Thank you Joe Biden! Returning to the Obama policy of not doing business with private prisons is a breath of fresh air. There is still more work to be done though!
One of the main arguments for private prisons are that they save tax payers money. Not true. “It’s cherry-picking,” said State Representative Chad Campbell, leader of the House Democrats. “They leave the most expensive prisoners with taxpayers and take the easy prisoners.”
I love the Executive Orders by Biden in this first 2 weeks in office. This is a symbolic order and we should keep in mind that we have much more work to do regarding prison reform. For example:
Biden’s order only addresses private prisons under contract with the Department of Justice, not facilities contracted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The use such facilities by the federal government grew under the Trump administration, and now make up around 75% of DHS detention contracts, according to the Center for American Progress. In the 2019 fiscal year, ICE detained on average 50,000 people a day, every day—and at points, over 56,000 people a day—according to a 2020 ACLU report.
That same report found that, in January 2020, a record-breaking 81% of people detained in ICE custody were held in facilities that were privately owned or managed.
Biden has shown himself to be a fighter early on and more leftist than I had imagined he would be. He also has plans to demilitarize the police in America and if/when he accomplishes that it will be a great start to honoring his pledge to the American people in his acceptance speech.