It’s possible that the administration will also seek to reduce ICE’s reliance on private detention and improve oversight of those facilities, but there’s been little hint from the administration as to whether they will focus on ICE contracts with for-profit firms. The council ultimately recommended that ICE expand measures to provide more robust oversight of private facilities, but by the time the council issued its recommendations, Trump had been elected and President Obama had little time left to implement these changes. Under the Obama administration, then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson formed a DHS Advisory Council to review the department’s policies and practices related to private immigration detention and “evaluate whether this practice should be eliminated.” So far, the Biden administration has not made a move to eliminate ICE contracts with for-profit firms. ICE contracts made up 28 percent of 2020 revenue for both GEO Group and CoreCivic, two of the biggest private prison companies. More than 25,000 people are currently held in ICE detention as of early August, and about 80 percent of ICE detention beds are still owned or managed by for-profit firms. While undocumented individuals housed in ICE detention peaked at more than 55,000 people under President Trump and significantly dropped during the pandemic, that number is creeping back up. Will contracts to manage ICE facilities be renewed?Īs noted above, the executive order does not affect ICE contracts because ICE is part of the Department of Homeland Security, not DOJ. And for decades, some legal scholars and policymakers contended that there are certain state functions that simply cannot be delegated - and that one of those is punishment.ĭespite years of growth for this industry, in 2019, Wall Street banks began to distance themselves from financing them, especially as these firms that manage and own prisons and immigration detention centers received negative attention amidst an outcry over the Trump administration’s detention policies. Others take issue with the concept of a corporation profiting off the nation’s penchant for incarceration. Or that the corporations that manage these facilities earn additional revenue when individuals in their custody stay incarcerated for longer periods of time, encouraging staff to hand out extra infractions that result in longer stays. Some argue the profit motive creates perverse incentives that drive overcrowding by cutting costs and reducing the quality of life for those who are incarcerated or detained. As I’ve written before, it has been criticized since it has existed. The opposition to private prisonsįirms that own and manage jails, prisons, and immigrant detention facilities have long come under scrutiny since the industry emerged in the mid-1990s. Also, firms have started to circumvent the order by engaging in intergovernmental service agreements with counties that then contract directly with the federal government for immigration or marshals’ detention services. For example, this order does not affect facilities these firms manage on behalf of U.S. The executive order is an initial step for cutting ties with for-profit firms that earn revenue from prison contracts, and there are additional things that the administration could do to further disentangle profit from detention. In substance, the order mostly replicated a similar Obama-era policy that allowed private prison contracts between firms and the federal Bureau of Prisons to expire without renewal, although Biden’s order goes slightly further by also applying to U.S. Given these promises, it wasn’t surprising when Biden issued an executive order in January directing the attorney general not to renew Justice Department contracts with privately operated criminal detention facilities. On the campaign trail, Joe Biden vowed to end the federal government’s use of private prisons, declaring that “the federal government should not use private facilities for any detention, including detention of undocumented immigrants.” His policy platform also stated that his administration would tie funding decisions for a new grant program to the elimination of private prisons and all forms of for-profit incarceration.
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