Incarcerating criminal convicts is part of the justice system, which is run by government. So, why do we have private prisons? It goes back to the Reagan Administration, the War on Drugs and the crackdown on crime, which led federal prisons to be overcrowded. But the government refused to build new ones. Privatization was said to be cheaper and more efficient — and a new, very profitable, industry was born. Now, the Obama Administration says private prisons are unsafe, unhealthy and too expensive. As it ends the practice, will states and the Immigration Service go along?
Private prisons: justice and profits
More
- DOJ Inspector General's report on the monitoring of contract prisons
- Bloomberg on IG report using shaky stats to drop private prisons
- Zapotosky on the Justice Department's plan to end use of private prisons
- Bauer on his four months as a private prison guard
- Mother Jones on the Corrections Corporation of America
- ACLU on call for ICE to follow DOJ in dropping private prisons
Credits
Guests:
- Matt Zapotosky - Washington Post - @mattzap
- Shane Bauer - Mother Jones - @shane_bauer
- Issa Arnita - MTC Management & Training Corporation
- David Fathi - American Civil Liberties Union - @davidcfathi