Chapter 17
Private Prisons and Prison Contractors
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Chapter Overview
As corporations play an ever-expanding role in the criminal justice system, prison privatization has ignited an ongoing debate. This chapter examines private prisons and private prison contractors, introducing applicable legal doctrine, presenting conflicting viewpoints on privatization, and discussing oversight.
Featured Opinions
- Richardson v. McKnight, 521 U.S. 399 (1997)
- West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42 (1988)
Featured, Cited, and Supplemental Litigation Documents
- C.B. v. Walnut Grove, No. 3:10–cv–00663 (S.D. Miss.)
- Litigation summary and documents
- Complaint (Nov. 16, 2010)
- U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division findings report (Mar. 21, 2012)
- Consent Decree (Mar. 26, 2012)
- DePriest v. Epps, 3:10–cv–00663–CWR–FKB (S.D. Miss.)
- Litigation summary and documents
- Order Approving Settlement (Mar. 26, 2019)
- Mississippi Department of Corrections, Facilities: Walnut Grove Correctional Facility (Reopened 2021)
Statutes, Treaties, and Regulations
- Executive Order 14006 (Jan. 29, 2021)
- Executive Order 14148 (Jan. 20, 2025)
Excerpted Sources & Supplemental Documents
- ABA Criminal Justice Standards (3d ed.), Treatment of Prisoners, Standard 23-10.5, Privately Operated Correctional Facilities (2011)
- Jennifer M. Chacón, Privatized Immigration Enforcement, 52 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 1 (2017)
- Sharon Dolovich, State Punishment and Private Prisons, 55 Duke L.J. 437 (2005)
- The Sentencing Project, Kara Gotsch and Vinay Basti, Capitalizing on Mass Incarceration: U.S. Growth in Private Prisons (2018)
- U.S. Dep’t of Justice
- Office of the Inspector General, Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Monitoring of Contract Prisons, Evaluation and Inspections Division 16–06 (Aug. 2016)
- Sally Q. Yates, Deputy Att’y Gen’l, Reducing our Use of Private Prisons, Memorandum for the Acting Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons (Aug. 18, 2016)
- Jefferson B. Sessions III, Att’y Gen’l, Memorandum for the Acting Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons (Feb. 21, 2017)
- Alexander Volokh, Note, A Tale of Two Systems: Cost, Quality, And Accountability In Private Prisons, in Developments in the Law: The Law of Prisons, 115 Harv. L. Rev. 1868 (2002)
Lived Experiences
Additional Reading
- The Sentencing Project, Private Prisons in the United States (Oct. 24, 2019)
- Brett C. Burkhardt, Who is in private prisons? Demographic profiles of prisoners and workers in American private prisons, 51 Int’l J. L. Crime & Just. 24 (Dec. 2017)
- Kate Sablosky Elengold & Jonathan D. Glater, The Sovereign Shield, 73 Stan. L. Rev. 969 (2021)
- Micaela Gelman, Note: Mismanaged Care: Exploring the Costs and Benefits of Private vs. Public Healthcare in Correctional Facilities, 95 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1386 (2020)
- Tracy Huling, Building a Prison Economy in Rural America, Prison Policy Initiative (2002)
- Beth Schwartzapfel, A Prison Medical Company Faced Lawsuits From Incarcerated People. Then It Went ‘Bankrupt.’, The Marshall Project (Sept. 2023)