Columbia Becomes The First College To Divest From Private Prison Industry

The Columbia University Board of Trustees voted Monday to make the university the first in the nation to pull its investments from the private prison industry. The university will divest from two major for-profit prison companies and create a new policy to ban investment in companies that operate prisons.

Students have been campaigning since February 2014 against Columbia’s $10 million in holdings invested in Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison company in the world, and G4S, an international security company that transports immigrant detainees and provided security at Guantanamo Bay until last year.

Both companies have dismal records strewn with lawsuits over inmate mistreatment, rampant corruption, inhumane conditions, and even death.

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