Justice Department Plans to Stop Using Private Prisons

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/department-justice-plans-end-private-prison

The announcement comes after a Mother Jones investigation found serious deficiencies at a private prison in Louisiana.

PEMA LEVY AUG. 18, 2016 12:06 PM



The Department of Justice will stop contracting with private prisons, the department announced Thursday morning. The decision comes a week after the DOJ inspector general released a damning report on the safety, security, and oversight of private prisons, which incarcerate 12 percent of federal inmates.

The announcement comes on the heels of a Mother Jones investigation of a private prison in Louisiana that found serious deficiencies in staffing and security. It also documented a higher rate of violence than the prison reported. Last week's DOJ report found that private prisons are more violent than federal prisons.

As of December 2015, private prisons incarcerated about 22,600 federal inmates. The news of the DOJ's decision prompted a quick downturn in stock prices for the two largest private prison companies.

(see article for stock prices falling)


The decision was announced in a memo by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, according to the Washington Post. The memo directs department officials not to renew existing contracts or to "substantially reduce" their scope, with the goal of "reducing—and ultimately ending—our use of privately operated prisons."

(see youtube: My Four Months As a Private Prison Guard (6 parts))

************





Read Mother Jones' editor-in-chief and CEO on what it took to pull off our investigation.

About time, but most prisoners are held in state systems which still have too many for profit private prisons.