Private Prison Reform: The Biden Administration's Small Steps Forward
Photo of prison cells from a federal prison located on Alcatraz Island.
By Jeffrey Liao ‘24
On January 27th, 2021, seven days after his inauguration, president Joe Biden signed an executive order that will terminate the renewal of contracts with private prison corporations. This step is one in a series of larger racial justice initiatives that Biden promises to uphold in the wake of purported racial division during the Trump administration.
The private prison industry has long been the subject of controversy, receiving vocal criticism from civil rights organizations such as the ACLU, NAACP, and the Equal Justice Initiative. Private prisons have become a prominent structure in the criminal justice system. Under this for-profit model, the corporations which own and operate these prisons have incentive to detain more and more prisoners within their walls to increase revenue. This has caused an increase in mass incarceration; the U.S. prison population has increased from 300 thousand in 1970 to 2.3 million people in the last decade. This massive growth is arguably the result of private prison corporations lobbying for laws punishing citizens for petty crime, as well as racial profiling and public policy during the “War on Drugs” era. In 2010, the two largest private prison companies imprisoned over 120,000 prisoners and garnered approximately $3 billion dollars in revenue. Over the span of the last 20 years, Corrections Corporation of America–the country’s largest private prison company– reported a 500 percent increase in its profit margins. The lucrative practice of maximizing the number of people locked up in private prisons perpetuates insidious incentives to block activist and legal efforts to reduce sentencing and promote rehabilitation. In fact, it is not uncommon for private prison contracts to include a clause requiring state governments to maintain a minimum quota for the number of occupants of their prisons, accompanied by financial penalties for unoccupied prison cells.
President Biden’s signage of the executive order phasing out private prison contracts is a hopeful step in a longer battle for criminal justice reform. However, when closely examining the language of the order, it is clear that more drastic, bold measures need to be taken to ensure tangible, widespread reform of American prisons. The measure only calls for the eventual termination of private prison contracts, but it will not lead to the removal of inmates who are currently housed in these prisons. Additionally, the order only affects the 11 prisons which have contracts with the Department of Justice, but it does not explicitly prohibit states from maintaining their contracts. While promising in theory, the scope of this action is not large enough to have a substantial impact on the status quo.
Another issue with the order is that it only calls for the termination of federal contracts with private prisons, without implementing reform for the conditions to which current prisoners are subjected. Reports of sexual and physical assault from other inmates and guards, solitary confinement, and destitute conditions create an environment of perpetual unrest and paranoia for prisoners. The lack of inspections and adequate funding for mental and physical health services in prisons often creates an epidemic of trauma and psychological turmoil that leaves prisoners worse off than when they entered.
According to a 2012 study, within five years of release, 77 percent of prisoners will be re-imprisoned. As the country with the highest incarceration and recidivism rates in the world, the U.S. is infested with congested, under-staffed prisons—making prisoners especially vulnerable to mistreatment and abuse. Upon release, many of these ex-felons use drugs or alcohol to alleviate their anxiety and suffering. The high rate of drug use among ex-felons, as well as small crimes, theft, and prostitution, often lead them back to jail. The stigmatization of prisoners in our everyday society leaves them vulnerable to joblessness, homelessness, and abuse, subjecting them to the same conditions of desperation and criminality from which they came.
Biden’s executive order also does not address ways to tackle the high rates of recidivism that fuel the private prison industrial complex. Social programs and safety nets–such as providing educational and substance abuse treatment programs–that would help prisoners break out of the incarceration cycle are notably absent. Further, while the Biden administration claims this order is a step towards addressing the deep racial injustice that infests the national consciousness, reform still needs to be made at the foundational level to address the root of the issue. The school-to-prison pipeline, the over-policing of predominantly black and brown neighborhoods, harsh petty crime laws, and transparency within policing will continue to plague our nation otherwise. Until then, while Biden’s order to end private prison contracts with the federal government should certainly be praised, it is ultimately a small step towards a miles-long goal, and we must make greater strides to dismantle the systems which leave incarcerated individuals vulnerable and stigmatized as second-class citizens.