US: Private prisons to be phased out over safety concerns

Thirteen private prison contracts will not be renewed over the coming five years.

Deputy attorney general Sally Yates said: “They do not save substantially on costs and … they do not maintain the same level of safety and security.”

Private prison operators’ stocks dropped after the news was announced, with Corrections Corporation of America seeing a dramatic 50 per cent plunge.

A report by the inspector general this month found violent incidents more prevalent at private institutions.

The Sentencing Project group found that there were 94,365 prisoners held in private institutions in 2010.

Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton’s erstwhile Democratic rival, pledged to end the “private, for-profit prison racket” during his campaign.

He said last year that “we cannot fix our criminal justice system if corporations are allowed to profit from mass incarceration”.

Following the decision he said it was “an international embarrassment that we put more people behind bars than any other country on Earth… due in large part to private prisons”.

The federal government came to rely on private prisons in the 1990s as state institutions became overcrowded. The prison population peaked in 2013.

Ms Yates said the subsequent decline contributed to the decision by the Justice Department.