REUTERS: Private Prison Group Works Asylum Seekers For Pennies, Then Gouges Them For Commissary Food

Reuters reports:

Detained in a California lockup with hundreds of other immigrants seeking asylum, Duglas Cruz faced a choice. He could content himself with a jailhouse diet that he said left him perpetually hungry. Or he could labor in the prison’s kitchen to earn money to buy extra food at the commissary. Cruz went to work. But his $1-a-day salary at the privately run Adelanto Detention Facility did not stretch far.

A can of commissary tuna sold for $3.25. That is more than four times the price at a Target store near the small desert town of Adelanto, about two hours northeast of Los Angeles. Cruz stuck with ramen noodles at 58 cents a package, double the Target price. A miniature deodorant stick, at $3.35 and more than three days’ wages, was an impossible luxury, he said.

Immigrants and activists say facilities such as Adelanto, owned by Boca Raton, Fla.-based Geo Group Inc, the nation’s largest for-profit corrections company, deliberately skimp on essentials, even food, to coerce detainees to labor for pennies an hour to supplement meager rations.

Hit the link for much more. $11 toothpaste.

RELATED: In late 2017, Geo Group executives partied lavishly at Trump’s Miami golf resort after landing a $110 million federal contract. That contract came months after they donated six figures to a pro-Trump super PAC.