Columbia becomes the first US university to divest from private prison companies

While this is great news, I challenge Columbia to do one better.<p>My own alma mater, Bard College, created a program called the Bard Prison Initiative. This program teaches college courses for college credit to incarcerated prisoners in the state of New York, ultimately awarding either Associates or Bachelors degrees from Bard College. Education for prisoners is important from both a moral and economic perspective, dramatically reducing recidivism as well as saving money (a $1 investment in prison education reduces incarceration costs by $3-$4 in the first three years of an inmate&#x27;s release[1]).<p>This is a great first step but it is not enough to simply not support the prison industry. There are proven steps that can be taken here to reduce recidivism and help society. Despite this, the Bard Prison Initiative is chronically underfunded despite support by governor Cuomo due to politicians not wanting to appear soft on crime. Columbia is a much wealthier university than Bard College, so I challenge them to join Bard in their initiative.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.justice.gov&#x2F;opa&#x2F;pr&#x2F;justice-and-education-departments-announce-new-research-showing-prison-education-reduces" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.justice.gov&#x2F;opa&#x2F;pr&#x2F;justice-and-education-departme...</a>

Interesting article, but the first graph is one of the most blatantly misleading charts I have seen in a long time. Showing two graphs overlapping on completely different scales is a really nasty trick.

If the futile and counter productive prohibition of drugs comes to an end then all those prisons won&#x27;t be needed.

While I admire the motivation, everything I have seen has stated divestment doesn&#x27;t have much of an economic impact. If these companies are profitable, they will still be profitable. In fact, the profits will end up being concentrated with less morally minded investors, which can make the problem even worse. A moral stockholder can help drive the company in a moral direction. However if the only stockholders left put profit above all other motivations, the company has less and less incentive to make morally sound decisions.

Nice work, Colombia. I hope that others follow suit.<p>And maybe the awareness around this issue will then lead to a discussion of the high human cost of the War on Drugs, the greatest burden borne by our citizens of color. And maybe that will cause us to revisit our criminal justice system and end the war on drugs.<p>Private prisons are a symptom, not a cause. For a better understanding of the forces leading to prison privitization and a myriad of other woes and injustices I _strongly_ recommend reading &quot;The New Jim Crow&quot; by Michelle Alexander.

Is there any reason to believe that <i>private</i> prisons are significantly worse than publicly run prisons?<p>I agree that the U.S. is badly in need of major reforms in its criminal justice system, but is there any reason to believe that society is better off with exclusively publicly run prisons?<p>Private prisons may do some regrettable lobbying on behalf of longer prison sentences, but I&#x27;m pretty sure that the corrections officers unions (most of whose membership works in publicly run prisons) is a far stronger political force.<p>It seems as though the students&#x27; activist energy would have been better used fighting the policies of mass incarceration rather than the private companies who do the government&#x27;s bidding in applying them.

The thing about this is that as long as there is a private prison industry, or really any privatization of fundamental government functions, that makes profits, there will be investors that will replace anyone who makes some moral investment decisions.<p>I laud their efforts and there really should be more of these ethical decisions in investment by public organizations, but reality is those choices are simply a symptom of moral people compensating for the moral depravity of our own government.

Guess I was naive. Assumed few to no universities invested in prisons...

That makes a Plus in my book for Columbia. And I thank the students who set this in motion with their protests.

I don&#x27;t understand why this matters? In every transaction, there is a buyer and a seller. Even if Columbia divests, someone else is buying in.<p>The bigger impact is if no one buys newly issued equity.<p>The biggest impact is stopping them from collecting revenue, i.e. stopping the government from having privately run, for-profit prisons.