ACA Turns Down Anti-Privatization Ad, but Runs For-Profits’

As this newsletter was going to press, the American Correctional Association had just refused to print our advertisement against private prisons in its convention program booklet. According to Joy Cantor, ACA’s senior sales manager, they pulled our ad because they were afraid it might offend their other advertisers.

The ad ACA refused has already run in newspapers around the country. It urges readers to support H.R. 979, AFSCME’s anti-prison-privatization bill, which has strong bipartisan support in the U.S. House of Representatives. Although ACA did not say which advertisers they were worried about offending, the organization’s leaders have strong ties to Wayne Calabrese, the president and chief operating officer of Wackenhut Corrections. According to ACA’s Executive Director, James Gondles, it regularly runs advertisements from both Wackenhut and the Corrections Corporation of America in favor of prison privatization.

We urge all our readers to write Gondles at 4380 Forbes Boulevard, Lanham, Md. 20706-4322 and express your outrage at his organization knuckling under to the private prison companies. Since ACA is a trade association for prison management, we also urge you to write to your state corrections’ commissioner and urge him or her to challenge ACA on their refusal to allow our point of view to be represented.