skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Monday, March 18, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

New Tool Exposes Companies Profiting from Mass Incarceration

play audio
Play

Monday, November 2, 2015   

DENVER - Human rights advocates are deploying a new digital tool to help convince corporations to stop profiting from mass incarceration. More than 2.4 million people are currently behind bars in the U.S., more than any other nation according to the American Friends Service Committee.

Dalit Baum, AFSC's director of economic activism, is set to unveil the committee's new platform called Investigate at the annual Sustainable Responsible Impact Investments conference this week in Colorado.

She points out that prisons, funded by taxpayers, are big business for private companies.

"There is plenty of evidence of corporate power being used in order to change legislation, create harsher incarceration terms, build more prisons," says Baum. "These corporations have a stake in mass incarceration."

Baum says the Web application is not just an information site. She says for the first time, people will be able to automatically scan their investment portfolios and find out if they are invested in the prison industry. She's hopeful the platform will give investors and consumers the information they need to decide whether or not to support companies making money on mass incarceration.

Baum says a lot of people are already familiar with high profile private-prison companies, such as the Corrections Corporation of America or the GEO Group. But she says this new tool helps expose firms people might not realize operate throughout the industry, from transportation and telephone companies to food, and even probation services.

"You can use it in order to upload a list of holdings," says Baum. "Your school, if you're a student or faculty. Upload it to our tool and it will highlight potentially problematic companies."

Baum says the Investigate platform is available on any mobile device or computer connected to the Internet. She says the program also provides in-depth research on companies, including actions other groups have already taken, such as divesting portfolios or boycotts, to encourage corporations to stop profiting from private prisons.

Check in on your investments at afsc.org/investigate.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
Corporate partners sign contracts to offer a graduate assistantship and pay the students. In turn, MSU pays the graduate assistant's tuition, fees and salary, so the assistantship is directly tied to the academic experience. (pressmaster/Adobe Stock)

play sound

By Victoria Lim for WorkingNation.Broadcast version by Farah Siddiqi for Missouri News Service reporting for the WorkingNation-Public News Service Col…


Social Issues

play sound

A new report brands Connecticut's tax system as "regressive" for low- to middle-income residents and uses a report from the state to make its point…

Environment

play sound

Backers of a new federal rule said it will increase fairness for livestock and poultry producers, in North Carolina and across the country. The U.S…


A study by the advocacy group Inseparable showed one in five adults said at any given time, they consider their mental health to be either 'fair' or 'poor.' (Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Mental health care advocates are encouraging federal agencies to adopt a proposed update to regulations which would expand access to psychological car…

Social Issues

play sound

With hotter summers bringing hotter working conditions, the Maryland Department of Labor is implementing a heat stress standard to protect workers …

Social Issues

play sound

By Jimmy Cloutier for OpenSecrets.Broadcast version by Roz Brown for Texas News Service reporting for the OpenSecrets-Public News Service Collaboratio…

Environment

play sound

Recreational fishermen in New England say commercial trawlers are threatening the survival of smaller businesses relying on a healthy stock of Atlanti…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021