Justice Department says it will end use of private prisons

[DonJoe]

Finally something going the right direction.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/18/justice-department-says-it-will-end-use-of-private-prisons/?utm_term=.1766d825c6f7

 

 

 

 

[bludog]

This directive to end the use of private prisons is important because it is the first time the ongoing privatization of prisons has been reversed.

 

But it only applies to a fraction of the overall population of inmates. The directive is instead limited to the 13 privately run facilities, housing a little more than 22,000 inmates, in the federal Bureau of Prisons system. Private management of other types of federal prisons are due to be phased out as their contracts come up, but not before.

 

"The vast majority of the incarcerated in America are housed in state prisons — rather than federal ones — and Yates’ memo does not apply to any of those, even the ones that are privately run. Nor does it apply to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Marshals Service detainees, who are technically in the federal system but not under the purview of the federal Bureau of Prisons".

 

Still, because it points out the failure of prison privatization, this small reversal, could serve as a clarion call for other prison systems to do the same.

[DonJoe]

With private prisons, there is financial incentive to incarcerate as many people as possible. The more prisoners the private prison has to accommodate, the more money it makes, thus you have some private corporations lobbying congress to incarcerate more and more people. This is one of the reasons the US incarcerates more people per capita than any nation in the world.

[XavierOnassis]

Private prisons get paid on a headcount basis. It is in their interests to provoke incidents that will cause prisoners to be disciplined by longer sentences.

Putting prisoners in private prisons is like putting Dracula in charge of the Blood bank.

[TheOldBarn]

read an article about a new book about what happened at attica in 1971. interesting and timely read..

 

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/29/learning-from-the-slaughter-in-attica

 

oh yeah, greg norman was a great golfer, one of the greatest who never seemed to win many of the majors. golfing for golfing is an interesting past time / send them to the golf courses those poor wretched ones - Carlin

 

Peace!