The United States has the world\u2019s highest incarceration rate. The largest private prison and detention center operators have been criticized for lobbying for longer sentences. Photo: Matthew Ansley \/ Unsplash<\/p>\n
When Jose Azurdia Hernandez suffered a heart attack at the Adelanto Detention Facility in California, the nurse initially refused to see him. A guard had told her that the 54-year-old Guatemalan was vomiting, but she did not want to tend to him \u201cbecause she did not want to get sick\u201d, she said. Confined to his cell, Azurdia worsened. By the time he finally received the medical care that, according to experts, would have saved his life hours earlier<\/a>, it was too late.<\/p>\n Stories like Azurdia\u2019s, along with images of crowded detention centers or parents and young children being forced apart, have fueled the heated American debate over the country\u2019s private prisons and detention centers for the past few years.<\/p>\n Danwatch’s review shows that the three Danish pension funds PKA, Velliv and L\u00e6rernes Pension all have investments in the two largest players in the private prison industry in the US: CoreCivic and GEO Group. These are the pension funds for social educators, social workers, nurses, and medical secretaries in Denmark.<\/p>\n PKA has invested a total of DKK 54 million in the two companies. L\u00e6rernes Pension has invested almost DKK 7 million in CoreCivic, and Velliv has invested a total of DKK 1 million in both companies.<\/p>\n More than one million Americans have petitioned investors to divest their money from the private prison industry. Over the past year, America\u2019s largest pension fund and seven of the country\u2019s largest banks have withdrawn investments from the industry’s two biggest players: CoreCivic and Geo Group.<\/p>\n However, American funds aren\u2019t the only ones with a vested interest in the US prison industry. Several Danish pension funds have also invested significant sums, Danwatch discovered. Amongst them are PKA Pension, L\u00e6rernes Pension, and Velliv, funds which largely represent Danish nurses, social workers, and teachers.<\/p>\n While American teacher unions had also previously invested in the private prison and detention industry, affected teachers have since been made aware and are actively calling for their unions to divest from the industry<\/a>.<\/p>\n David C. Fathi, Director of the National Prison Project in the American Civil Liberties Union, is highly critical of Danish pension funds which invest in CoreCivic and GEO Group.<\/p>\n “This is an industry that profits from human captivity and suffering. This is an industry that allows the United States to maintain the largest prison population in the world, and to detain tens of thousands of immigrants and asylum-seekers”, he tells Danwatch.<\/p>\n PKA, a pension company for social educators, social workers, nurses, and medical secretaries, had invested DKK 54 million in GEO Group and CoreCivic. Following Danwatch’s request, PKA announced that it will divest all of its shares in the two companies.<\/p>\n “We invest in accordance with the UN Global Compact’s principles of corporate social responsibility and sustainability which must, among other things, ensure that companies do not contribute to human rights violations,” PKA\u2019s press officer Nicholas Rindahl wrote in an email to Danwatch.<\/p>\n This is an industry that profits from human captivity and suffering. This is an industry that allows the United States to maintain the largest prison population in the world, and to detain tens of thousands of immigrants and asylum-seekers<\/p>\nDanish investments in US private prisons<\/h2>\n
PKA withdraws its DKK 54 million<\/h4>\n