Biden Signs Executive Order To End Corporate Prisons

WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden’s executive order last week to end the Justice Department's use of private prisons is putting pressure on the District of Columbia and Virginia to dissolve their corporate corrections contracts.

The order tells the Justice Department not to renew contracts with the corporations that incarcerate more than 120,000 people in the United States, or about 8.2 percent of the nation’s prison population.

The order applies only to federal prisons but sets a standard likely to filter down to state and municipal detention facilities.

In the District of Columbia, the medium-security Correctional Treatment Facility at 1901 E Street SE is operated by Corrections Corporation of America under a 20-year contract with the District that started in March 1997. It houses male prisoners, female prisoners, and juveniles charged as adults.

The D.C. Department of Corrections also contracts with three privately owned and operated halfway houses, namely Extended House, Inc.; Fairview and Hope Village.

There is only one private prison in Virginia. It is the Lawrenceville Correctional Center in Brunswick County operated by The Geo Group, Inc.

"This is the first step to stop corporations from profiting off of incarceration, that is less humane and less safe, as the studies show," Biden said in a White House speech before signing the order. "And it is just the beginning of my administration's plan to address systemic problems in our criminal justice system."

The biggest private prison companies in the United States are the Corrections Corporation of America, the GEO Group Inc., Management and Training Corporation and Community Education Centers.

GEO Group said in a statement that Biden’s order incorrectly describes private prisons as a problem. However, prisoner advocates described the order as a civil rights advancement.

Biden’s executive order “validates something we’ve been saying for years: No one should profit from the human misery that is caused by mass incarceration,” said David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project. “Prison privatization increases the potential for mistreatment and abuse of incarcerated people.”

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.