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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday February 25 2017, @09:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the follow-the-money dept.

Private prisons are making a comeback:

The Trump administration is rolling back an Obama-era plan to phase out the federal government's use of private prisons. Attorney General Jeff Sessions sent a memo Thursday to the Bureau of Prisons rescinding the Obama administration's Aug. 16 order advising the bureau not to renew any contracts with private prisons, according to a copy of the letter. Then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates had instructed officials to either not renew private prison contracts or substantially reduce the scope of such contracts to ultimately end the department's use of privately operated prisons altogether.

Who stands to benefit?

Attorney General Jeff Sessions's four-sentence memo rescinding Justice Department guidance to reduce the use of private prisons sent stock soaring for the two companies that dominate the industry, Geo Group and CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America). That's not necessarily because the memo will lead to a ramp-up in Geo- or CoreCivic-run federal prisons. As of December 2015, about 12 percent of all inmates in federal prisons were housed in private facilities, representing only 22,660 inmates. That certainly won't decline under Sessions, but he didn't promise to increase it substantially. "I direct the [Bureau of Prisons] to return to its previous approach," Sessions wrote. Anyway, DoJ renewed a pair of contracts with CoreCivic despite the now-scuttled order, so it's unclear if the status quo ever stopped.

Also at CNN Money.

Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' Monitoring of Contract Prisons (August 2016).


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 25 2017, @10:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 25 2017, @10:59PM (#471654)

    I bought a metric shit-ton of CoreCivic and Geo before the election, along with some gun stocks, figuring that Hillary would win and both "bring them to heel" (we all know that she meant "blacks" by "them") and spark a gun-buying craze among the right wing. Wife thought I was crazy and wasting money on loser stocks that would go down the drain.

    Forty percent return on investment to date overall. A quarter million after taxes if I sell this year (short-term cap gains), just from a few months of holding the right stocks.

    The next time you hear the left or the right wing weeping about muh evil gov't oppressors, figure out how to make money off of it, because there is always a way.

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  • (Score: 5, Touché) by iwoloschin on Saturday February 25 2017, @11:48PM

    by iwoloschin (3863) on Saturday February 25 2017, @11:48PM (#471678)

    So you bought stock in a couple of companies with no redeeming qualities just to make a quick buck? Good for you, I guess, but I'll pass on supporting businesses that deal in misery and death.

  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 26 2017, @04:09AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 26 2017, @04:09AM (#471730) Journal

    You should really read my post down below, on human trafficking.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @10:09AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @10:09AM (#471788)

    It's called gamblng.

    There's places you can do this all day long and you get free drinks. Try it. I think you'll like it.