A big shout out to Senator Bernie Sanders from former Governor Don Siegelman!
Governor Siegelman expresses his appreciation to Senator Bernie Sanders for introducing a bill in the U.S. Senate, on 17 September 2015, to ban private prisons.
From Sen Sanders’s webpage:
Private Prisons
Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a bill on Thursday that would ban private prisons within a few years, taking aim at what he called a "broken criminal justice system" and mass incarceration, Vox reported.
In addition to eliminating private prisons, the legislation would make it cheaper for families to visit and speak with inmates, Mother Jones reported. If passed, the bill would have a disproportionate affect on immigration prisons. That’s because around half of all U.S. immigration prisons are privatized, Latin Times reported.
From personal experience, Governor Siegelman sees the need for massive prison reform in the US. He has been contacting members of congress to pass the SAFE Justice Act.
Please contact Senator Sanders at http://www.sanders.senate.gov/ and thank him for introducing this bill. Contact your U.S. Senator and Representative and ask them to support Senator Sanders’ bill.
I am waiting for more info on Bernie's bill, bill number, language, etc.
Additional coverage below:
Sanders, Grijalva, Ellison, Rush Introduce Bills Banning Private Prisons
SEPTEMBER 17, 2015
DAVE JOHNSON
Private prisons with a profit incentive to put more and more people in jail? Lobbyists exerting influence against releasing prisoners so their companies can make more money? Contracts requiring governments to imprison a certain number of people for a minimum amount of time? Sentences based on corporate greed, with someone making money from putting people in jail? Quotas for detaining immigrants? That is where we are as a country. Can you believe that?
Today several progressive members of Congress submitted bills to do something about this travesty.
Thursday Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) introduced the Justice Is Not For Sale Act to ban federal, state, and local private prisons, reinstate the federal parole system, eliminate quotas for the number of immigrants and asylum seekers held in detention and rein in banking and telecommunications fees (over)charged to prisoners.
Currently, there are more than 41,000 federal prisoners in private facilities and 91,000 state prisoners in private, for-profit prisons.