Mother Jones magazine recently published a searing, 35,000-word expose on abuses at one private prison in Louisiana. Criminal justice reformers also raised concerns that private prisons have a profit motive to put more people behind bars. Many private prison contracts mandate a minimum occupancy rate -- often 90 or even 100 percent. Many states contract with private prison companies too, and those relationships are unaffected. If today's decision is any indication, it's likely that private prisons were higher up on federal priority lists than Hininger had expected.

Source: Washington Post August 18, 2016 17:48 UTC