Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates instructed Justice Department officials Thursday to end its use of private prisons. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)The Justice Department plans to end its use of private prisons after officials concluded the facilities are both less safe and less effective at providing correctional services than those run by the government. [Are private prisons better or worse than public prisons?] According to the inspector general’s report, private prisons housed roughly 22,660 federal inmates as of December 2015. The Bureau of Prisons spent $639 million on private prisons in fiscal year 2014, according to the report.

Source: Washington Post August 18, 2016 15:34 UTC