A Biden administration policy to end federal contracts with private prisons is having the opposite of its intended effect, according to a new report from the office of Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
Signed during President Joe Biden’s first week in office on Jan. 26, 2021, the executive order on “Reforming Our Incarceration System to Eliminate the Use of Privately Operated Criminal Detention Facilities” directs the attorney general to cease renewals of DOJ contracts with private prisons with the purported purpose of lowering costs and incarceration levels and facilitating better conditions for detainees.
But according to the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), the order prompted complaints after one case in which the U.S. Marshals Service’s (USMS) compliance with the order resulted in “no substantive change” to the housing of detainees at a private facility while also increasing the costs of their detention “by as much as $500,000 per month,” or $6 million per year….