Crime and Incarceration Rates Are Down So Why Does Jeff Sessions Think He Needs More Prisons?
For the first time in decades, under President Barack Obama the federal prison population fell, at least five percent. The Obama administration’s Dept. of Justice last year issued guidance that stated the federal government would phase out its use of for-profit corporate prisons. That guidance was based on studies that prove for-profit prisons keep inmates incarcerated longer and do not reduce rates of recidivism – returning to the inmate population once released. In other words, they don’t work any better, and actually work worse that government-run prisons. And the conditions they force inmates to endure are in many cases terrible.
Trump administration Attorney General Jeff Sessions has just reversed the Obama-era decision, and will be moving forward with for-profit prisons.
Even though crime is down as are levels of incarceration, the new Attorney General does not anticipate that to continue.
The Obama-era guidance, ironically, was signed by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, whom Trump fired after she refused to defend his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban in court.
Claiming that decision has “impaired” the Bureau of Prisons’ “ability to meet the future needs of the federal correction system,” Sessions has issued new guidance reversing Yates’ decision.
Which means two things.
First, the Attorney General plans to lock up a lot more people. In fact, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer just hours ago announced the federal government will be enforcing federal marijuana laws, regardless of state laws that conflict with federal laws.
But Sessions also has a horrific system of beliefs when it comes to incarceration and the rule of law.
The Nation’s Ari Berman last month wrote that “Sessions’s extreme views on crime and punishment are a throwback to the darkest chapters in American history,” in an article titled, “Jeff Sessions Could Return Criminal Justice to the Jim Crow Era.”
But that’s likely OK with Sessions. A 2011 ACLU report states “The United States imprisons more people — both per capita and in absolute terms — than any other nation in the world,” and finds private prisons are making a fortune from it. President Obama tried to lower America’s mass incarceration rates and deprive private prisons of federal dollars.
That’s about to change.
Oh, and secondly, private prisons donated big bucks to Trump’s campaign Super PAC and his inauguration fund. Bigly. (And it may have been illegal.)
For them it’s a matter of pure business – just look at these recent headlines:
Private prisons back Trump and could see big payoffs with new policies (USA TODAY)
Trump Sets Private Prisons Free (The New Yorker)
Trump’s New Immigration Crackdown Has Private Prison Investors Salivating (The Intercept)
The Private Prison Industry Is Licking Its Chops Over Trump’s Deportation Plans (Mother Jones)
Â