
Justice Department says it will end use of private prisons - okket
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/18/justice-department-says-it-will-end-use-of-private-prisons/
======
callcallcall
This is a good start but we must end the use of State private prisons as well.
Do you even know who your state representatives are??

Call your state reps: [http://tryvoices.com/](http://tryvoices.com/)

ACLU: [https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/end-prisons-
profit](https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/end-prisons-profit)

~~~
Unbeliever69
Agree 100%. A small step in the right direction. Our criminal justice system
needs serious overhauls on SO many levels. Unfortunately, it is not only the
fault of law enforcement, politicians, and judges. They are simply
representing the will of the people. The heart of American citizens need to
change. We live in such an unforgiving society. Despite what anyone says,
America and Americans don't believe in 2nd chances. Anyone that survives our
legal system and incarceration will NEVER have a true 2nd chance because we as
Americans cannot and will not collectively forgive. I blame the media to be
honest for perpetuating fear in the hearts of the masses. We live in a sad
country filled with sad, fearful, unforgiving people. Maybe a blanket
statement, but one that I believe to be true.

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
I completely agree. And considering forgiveness is such a core tenant of
Christianity, it's surprising that people call the U.S. a Christian nation.
Our use of capital punishment is also bizarre when you factor in the religious
component. Or the utter lack of care for the poor.

And I'm not saying religion should influence our laws, but I find the
hypocrisy astounding when the far right in this country is hell-bent on
pushing their religious beliefs into our laws and government policies
(abortion, birth control, marriage, etc).

~~~
ausvisaissues
> And considering forgiveness is such a core tenant of Christianity,

In civilization, individual members give up the right for revenge to the
state, who punishes perpetrators. Individuals may forgive a perpetrator, but
that doesn't mean he/she should not be punished by the state.

Compare this with societies with practices such as qisas or blood money: if an
individual (or family) forgives a perpetrator, they are not punished.

Having the government punishing people and the main religion stopping revenge
cycles is a really good system!

Furthermore, the USA is lenient in sentencing and family are forging towards
convicts. Compare this to Asian countries (such as Japan). In Japan, parents
will break off all ties to their children if they are sentenced for a crime --
even a fairly minor one.

Try to do some petty vandalism or other anti-social behaviour in Japan, Korea
or Singapore and compare the result with the result in the US.

~~~
selimthegrim
Downsides of qisas:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Allen_Davis_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Allen_Davis_incident)

~~~
rblatz
That's reads more like spies doing spy stuff with other spies. The guy was
going to get out of it anyway, but blood money was the most politically
sensitive way for the US and Pakistan to deal with the issue.

------
simonsarris
Corrections Corp down 20%

[https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ACXW](https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ACXW)

~~~
azinman2
Now 37%. It's insane that prisons could be on the stock market at all. Talk
about perverse incentives....

~~~
TheOneTrueKyle
Insane are the people who look at that stock and say, "that's a good
investment"...

~~~
SilasX
So, it's perfectly fine to personally enrich yourself by:

A) Working as a prison guard/admin (in which your job security/salary increase
with incarceration);

B) Hiring released convicts (in which your model becomes increasingly
profitable as more of the labor force is branded as less hireable due to
greater incarceration);

C) Supplying goods to prisons (in which your specialization at the problems of
delivery to prisons becomes more valuable with greater incarceration)

D) Lobbying for tough-on-crime laws due to the above incentives, as e.g. CO
interest groups have done [1]

But running the prison itself? "That's too much, man!"

Frankly, the anti-private prison movement is, IMHO, very confused. Numerous
groups financially profit from the prison system _even_ when they're publicly
run, and such prisons produce the same egregious incentives to encourage more
incarceration. (See the three-strikes lobbying.)

It seems like a way to exploit anti-market, anti-profit bias to get the masses
enraged at an enormous red herring -- which, by the way, is still only 6-16%
[2].

[1]
[http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/the_undue_influen...](http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/the_undue_influence_of_californias_prison_guards_union-
californias_correctional_industrial_complex.pdf)

[2] [https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-
incarceration/privatization...](https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-
incarceration/privatization-criminal-justice/private-prisons)

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
There is a big difference between profiting from people versus profiting
indirectly through supplies that a public prison uses.

The incentives are totally backwards. The state should be encouraging people
to not be in prison, but instead we have monetary incentives in place for
putting more people in prison and keeping them there.

~~~
SilasX
Not true -- the incentives are the same, and we see how they have led CO orgs
at _public_ prisons to lobby for longer sentences, exactly the danger that's
somehow unique to private prisons. And I explained how the same incentives
exist for all the other private orgs that specialize in servicing prisons.

------
panic
If you want to know more about what goes on in these prisons, a reporter spent
some time in 2014 working for a (state) private prison and wrote an article
about the experience: [http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-
private-pris...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-
prisons-corrections-corporation-inmates-investigation-bauer).

~~~
Matt_Mickiewicz
That was a great article.

------
nkrisc
The same entity (government, state or federal) that sentences individuals to
imprisonment should be the same entity responsible for bearing the burden of
imprisoning the individual.

~~~
moefogs
If you mean the economic burden, yes, but I don't think they need to bear all
the burden

My big complaint with private prisons, as they stand today, is that they tend
to get paid based on heads and beds. As such, prisons are rewarded when
prisoners behave badly (extending their stay), and when former prisoners
reoffend (repeating their stay). There are no countervailing economic
pressures.

If we want prisons to work, we need the economics to work in favor of societal
goals. Everything else equal, a prison that generates low recidivism should
get paid more than one that generates high recidivism, because they're
eliminating future costs.

~~~
jonlucc
> If we want prisons to work, we need the economics to work in favor of
> societal goals.

This is true, but we already ignore that for our prison population. Otherwise,
our system would be less punitive and more aimed to reformation and building
productive citizens.

~~~
themartorana
Proof that not only do individuals double down on beliefs in the face evidence
against them, but so do groups/organizations/governments.

------
aphextron
The real problem is at the State level, although this is a good precedent for
future suits.

~~~
madaxe_again
Exactly this. From TFA, this is _federal_ prisons only, and affects precisely
13 prisons. That just leaves the other ~130 private state prisons.

The plummeting stock will rebound the moment the market stops panicking, and
some vultures will make a killing. It's big business, and they won't go
quietly into the night.

~~~
giarc
Can these federal private prisons just start accepting state inmates? Thereby
remaining profitable?

~~~
duskwuff
No. These facilities are privately _operated_ , but are owned by the federal
government. The operators can't choose to turn them into state prisons, no
more than they could choose to turn them into hotels.

~~~
ojbyrne
At the risk of sounding frivolous, there are numerous prisons that have been
turned into hotels.

[http://www.nileguide.com/blog/2010/10/30/incarcer-
vacations-...](http://www.nileguide.com/blog/2010/10/30/incarcer-
vacations-11-prison-turned-hotels/)

~~~
azernik
The _government_ can choose to do that (in those cases, sell off the
property). Not private prison operators. The issue of property rights, not the
inherent concepts.

------
anonu
About time ... I hope this brings the cost of making outgoing calls from
prisons down as well... No reason for calls to cost in excess of $1 a minute
these days...

~~~
afarrell
I'm curious what the breakdown in nonmonopolistic cost of this would be. I
assume the largest component is the cost of surveillance to make sure they
aren't taking out a hit on someone?

~~~
r_smart
I doubt it. We're already all paying for that to be conducted on everyone in
the country.

~~~
afarrell
By a totally different entity who is going to avoid submitting its data into
court records.

~~~
r_smart
Isn't the FBI also conducting similar kinds of surveillance activities as the
NSA, though not as broad in scope?

~~~
afarrell
Here is an introduction to the 4th amendment law surrounding wiretapping,
drawn by a New York defense attorney:
[http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1704](http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1704)

Note that it assumes that an investigation is being conducted for the purpose
of submitting evidence to a court.

~~~
r_smart
Sorry, I seem to have misunderstood a crucial part of what you were saying,
which is: using the data as evidence in court. I also dug around to see if the
FBI has any surveillance apparatus like what the NSA is doing and didn't come
up with anything credible in the few minutes I looked. They appear capable,
but, as of yet, have not started that anyone knows of.

------
hx87
The only right way to do private prisons is to give each prisoner a fixed
grant with which they can use to buy space in a prison. This is the only way
the prison's incentive can match those of the prisoner.

~~~
swalsh
You get what you incentivize. If you incentivize headcount, you get a higher
headcount (thanks to lobbyists) Your suggestion might improve facilities, but
that's not quite the goal either.

If the goal of our system is to reform and reintegrate people who have
committed crimes back into the society, maybe that's what we should be
incentivizing.

We could develop quality measurements based on outcomes, and give bonuses
based on the percentile prisons rank in.

------
nstj
For interests sake, the top global incarceration rates[0] are listed below.
Note that influencing the Seychelles number is their small population (around
100,000) and the fact that they house a number of jailed Somali pirates.

Prisoners per 100,000 population: 1: Seychelles, 799 ; 2: United States, 698 ;
3: North Korea, 650 ; 4: St. Kitts and Nevis, 607 ; 5: Turkmenistan 583 ; 6:
Virgin Islands (United States), 542 ; 7: Cuba, 510 ; 8: Rwanda, 492 ; 9: Guam
(United States), 469 ; 10: El Salvador, 465

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate#Incarceration_rates)

~~~
cloudjacker
Explain St. Kitts?

------
benevol
Good. Next step towards a civilized society:

End the death penalty.

Unless you want to remain on the same list as a couple of medieval-minded
countries, that is.

~~~
rglovejoy
You mean like Japan and India?

------
rayiner
I think this is huge. Private prisons are already illegal in New York and
Illinois and a few other states, and the federal government not using them
will help other states flip.

~~~
dnautics
Are prisons in new York and Illinois relatively more or less humane than other
states? How about per capita incarceration rates?

~~~
JBReefer
Rikers is infamously horrible, but it's a jail, not a prison. It's run by NYC.

[http://www.vice.com/read/the-feds-are-suing-new-york-city-
be...](http://www.vice.com/read/the-feds-are-suing-new-york-city-because-
rikers-island-is-a-gitmo-style-hellhole-1218)

------
_audakel
this just makes me glad that Garry Johnson is campaigning on criminal justice
reform. From his website

"How is it that the United States, the land of the free, has one of the
highest incarceration rates in the world? The answer is simple: Over time, the
politicians have “criminalized” far too many aspects of people’s personal
lives.

The failed War on Drugs is, of course, the greatest example. Well over 100
million Americans have, at one time or another, used marijuana. Yet, today,
simple possession and use of marijuana remains a crime — despite the fact that
a majority of Americans now favor its legalization.

And who is most harmed by the War on Drugs? Minorities, the poor, and anyone
else without access to high-priced attorneys."

~~~
burkaman
He supports private prisons though, he cited building them as one of his
greatest achievements as governor. Presumably he won't be happy with this
decision.

~~~
_audakel
this is true, however he wrote in his personal blog that:

"Never in that process did I experience any pressure to “fill beds” in the
private prisons we built. And if I had, it wouldn’t have worked. It might
happen elsewhere, but it absolutely did not happen in New Mexico when I was
Governor. At the time, the “per-prisoner” cost in the state prisons was $76
per day. The cost to house prisoners in the private facilities was $56 per
day. Better service, lower cost."

------
JackFr
Weird thought -- has anyone ever considered non-profits privately running
prisons? Advocacy groups, human rights NGO's, hell why not even religious
institutions. You think we need prison reform, here's your chance . . .

~~~
huac
The Quakers invented solitary punishment.

~~~
patmcguire
How did they enforce it? Couldn't the prisoner just leave? Or were these non-
pacifist Quakers?

~~~
haroldp
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_State_Penitentiary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_State_Penitentiary)

~~~
huac
Yeah. It's an interesting place to visit. I also believe that originally a
"penitentiary" referred to a prison where prisoners were held in solitary
confinement, with the goal of reform, or 'penance.'

But we should remember that solitary confinement is almost universally worse
than other forms of punishment, in terms of the mental toll it takes upon the
inmate. The Wikipedia page is a good place to start:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_confinement#Historica...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_confinement#Historical_controversy)

~~~
haroldp
That was indeed the idea. Sit alone in your cell, read your bible and pray to
become a better person.

------
xyzzy4
I know I'm probably in the minority here, but what we really need to do is
only keep violent offenders in prison, and everyone else can be free.

~~~
tptacek
That won't help: mass incarceration is primarily a phenomenon involving
"violent" offenses.

[http://harvardjol.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/06/HLL104_crop...](http://harvardjol.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/06/HLL104_crop1.pdf)

By way of example, a plurality of offenders awaiting trial in Cook County
lockup are there for domestic violence.

~~~
themartorana
Interesting paper. I do like that it addresses that many prison wins could be
had through prosecutorial reforms. While the War on Drugs may have little
secondary effect, it was in the same timeframe as "tough on crime" rhetoric as
a whole, and with it came prosecutorial aggressiveness.

Also the decline of the middle class began around this time period as well...

The paper also notes how incredibly difficult prosecutorial reforms would be
to come by, which seems both true and depressing.

~~~
tptacek
It does not gloss over that; it considers that possibility in detail, and
addresses it with facts.

But ultimately, yes: the problem isn't the war on drugs or long sentences (at
least not directly), but rather the staffing and aggressiveness of
prosecutors.

~~~
themartorana
Yup, I changed my comment while you were replying. I still disagree that a lot
of this isn't the result of the War on Drugs (and there are studies that
agree[1]: _" More than 50 percent of people in federal prisons are
incarcerated for drug law violations. Almost 500,000 people are behind bars
for a drug law violation on any given night in the United States – ten times
the total in 1980."_) but again we end at the same conclusion.

[1]
[http://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/DPA%20Fact%20S...](http://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/DPA%20Fact%20Sheet_Drug%20War%20Mass%20Incarceration%20and%20Race_\(Feb.%202016\).pdf)

------
steveklabnik
I am glad to see this move, but

    
    
      > The 13 privately run facilities will not close overnight. 
    

That is, this affects 13 prisons. I'll take it, but not exactly a sweeping
reform.

~~~
jonesetc
There are only around 100 federal prisons total. This is a large chunk for the
federal level. State prisons are a much larger issue.

~~~
steveklabnik
Agreed on both counts.

------
MrZongle2
FTA: _" Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced the decision on Thursday
in a memo that instructs officials to either decline to renew the contracts
for private prison operators when they expire or “substantially reduce” the
contracts’ scope."_

So the options are 1) decline to renew the contract, 2) renew the contract or
3) reduce the scope of the contract... _when the contract is up for renewal_ ,
within the next 5 years?

So, what's the incentive for any federal official to select Option 1...or,
barring explicit resources to make up the difference, Option 3 for that
matter?

This is a "feel good" move. I predict little, if anything, will be changed as
a result of this in 5 years' time.

------
adventured
So when are we shutting down half of the government prisons, laying off a
million government employees at the federal and state level, and giving back
hundreds of billions in tax dollars currently being used for the government
prison complex?

~~~
haroldp
As soon as we end The Drug War.

------
Waleedasif322
So Bill Clinton says in the video: "We overdid it at putting in too many
young, non-violent offenders in jail for too long."

Not "We", Bill. You did that. I hate it when presidents can get away with
their actions by just a few words.

~~~
themartorana
Please explain how Clinton did that alone. Be sure to explain away Regan, Bush
Sr., the Justice Department, the War on Drugs, Three-Strikes laws, and just
about everyone else down the chain that instituted those policies. Also
explain away the tough-on-crime atmosphere in the 80s and 90s that started
these policies, the undertone of institutionalized racism, and be sure to end
with how nothing has changed through today, despite a decade of understanding
how terrible the entire thing was.

~~~
nilved
Plural "you." Clinton is part of the establishment that did this. GP & I are
not.

~~~
themartorana
Still disagree. The country wanted this and bought into this. They voted in
"tough on crime" mayors, governors, congress people, and yes, presidents for
years - decades, even. It started before I could vote, and maybe before you
could, but this wasn't some faceless elite "establishment" \- it was the
whoooole country.

~~~
madgar
A whole lot of people seem eager to ignore that America arrived where it is
today based on tens of millions of voters repeatedly deciding who runs their
governments. As if they were the first citizens to look around and find
themselves wholly dissatisfied with the state of government.

------
ams6110
I agree there are apparently huge problems with private prisons. But I don't
see any reason to believe the government can run them better or cheaper.

Why not simply demand the standards we want from the private contractors
running the prisons, as a contingency to get paid or renewed?

That would require actual oversight, and is probably less fun for people like
Sally Yates than having a convenient scapegoat to justify expansion of the
Bureau of Prisons.

~~~
yardie
They weren't being run any better or cheaper as far as the government/tax
payer was concerned. They were cheaper for the corporation. Minimal training,
safety, health and food standards. Pocket the difference and charge the
government the full rate.

------
Shivetya
Sadly its likely being done to score election points with minorities who they
will claim are unfairly treated by the "private prison industry" which
actually is more truthful if portrayed as the union prison industry which
contributes to the party that will portray otherwise

~~~
lotso
Nope, Obama and his DoJ have made criminal justice reform part of their
platform.

------
kavbojka
I kinda feel people make too much of private prisons and far too little of the
heinous things that have been done in their names by government-run and
managed prisons. For any one truly interested in questioning the whole idea of
putting _some_ people that some other people deem a menace into (super
expensive) cages, I recommend reading "Are Prisons Obsolete?"
[http://www.feministes-radicales.org/wp-
content/uploads/2010/...](http://www.feministes-radicales.org/wp-
content/uploads/2010/11/Angela-Davis-Are_Prisons_Obsolete.pdf)

------
allendoerfer
These are truly awesome news. Obviously there is the broken system itself that
gets improved (let's not pretend that it will be _fixed_ instantly). But aside
from that, showing that politics can actually fix something, which everybody
sees is so obviously broken, is really important. That is how politicians can
regain trust and bring a society back together. Because what happens when a
society has lost trust and is anxious can be watched right now all over Europe
and America: populism, hatred and extremism.

------
gozur88
Eh... the Justice Department will be under new management in less than six
months. Nothing they say about policy going forward really means much.

------
naveen99
I wonder how much a private prison could pay a person to commit a crime that
would land them in prison and still be profitable for the prison and the
prisoner...

Would be a win win gamble. Steal a car. If you don't get caught you keep the
car. If you get caught, collect money from the private prison. Private prison
collects from the state...

ofcourse it could go wrong.

~~~
knodi123
homeless people might be up for it. Special wing with friendlier guards for
the volunteer criminals?

------
OliverJones
Does anyone know whether this DOJ order also covers the facilities used for
detaining undocumented immigrants?

~~~
chris11
I think it might. The article mentioned that one response by companies was
that the conclusion of the report was not supported by the evidence because
some of their prisons primarily contained non-citizens, and that population
had different problems. I'm not really sure how the government decides to
place undocumented immigrants though.

------
jansen
Good start! I just wish this change would be happening for the right reasons,
e.g. that privately held prisons are creating a false incentive, an incentive
to be more profitable by having more prisoners and thus the creation of a
lobby for such thing.

~~~
tptacek
If you look, I think you'll find very little evidence of that actually
happening. Further, state-run prisons create as much if not more incentive, in
the form of public sector unions.

~~~
r_smart
It is curious how overlooked the money unions dump into lobbying is. They are
spending massive amounts of money lobbying DC, but nobody seems to talk about
it. The people that complain about companies who run private prisons lobbying
congress never have a thought for say, the corrections officers' union, doing
the same. Why?

~~~
wfo
Unions generally represent a large collection of human beings who all donate a
small fixed amount as dues, and are usually quasi-democratic. That is, unions
closer resemble the expression of the will of actual people, whereas non-union
corporate lobbying represents the interests of a single corporate leader
choosing to spend a huge amount of money to obtain influence in the democratic
process wildly out of proportion to his actual vote.

A teacher's union lobbying is acting in the interest of millions of American
teachers. An oil company lobbying is acting in the interest of the CEO of the
oil company.

~~~
vonmoltke
> A teacher's union lobbying is acting in the interest of millions of American
> teachers. An oil company lobbying is acting in the interest of the CEO of
> the oil company.

Both are incorrect characterizations. In theory, the actions of a union
represent the interests of its members and the actions of a corporation
represent the actions of its shareholders. In practice, the actions of both
represent their boards' interpretation of what their members/shareholders want
and what they think is in the best interests of their corporations[1]. Neither
represents either the collective will of all its members or the whims of a
single person.

[1] Unions in the US are 501(c) corporations and so have similar governing
structures.

~~~
wfo
Not true; they are quite correct characterizations.

In theory, union officials are elected by the members of the union. In
practice, union officials are elected by the members of the union. In theory,
the head of a corporation is the head of a corporation and may do whatever he
likes so long as he and a small cabal of directors wish. In practice, the very
few executives at the top of a large corporation run it like a dictatorship,
and they primarily serve their own interests -- not the interests of the
employees or the shareholders. And even when they do act in the interest of
shareholders, that's simply a code word for "a tiny group of wealthy elites"
\-- shareholders are wealth holders, so invariably even the most honest and
earnest CEO will be acting in the interest of large amounts of wealth
(oligarchy), not large amounts of people (democracy).

------
daveheq
The only way they can do this is because federal private prison industry isn't
that big, there's not that much money flowing into politicians' pockets for
it. Good luck trying to pry state leaders' hands off it.

------
justinlardinois
I thought it would be useful to post a link to a list of all the private
prisons in the United States, but I can't seem to find one online anywhere. Is
anyone aware of such a list?

------
hardlianotion
Good, if this is something that the UK will take notice of. We picked up this
practice from the US some time ago and the performance has always been
controversial.

------
20yrs_no_equity
[Redacted for not towing the party line close enough.]

~~~
saboot
I would think a government run prison would be more amenable to public
pressure to reform and change, as opposed to a free market solution.

~~~
agwa
That doesn't help if the public doesn't care, and for decades there was no
public pressure to reform any prison, public or private. Now that criminal
justice reform is mainstream, private prisons have received a disproportionate
amount of public attention, enough for the feds to phase them out. I hope the
newfound criminal justice reformers don't declare victory as soon as private
prisons are gone. Never forget that over-criminalization and mass
incarceration preceded private prisons, not the other way around.

------
chrstphfi56
WE have got. To think and act WITH our intuitive minds....We must use what God
and the Universe HAS given Us to truly discern Good from Evil..and STOP
playing we are still Blind

------
finid
> Yates said the Justice Department would not terminate existing contracts but
> instead review those that come up for renewal. She said all the contracts
> would come up for renewal over the next five years.

Which means that over the next five years, the govt. will continue to use
facilities that "are both less safe and less effective at providing
correctional services than those run by the government," and with no real cost
benefit.

~~~
Guvante
Instantly replacing everything would require:

* Paying out a large number of contracts which have cancellation clauses (don't complain too much about these, the companies at the other end of the contract made good faith investments due to them) * Quickly finding people to handle all of those prisons

Alternatively you can simply let each individual contract fail to renew which
allows you to take your time finding replacements for everything you need.

