 “Schools not meeting provisions of No Child Left Behind Act,” August 19, 2005.
http://www.wtnh.com/global/story.asp?s=3741313&ClientType=Printable
70 Official Yale University Message. September 19, 2005. (Message ID 11340) https://light.its.yale.edu/messages/UnivMsgs/detail.asp?Msg=11340.
Notes to Sidebar:
iii. David Crary. “Exporting of Inmates Done by 11 States; Officials Defend Solution to Cell Shortage; Families
Decry Hardships it Brings Them.” Washington Post. March 7, 2004. p.A05
iii. Alison Leigh Cowan. “Plan to Move More Inmates Out of State Draws Criticism in Connecticut.” New
York Times. August 1, 2003. p.B5. See Also, Dwight F. Blint. “Inmates’ Next Stop May Be Ohio.” Hartford
Courant. February 23, 2004. p.B1
iii. David Crary. “Exporting of Inmates Done by 11 States; Officials Defend Solution to Cell Shortage; Families
Decry Hardships it Brings Them.” Washington Post. March 7, 2004. p.A05

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