The US federal prison population increased by nearly 800 percent between 1980 and 2013, and in an effort to manage the rising prison population, US authorities began contracting with private prisons to confine some federal inmates a decade ago.
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“As each private prison contract reaches the end of its term, the bureau should either decline to renew that contract or substantially reduce its scope in a manner consistent with law and the overall decline of the bureau’s inmate population”, said Yates.
“Each state has their own state correctional system, has their own contracts with private prison companies so that has no impact on Florida”, said University of Tampa Criminology Professor Carly Hilinski-Rosick.
“They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs and resources; they do not save substantially on costs”, Yates wrote, also citing a report that said private prisons were more risky than those in public hands.
The directive from the Department of Justice only applies to federally contracted private prisons.
The report identified three corporations as running the private prisons used by the government: Corrections Corporation of America, GEO Group and Management and Training Corporation.
DOJ said in a memo announcing the new policy that “time has shown that [private prisons] compare poorly to our own … facilities”.
The agency’s inspector general’s office concluded in a recent report that prisons run by private companies have greater problems with contraband, inmate discipline and other issues than those run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
When the U.S. Bureau of Prisons nonrenewed its contract to house some 1,400 inmates at NEOCC as of May 31, 2015, that left only about 580 U.S. Marshals Service inmates there and resulted in the layoff of 103 NEOCC employees.
The private prison industry is a major contributor to Republican political campaigns, particularly in recent years.
Steven Owen, managing director of communications for the Nashville-Tenn. -based Corrections Corp. of America, did not respond concerning the DOJ decision’s impact on CCA’s Northeast Ohio Correctional Center, 2240 Hubbard Road. They also said they disagreed with the conclusions of an inspector general’s audit that preceded the Justice Department’s decision. Both companies get about half their revenue from the federal government.
The Justice Department’s decision comes as the private prison industry has fallen under increasingly critical scrutiny. The GEO Group Inc., meanwhile, saw its stock price fall by 39.58 percent on the NYSE, before recovering 3.79 percent in after-hours trade.
The federal government started to rely on private prisons in the late 1990s due to overcrowding.
According to the report, private prisons were more problematic than federal prisons and were on average less safe.
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Privately run immigration detention facilities include two family detention centers in Texas, holding up to 2,500 mothers and children. Amnesty International, on Thursday, urged states to follow suit. Some states, such as Kentucky, already have. Thursday’s policy change also included direction to change a current solicitation for a private prison contract, cutting the maximum number of beds required by 66 percent.
