Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates noted in a memo that while private prisons were useful when public prisons were overflowing, they made little sense now that the prison population was falling. They didn’t save much on costs. Nor did they provide the kind of rehabilitation programs proved to reduce recidivism.
And they are particularly dangerous. A recent report by the department’s inspector general found that prisoners in private facilities, which house some 12 percent of federal inmates, were much more likely to have weapons. Private prisons had many more assaults on inmates and prison workers than those run by the Bureau of Prisons. And they went into lockdown to respond to disturbances 10 times as often.
