Private federal prisons more dangerous, damning DoJ investigation reveals

Source: The Guardian

Privately operated government prisons, which mostly detain migrants convicted of immigration offenses, are drastically more unsafe and punitive than other prisons in the federal system, a stinging investigation by the US Department of Justice’s inspector general has found.

Inmates at these 14 contract prisons, the only centers in the federal prison system that are privately operated, were nine times more likely to be placed on lockdown than inmates at other federal prisons and were frequently subjected to arbitrary solitary confinement. In two of the three contract prisons investigators routinely visited, new inmates were automatically placed in solitary confinement as a way of combating overcrowding, rather than for disciplinary issues.

The review also found that contract prison inmates were more likely to complain about medical care, treatment by prison staff and about the quality of food.

Contract prisons almost exclusively incarcerate low-risk inmates convicted of immigration offenses. These facilities house around 22,000 individuals, mostly deemed “low risk”, at an annual cost of $600m. They are operated by three private companies: Geo Group, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), and Management and Training Corporation (MTC).

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/12/private-federal-prisons-more-dangerous-justice-department

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Oliver Laughland in New York
Friday 12 August 2016 13.46 BST

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Inspector General's Report: https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2016/e1606.pdf

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Source: Washington Post

Private federal prisons — less safe, less secure

By Joe Davidson | Columnist August 12 at 7:00 AM

Private prisons — unsafe and insecure.

That’s the picture emerging from a Justice Department Office of the Inspector General’s report that adds to a growing effort to take the profit out of penitentiaries.

The report’s central conclusion: “We found that, in most key areas, contract prisons incurred more safety and security incidents per capita than comparable BOP (Bureau of Prisons) institutions and that the BOP needs to improve how it monitors contract prisons in several areas.”

Those key areas are contraband, incident reports, lockdowns, inmate discipline, telephone monitoring, grievances, drug testing and sexual misconduct.

“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,” the OIG said. “For example, the contract prisons confiscated eight times as many contraband cellphones annually on average as the BOP institutions. Contract prisons also had higher rates of assaults, both by inmates on other inmates and by inmates on staff.”

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/08/12/private-federal-prisons-less-safe-less-secure/