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U.S. to phase out use of private prisons for federal prisoners

Xinhua, August 19, 2016 Adjust font size:

The U.S. Justice Department announced on Thursday it was planning to phase out the use of privately-operated prisons for federal inmates amid the dropping federal inmate population and rising concerns about safety and security problems within them.

The U.S. federal prison population increased by almost 800 percent between 1980 and 2013, and in an effort to manage the rising prison population, U.S. authorities began contracting with private prisons to confine some federal inmates a decade ago.

In a memo to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons on Thursday, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said the bureau should either decline to renew that contract or substantially reduce its scope.

By May 2017, the total private prison population will be reduced to less than 14,200 inmates, wrote Yates, down from about 30,000 in 2013.

The move was justified by the declining federal prison population, now at fewer than 195,000 from almost 220,000 in 2013, according to Yates.

Currently, about 1.5 million prisoners are housed across the United States in state and federal facilities, and only federal prisoners will be affected by the policy shift.

In addition, private prisons used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which house about 34,000 immigrants awaiting deportation, are not covered by the policy shift. ' The policy change followed a recent audit report by the Justice Department's inspector general, in which concerns were raised on safety and security problems in privately operated prisons.

According to the report, private prisons were more problematic than federal prisons and were on average less safe.

In the memo to Bureau of Prisons, Yates also cited relatively poor performance of privately operated prisons as reasons to ultimately end the use of these prisons.

"They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on cost; and as noted in a recent report by the Department's Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same level of safety and security," wrote Yates. Endi