The Profits of Detention Series
Welcome to the central hub for The Profits of Detention—a five-part series exposing how the U.S. immigration detention system has become a business model built on suffering, and how we can design systems rooted in care, not cages.
Each episode includes a podcast edition, a visual title card, and full written post. You can listen, read, or share from wherever you are in the journey.
🎙️ Part 1: The Business Model of Human Detention
Podcast Title: Profiting from Pain: The Business Behind Detention
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In this opening episode, we explore how private prison companies like GEO Group and CoreCivic profit from ICE detention. Guaranteed bed quotas, $1-a-day labor, and billions in taxpayer funding form a system where every undocumented person becomes a revenue opportunity.
🎙️ Part 2: From Violent Offenders to Mothers and Kids
Podcast Title: No Longer the Dangerous—Just the Available
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Detention policy has shifted. ICE no longer focuses on violent criminals—it now detains the vulnerable. This episode shows how corporate incentives and bed-filling mandates have led to the incarceration of grocery clerks, students, and entire families.
🎙️ Part 3: Follow the Money
Podcast Title: Campaign Cash, Lobbying, and the Detention Pipeline
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Who benefits financially? Who shapes the laws? We unpack the lobbying money, the campaign donations, the stock surges—and the $4 vs. $150 vs. $100,000 daily cost to detain. This is the full picture of financial and political entanglement.
🎙️ Part 4: The Emotional Economy of Detention
Podcast Title: What It Costs to Break a Family
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Beyond dollars, this episode explores the emotional toll: family separation, chronic fear, psychological collapse. Using the PERMAH model of human flourishing, we assess just how deeply the system wounds those it touches.
🎙️ Part 5: From Cages to Care
Podcast Title: Designing Dignity: What Comes After Detention
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We end with a vision of what’s possible: community-based alternatives, THX audits of humane facilities, a blueprint for policy redesign, and ten transformative questions to reframe the immigration debate.
🧭 Bonus Content
THX Facility Audit: A walkthrough using the 12 Utilities, PERMAH, and Admiration frameworks
10 Questions to Reframe the Debate: For classrooms, organizers, and the curious
Policy Design Starter Kit: What to defund, what to fund, and how to measure real success
This series is designed to educate, challenge, and equip. Whether you're an advocate, policymaker, journalist, or just someone who believes in human dignity, we hope this work moves you to action.
Let’s build systems worth admiring.