Investigate: Action/Research on State Violence

Knowing what you own is the first step to aligning your investments with your values. You may be invested in state violence through companies involved in mass incarceration, immigrant detention and surveillance, military occupation, or the border industry.

Our database includes original research and lists over 200 company profiles. Learn how they profit from and support state violence. Then use this knowledge to create change.

 

Company Spotlight
Palantir Technologies (NYSE: PLTR)

Involved in:     Borders     Occupations

           Recommended for Divestment

  • Enables ICE's deportation work by providing high-tech artificial intelligence systems that conduct mass surveillance on immigrant communities and facilitate workplace raids.
  • Provides the same systems as "predictive policing" tools for law enforcement agencies and militaries, including the Israeli security forces.
Mutual Fund Spotlight
TIAA-CREF Social Choice Equity Fund

This fund, self-designated "socially responsible," has $75M invested in companies we recommend for divestment, including Caterpillar. Overall, this fund is invested in:

  • The Prisons Industry - $56M | 4 companies
  • Illegal Occupations - $690M | 18 companies
  • Border Militarization - $367M | 6 companies
What is Divestment?

When companies withdraw their investment in harmful institutions of state violence - such as Apartheid, prisons, militarized policing, and war - they also withdraw their political and financial support of these institutions and help create new behavior standards which respect human life, human rights, peace, and sustainability.

On May 31st, 2022, Following a two-year campaign calling on General Mills to stop making Pillsbury products on stolen Palestinian land, the company announced that it had sold off its stake in General Mills Israel. In response to media queries, the company stated that it would no longer produce any products in the Shalgal factory, located in the illegal settlement of Atarot, nor would it continue selling Pillsbury products in Israel.

June 10, 2022

Our Investigate Research Project has identified more than 60 companies with significant involvement in the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border and in the surveillance and criminalization of immigrant communities throughout the United States. Of these companies, 25 are shortlisted as the worst of the worst, the first-ever divestment list designed to promote immigrant justice.

November 10, 2021
About Investigate

Investigate is a research and information center that offers investment screens, company profiles, and industry analyses for institutional and private investors, activists, and advocacy groups. Our research focuses on companies involved in state violence and human rights violations around the world, through incarceration and immigrant detention, military occupation, and the border militarization industries.

Investigate is a project of the American Friends Service Committee Economic Activism Program.