Puerto Rico quietly abandons plan to move thousands of prisoners to Arizona

US territory announced last year it would move 3,200 inmates, but now concedes contract for transfers hasn’t been signed

Oliver Laughland in New York
Fri 22 Feb 2019 19.41 GMT

Puerto Rico’s controversial plan to send thousands of inmates to a private prison on the US mainland has been effectively abandoned, the Guardian has learned.

The US territory announced last year it intended to move 3,200 inmates, a third of its entire incarcerated population, to a private prison in Eloy, Arizona, in an attempt to save tens of millions of dollars as part of sweeping austerity measures.

But now the government concedes it has yet to sign a contract for the transfers and has dramatically reduced the number of inmates it is aiming to move offshore.

The plan met with forceful criticism by civil rights advocates, who argued it would separate families, interfere with inmate rehabilitation and lead to forced transfers.

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