JUST IN: Justice Department Kicks Private Prison Contractors To The Curb (VIDEO)

The most recent season of the popular show Orange is the New Black showcased the many problems found in the private prison industry. In a case of life imitating art, the Justice Department announced on Thursday morning that they will no longer contract with private prisons.

Private Prison Industry – Unsafe And Ineffective

Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates made the announcement in a memo. The Washington Post first reported the story and posted the memo online. In the memo, Yates wrote;

“They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and as noted in a recent report by the Department’s Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same level of safety and security.”

The private prison industry has long been criticized by liberals and civil rights organizations. The ACLU dedicates a portion of their website to it, stating;

“These private prisons have also been linked to numerous cases of violence and atrocious conditions.”

History Of Abuse

The private prison industry has come under fire many times in the past few years. A huge problem with a for-profit prison industry is that the corporation running the prison gets paid more when more beds are filled. This leads to corruption on the part of lawyers and judges, such as the well-known “Cash for Kids” scandal in Pennsylvania.

Last week, the Inspector General’s office released a scathing report of the problems that occur within the private prison industry. The report included the following information, among other problems:

“…In a majority of the categories we examined, contract prisons incurred more safety and security incidents per capita than comparable BOP institutions … With the exception of fewer incidents of positive drug tests and sexual misconduct, the contract prisons had more incidents per capita than the BOP institutions in all of the other categories of data we examined … Our site visits also revealed that two of the three contract prisons we visited were improperly housing new inmates in Special Housing Units (SHU), which are normally used for disciplinary or administrative segregation, until beds became available in general population housing.”

Private Prison Industry Stock Plummets

In the wake of this morning’s announcement, the stock prices of two of the biggest for-profit prison corporations in the country – Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group – plummeted by more than 40 percent.

All of this is nothing but good news for those of us who see the private prison industry for what it truly is – a stain on our democracy.

Check out part one of a series of videos detailing what it’s like to be a prison guard at a private prison:

 

Featured Image via DonkeyHotey Via Flickr/CC By -2.0.

Carrie is a progressive mom and wife living in the upper Midwest.