Making profit off of jailing people is inherently inefficient, demonstrably corrupting, and ethically suspect. If we, as a society, believe that an individual should be incarcerated, we, as a society, should do it, not bid it out to the lowest bidder corporation with the biggest lobbying budget.
So hearing that the Dept. of Justice agrees and will begin getting out of private prison contracting for federal inmates (especially as federal prison populations are diminishing) is, to me, a very, very good thing.
'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. The goal, Yates wrote, is “reducing — and ultimately ending — our use of privately operated prisons. 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."'
