Reply #107: ALEC was behind the Three-Strikes-You're-Out and Truth-In-Sentencing laws [View All]

ALEC in the House: How Corporate Bias Affects Criminal Justice Legislation
January 31, 2002
Article by Brigette Sarabi

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Prominent among ALEC's corporate backers are several major stakeholders in prison privatization, including Corrections Corporation of America (CCA); Wackenhut Corrections; and Sodexho Marriott Services, a subsidiary of French multinational Sodexho Alliance, which until last year was a major stockholder in CCA, and now owns the former CCA prisons in the United Kingdom and Australia. CCA, the largest private prison corporation in the U.S., made the President’s List for contributions to ALEC’s 1999 States & Nation Policy Summit. Sodexho Marriott and Wackenhut also sponsored the conference.

Representatives from the corporate sector co-chair the task forces that develop ALEC's model legislation. CCA has long held a co-chair position on the Criminal Justice Task Force, as has the National Association of Bail Insurance Companies. These corporate interests have helped make tough criminal justice legislation a specialty of ALEC. In its 1995 Model Legislation Scorecard the organization claimed, "The busiest Task Force was Criminal Justice, which had 199 bills introduced." The report of the Criminal Justice Task Force states: “The Criminal Justice Task Force is dedicated to developing model policies that reduce both violent and property crimes in our cities and neighborhoods in an efficient, fiscally conservative manner. ALEC's Truth-in-Sentencing Act and Three-Strikes-You're-Out Act have been the most effective bills supported by the Task Force. At least one of these model bills has been enacted in half of the states in the country. The Task Force continues to explore cost-effective methods for states to manage their criminal justice systems.”

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For most of its 28-year history, ALEC has positioned itself as a conservative voice for states’ rights, and a dogged opponent of big (i.e. federal) government. With the new Bush administration in the White House, and over 83 ALEC members in Congress, as well as several key Cabinet officials, ALEC may be looking at pushing for more influence at the federal level. At it’s annual meeting in August, held in New York, several key federal players were active participants. These included U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson (an ALEC alum), and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.

According to the Wall Street Journal, part of the focus of this year’s annual meeting was a new ALEC report that claims states have set themselves up for “potential disaster” over the last decade with new spending. Nowhere, however, was there any serious mention of incarceration as a primary driver for the increase in state budgets. Could it be that the corporate interests that influence much of our public and tax policy hate government spending—except when it comes to spending that benefits their bottom line? And let’s face it, prisons are big business. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that this year ALEC awarded it’s Thomas Jefferson Freedom Award to Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne, who heads the state that had the fastest growing incarceration rate in the country last year. Then again, maybe that’s just a coincidence. Maybe.