Should the U.S. Ban Private Prisons?

What’s the story?

• Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has released a policy proposal calling for a ban on private prisons and detention facilities, which she hopes to enact should she be elected president in 2020.
• U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) paid more than $800 million in taxpayer money to 19 private, for-profit immigration detention centers in 2018.

What would the proposal do?

• End "all contracts that the Bureau of Prisons, ICE, and the U.S. Marshals Service have with private detention providers."
• “Stop contractors from charging service fees for essential services.”
• Presently, a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) loophole allows private prison subcontractors to operate in secret. Warren’s plan would open private prisons to FOIA requests and also appoint an “independent Prison Conditions Monitor within the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General.”

How private prisons work

• Private prisons receive stipends from the government to manage and operate detention facilities.
• In order to receive the stipend, the private-prison’s costs must be lower than that of a public prison.

“And just like any business, the more costs they can cut, the bigger that profit margin will be,” CNBC wrote. “But many times, that results in poor quality of care for prisoners.”

GOP donations

•  Private prison companies donated over $1.6 million - mostly to GOP candidates - during the November midterm elections. 
• The Dallas News discovered that the GEO Group, which runs one of the country’s largest private immigration detention centers, is a top donor for two Texas congressmen. It also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a Trump-aligned super PAC and hosted its annual conference at one of Trump’s golf resorts.
• GEO expects its earnings to grow to $2.3 billion this year

What are people saying?

• "We need significant reform in both criminal justice and in immigration, to end mass incarceration and all of the unnecessary, cruel, and punitive forms of immigration detention that have taken root in the Trump Administration," Warren wrote.

The U.S. government has a "a basic responsibility to keep the people in its care safe—not to use their punishment as an opportunity for profit."

• Warren called out a number of for-profit prison and detention centers, including Caliburn International, which recently hired Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly. The company has faced scrutiny for its treatments of immigrants at its facility in Homestead, Florida.
• Tetiana Anderson, a Caliburn spokeswoman, told Reuters that their Homestead location is an emergency care shelter that provides the best possible care.

“The shelter provides educational classrooms, dormitories, dining halls, recreational fields and medical facilities, any suggestion that conditions at the Homestead emergency care shelter are ‘unsanitary’ and ‘prison-like’ is simply inaccurate,” Anderson said.

• In the past, ICE has expounded on the need for private detention centers.
• “Ensuring there are sufficient beds available to meet the current demand for detention space is crucial to the success of ICE’s overall mission,” ICE spokesperson Danielle Bennett said in late December.

“Accordingly, the agency is continually reviewing its detention requirements and exploring options that will afford ICE the operational flexibility needed to house the full range of detainees in the agency’s custody.”

What do you think?

Do you support the federal government’s use of private detention centers? Or should the Department of Justice phase out existing contracts with private prison and detention companies? Hit Take Action and tell your reps, then share your thoughts below.

—Josh Herman