The federal prison population increased by nearly 800% between 1980 and 2013, at a rate the Bureau of Prisons couldn’t accommodate in their own facilities.
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A memo issued Thursday by Deputy Attorney Sally Q. Yates instructs the head of the Bureau of Prisons to either decline to renew or to reduce the scope of contracts with private prison companies when the contracts come due.
“The Department of Homeland Security has made no announcement similar to the Department of Justice”, she said, “so the bulk of federal contracting with private prison companies is going to continue through the immigration detention system”. Yates’ memo also notes that the 13 private prisons under the BOP’s watch are not as safe as those run by the feds.
The policy change does not cover private prisons used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which hold up to 34,000 immigrants awaiting deportation.
A report released earlier in August 2016 by the Inspector General found that private prisons had higher rates of violent incidents and rule infractions compared to government-run prisons.
According to the report, private prisons were more problematic than federal prisons and were on average less safe.
The U.S. Justice Department announced this week it’s phasing out its use of private prisons.
Most inmates serving time in the USA are in state prisons, not federal ones.
Starting in October, the department plans to send an additional 250 prisoners to Saguaro – enough to empty one of four modules at the Halawa Correctional Facility, while the prison’s medium-security wing goes through an 11-month upgrade. As of Thursday afternoon, the stock price of Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group had dropped more than 35 percent from the previous day’s close.
The department now houses about 1,400 Hawaii prisoners – about a quarter of the state’s inmate population – at the Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona, about 70 miles southeast of Phoenix. His group runs a campaign to encourage companies to divest from for-profit prisons.
It was not clear on Friday how the Obama administration’s decision to phase out its use of some private prisons will affect five such facilities now operating in Texas as well as the communities where they are located.
Disturbances in the facilities, the report said, led in recent years to “extensive property damage, bodily injury, and the death of a Correctional Officer”.
The number of people detained at Criminal Alien Requirement prisons has grown in recent years, the ACLU of Texas said, because immigrants stopped for crossing the border are facing criminal prosecutions.
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Private prisons investors got some bad news Thursday when the Department of Justice announced it would begin to phase out their services.
