by Eric Bates

About the author: Eric Bates is a staff writer for the Independent, an alternative weekly in Durham, North Carolina.

James Neal is a short, muscular man with close-cropped hair who has spent the past twelve years behind bars for armed robbery. He is also one of the most valuable commodities to trade hands in Youngstown, Ohio, since the steel industry abandoned the city more than a decade ago. In 1997 Neal was among the first “loads” of inmates bused from the District of Columbia to a new prison run by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the world’s largest operator of for-profit lockups. CCA stood to make $182 million guarding the prisoners, and Youngstown-area residents lined up to apply for hundreds of jobs with the company. Those who toured the prison before it opened were...