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1/7 BREAKING: President Biden just signed an Executive Order, following through on a first step on his campaign promise to end the federal government’s use of private prisons. But impact is limited to only BOP contracts as they come up for renewal https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-private-prisons-executive-order-official-calls-trump-dangerous-2021-1
2/7 My understanding is that this applies only to DOJ (not DHS/ICE) contracts. This mirrors a memo that then Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates issued in 2016. https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/file/886311/download
3/7 The largest private prison firms, GEO Group & CoreCivic rely on federal contracts - BOP, ICE, and US Marshals - to account for more than 50% of their revenues https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/923796/000119312520049748/d841729d10k.htm#s52BEEC1E168954E2B8D27ABC2DA9ACB0
4/7 But today's order only affects federal prison contracts, meaning BOP. About 14,095 federal prisoners are housed in private facilities, making them a mere 9% of the federal prison population. https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/population_statistics.jsp
5/7 And this is important: these BOP contracts are often 10-year contracts, some which were signed recently https://finance.yahoo.com/news/edited-transcript-cxw-earnings-conference-051145795.html
6/7 If the administration is serious about removing profit from incarceration, it needs to take a hard look at its ICE contracts with private firms, as more than 70% of those held in ICE detention centers (civil detainees) are in privately owned facilities https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/us/prisons-immigration-detention.html
7/7 And since the majority of states have prison contracts with private firms, the administration should incentivize states to shrink their prison pops in addition to reducing their reliance on private prison contracts. Ch. 7 of my book explains more: http://cup.columbia.edu/book/inside-private-prisons/9780231179706
