President Biden orders DOJ to end private prison contracts

President Joe Biden ordered his Department of Justice on Tuesday to phase out its contracts with private prisons, one of multiple new planks of Biden’s broad-focused racial justice agenda.

“President Biden is committed to reducing mass incarceration while making our communities safer,” the official said. “That starts with ending the federal government’s reliance on private prisons.”“This is the first step to stop corporations from profiting off incarceration that is less humane and less safe as the studies show,” Biden said during remarks before signing the executive actions. “This is just the beginning of my administration’s plan to address systemic problems in our criminal justice system.”

This means that the order will impact the 12 private prison facilities housing roughly 14,000 inmates that are currently contracted by the DOJ, but not private detention centers contracted by states or by other government agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security.