A (Baby) Step in the Right Direction

The Justice Department announced plans Aug. 18 to phase out the use of privately run federal prisons. The announcement, first reported by The Washington Post, came as a memo written by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

  Bill Moyers

Only good if the Democrats hold the White House in November. And maybe not even then.

Donald Trump has said, “I do think we can do a lot of privatizations and private prisons. It seems to work a lot better.”

"Seems" being the operative word on pretty much whatever Donald says. I'm surprised he used that qualifier, though, rather than just saying it works a lot better, period. He said that back in March. I don't know whether he's revised that opinion since the report by the IG last week indicating just the opposite.

Hillary Clinton’s relationship to the industry is more complex. Last October, facing pressure from primary opponent Bernie Sanders — who has proposed a total ban on private prisons — Clinton announced she would no longer accept donations from the industry. In April, she declared, “We should end private prisons and private detention centers.”

And, as we all know, Hillary Clinton never changes her tune to match the wind.

[Some 22,000] inmates are housed at 13 privately run federal “contract” prisons, which primarily house “criminal aliens,” or noncitizens convicted of crimes, many of whom may be deported at the end of their sentences. They’re in California, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Mississippi and North Carolina. The Bureau of Prisons, by contrast, runs more than 100 prisons [holding roughly 170,000].

[...]

Last week, the federal Inspector General released a report concluding that federal prisons run by private companies are substantially less safe and secure than ones run by the Bureau of Prisons, and feature higher rates of violence and contraband. The report, which followed years of pressure by advocacy groups, highlighted a series of riots at these facilities in recent years, often sparked by substandard food and medical care and generally poor conditions.

[...]

Part of what made the new scrutiny possible was an overall decline in the federal prison population, which dropped from 220,000 prisoners in 2013, according to the memo, to 195,000 today.

[...]

According to the memo, as each of these contracts comes up for renewal over the next five years, the bureau will “either decline to renew that contract or substantially reduce its scope.”

The policy shift has no bearing on the private operation of immigrant detention facilities. As of December, 62 percent of the 34,000 beds for people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement are in privately-run facilities. They are under the authority of the Department of Homeland Security, not the Department of Justice.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.