The Justice Department plans to end its use of private prisons after officials concluded the facilities are both less safe and less effective at providing correctional services than those run by the government.
Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced the decision on Thursday in a memo that instructs officials to either decline to renew the contracts for private prison operators when they expire or “substantially reduce” the contracts’ scope. The goal, Yates wrote, is “reducing — and ultimately ending — our use of privately operated prisons.”
“They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and as noted in a recent report by the Department’s Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same level of safety and security,” Yates wrote.
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And then.. a crisis about not having enough prison space, so they will let lots more felons out early.
ReplyDeleteYes, but a lot of very rich people make a lot of money off of the private for profit prison system.
ReplyDeleteAnd it encourages (bribes) judges to hand down large sentences for victimless crimes.
945 has a good point about the stocks. It's a sketchy scheme where they're bundled as a Real Estate Investment Trust (I'm not a broker...maybe someone could chime in...but it's a way for them to avoid income taxes). If you have a 401(k) through Vanguard or Fidelity chances are one or more of your funds holds stock from either CCA or GEO the two largest private prison corporations. Besides that, it was disclosed this week that CCA obtained a NO BID contract worth $1 Billion over 4 years to house "refugees" from Central America.
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ReplyDeleteAhah! Look closely at the fine print before closing on that high security gated community! You might not be separated from Bubba by a party wall.
On a brighter note, when justice finally catches up with Obama, Clintons, Holder, Lynch, Pelosi, Lerner and crew they'll get to rub shoulders with the common folk they've so carefully avoided in their gilded lives.