Bank of America is joining a growing corporate backlash against the detention industry.
The second-largest bank in the U.S. will stop issuing loans to companies that run private prisons and detention centers, its Vice Chair Anne Finucane told Bloomberg on Wednesday. The move comes a few months after JPMorgan and Wells Fargo divested from private prisons, and as Wayfair employees stage a walkout to protest the furniture company's work with migrant detention centers.
Bank of America "decided to exit the relationship" with for-profit prisons and detention centers after a review from its environmental, social, and governance committee, Finucane told Bloomberg. That review involved "site visits and consultation with clients, civil rights leaders, criminal justice experts, and academics," as well as "internal Hispanic and black leaders," Bloomberg writes. Finucane then declared there is "need for reforms in the criminal justice system and immigration."
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JPMorgan and Wells Fargo made similar decisions in March, though JPMorgan suggested the industry's declining credit made its continued involvement too risky. GEO Group and CoreCivic, the two largest private prison companies in the U.S., saw their shares drop 17 percent last year, and each dropped more than 3 percent again on Wednesday, Bloomberg notes.
Meanwhile, employees at Wayfair are specifically expressing their opposition to migrant detention, with dozens of workers staging a walkout Wednesday that attracted hundreds of supporters. They're asking the company to stop a $200,000 sale of furniture that would be used in migrant detention facilities. Wayfair rejected the employees' demand but offered a $100,000 donation to the Red Cross instead.
