Demand Tom Gores Choose: Securus or the Detroit Pistons

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Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores is the Founder and CEO of Platinum Equity, a Beverly Hills-based private equity firm that owns one of the nation’s largest and most predatory prison telecom corporations: Securus.

Securus rakes in more than $700 million annually by price-gouging families — disproportionately Black, Brown, and low-income — struggling to connect and support incarcerated loved ones. The corporation routinely charges as much as $15 for a simple 15-minute phone call, and piles on sky high deposit fees, among others. Securus then pays correctional administrators and sheriffs millions in kickbacks every year. As a result of Securus’ predatory practices, which Tom Gores has authorized, one in three families goes into debt trying to stay connected to a loved one behind bars, and 87 percent of the people carrying that burden are women, largely women of color.

This is just the beginning of a long list of ways Securus harms incarcerated people and their families. Since Tom Gores’ firm, Platinum Equity, purchased Securus in 2017 for $1.6 billion, the corporation has been fined for lying to the federal government, hacked due to a lack of cybersecurity protocol, found buying illegal location-tracking data to share with police, and sued for price-fixing with its competitors.

While advocates around the country have fought to stop Securus from exploiting families, Gores has done little to help those his decisions have harmed. For our part at Worth Rises, we delivered our demands to Tom in March of 2019 with deadline of end of year 2020 to divest from Securus. We then spent nearly a year in conversation with Gores and his team to no avail. And in January, Gores cancelled a meeting with directly impacted families.

Time is clearly up. Repeated attempts to engage Gores in constructive dialogue have failed to produce relief for incarcerated people or their families. In fact, in the past year, as the pandemic ravaged prisons and jails, Gores saw his investment boosted as administrators suspended visits, and families were forced to Securus’ pricey services.

It’s unconscionable for anyone to prey on their neighbors in this way, let alone at a time like this. He is a prison profiteer who has no place on the board of one of our nation’s favorite cultural institutions: the NBA. Gores should not be allowed to whitewash his active exploitation of marginalized communities by simply asserting that Black Lives Matter, especially in the U.S. city with the highest percentage of Black residents. Gores has to sell Securus or he has to go!