|
China Joe order terminates federal private prison contracts. Here's what that means.
The action is part of the administration’s effort to address racial inequity in the country and make good on Biden’s campaign promises to Black Americans — who were integral to securing his presidential win.The order directs the Justice Department to decline to renew contracts with privately-operated, for-profit prisons. This effort began under the Obama administration and was championed by then-DeputyAttorney General Sally Yates. The policy was quickly axed by the Trump administration in 2017. Now, scholars are taking a deeper look at the restored policy, and questioning its overall impact on racial inequity. "When it comes to private prisons, the impact of this order is going to be slight to none," said John Pfaff, a professor of law at the Fordham University School of Law. "This is not about shrinking the footprint of the federal prison system, it’s just about transferring people to public facilities. Biden is telling an executive agency under his control what kind of contracts they can enter, that’s a core executive function of Biden’s." Still states can still choose "who to write contracts with," Pfaff said. "In practice, this will end up being more symbolic and will have little impact on any issue of racial justice and the system. The symbolism carries the very real risk of making us blind to the nearly identical incentives of the public prison sector, and the public side is so much vaster in scope." Few details have been released about the order scaling back private prison use, but the initial Obama-era policy focused on about a dozen privately-run facilities. The federal Bureau of Prisons said then that approximately 195,000 people were incarcerated in the bureau's or private-contract facilities. Today, there are nearly 152,000 people incarcerated federally, with 14,000 housed at privately-managed facilities, according to The Associated Press. Posted by: Besoeker 2021-01-29 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=592848 |