Over two million people are currently incarcerated in the United States, and a disproportionate number of these individuals are People of Color. Black folks are twice as likely to be arrested, and almost four times as likely to experience physical force in an encounter with the police. Today, Black men are sentenced to 19% more jail time for committing the exact same crime as white men, and Black people are jailed at more than five times the rate of their white counterparts.
Mass incarceration imposes outrageous costs on our society and communities, and yet, private prisons profit off of it. Meanwhile, conditions in private prisons are consistently less safe for inmates and correctional officers alike. From 2000 to 2016, the private prison population grew five times quicker than the overall prison population. And the profiteers multiplied too: nearly 4,000 corporations are making money off human beings locked in cells at this very moment. As a nation, we spend about $80 billion a year on corrections.
During his 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden committed to reducing mass incarceration and making our communities safer. On January 26, just 6 days into his presidency, President Biden signed an Executive Order to end the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) use of private prisons. According to the White House, the President believes that the first step to ending mass incarceration is “ending DOJ’s reliance on private prisons.” The Order directs the Attorney General not to renew Department of Justice contracts with privately operated criminal detention facilities.
While this Order is a very important step, it is only a first step. First, the timing for phasing out private prisons is unclear. The Order directs the Attorney General not to renew contracts with private prisons. So if the Justice Department simply lets these contracts expire at the end of their terms (rather than terminating them before they’re completed), the process will take years.
Another noteworthy gap in this Order is that it does not apply to immigration detention, where more than 80% of detained immigrants are held in private, for-profit prisons. Many policy experts say extending this Order to ICE detention is an obvious, urgent, and necessary next step. It is also important to note that this Executive Order only directly affects approximately 10% of all US prisoners who are held in federal custody.
Despite what this Executive Order left out, it will have a significant impact. This Order will be a serious, long overdue blow to the private prison industry. The federal government is their largest single customer. Beyond that, state prison systems tend to look to the federal system as a model, as a leader.
The Biden-Harris campaign made a number of considerable commitments to criminal justice reform, one of which was ending the use of private prisons. They also promised to improve prison conditions, eliminate solitary confinement, and end the federal death penalty - to just name a few items.
It is up to all of us, as engaged citizens, to hold them accountable for these promises and urge them to go further, to cut the bloated US prison population, which is the largest in the entire world. We cannot turn a blind eye and trust any administration to enact positive, lasting reform to the criminal legal system. We must make sure they know we are watching, prepared to hold them accountable.
Works Cited
Adams, C. (2021, January 28). Biden’s order terminates federal private prison contracts. Here’s what that means. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/biden-s-order-terminates-federal-private-prison-contracts-here-s-n1255776
Carlisle, M. (2021, January 29). ‘Much More Work To Be Done.’ Advocates Call for More Action Against Private Prisons After Biden’s ‘First Step’ Executive Order. Time. https://time.com/5934213/private-prisons-ban-joe-biden/
Gotsch, K., & Basti, V. (2018, August 2). Capitalizing on Mass Incarceration: U.S. Growth in Private Prisons. The Sentencing Project. https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/capitalizing-on-mass-incarceration-u-s-growth-in-private-prisons/
Haberman, C. (2018, October 2). For Private Prisons, Detaining Immigrants Is Big Business. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/us/prisons-immigration-detention.html
Ingraham, C. (2017, November 16). Black men sentenced to more time for committing the exact same crime as a white person, study finds. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/16/black-men-sentenced-to-more-time-for-committing-the-exact-same-crime-as-a-white-person-study-finds/
Johnson, D. (2020, July 10). NAACP | Criminal Justice Fact Sheet. NAACP. https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/
Report to the United Nations on Racial Disparities in the U.S. Criminal Justice System. (2018, May 1). The Sentencing Project. https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-racial-disparities/
The White House. (2021, January 26). Executive Order on Reforming Our Incarceration System to Eliminate the Use of Privately Operated Criminal Detention Facilities. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/26/executive-order-reforming-our-incarceration-system-to-eliminate-the-use-of-privately-operated-criminal-detention-facilities/
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