PUBLIC JUSTICE SHOULD ANSWER TO THE PUBLIC.

JUSTICE · SOCIAL JUSTICE

Published by Langhorne P. Breedlove

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2026 · 12:36 AM ET

Reading time: 9 minutes

Tags: Private Prisons · Corrections · Public Accountability · Procurement · Rehabilitation

Dear fellow American proletariat: a government may contract out its laundry, food service, or prison management, but it cannot contract away its responsibility for the people it confines. A contract has a price, a renewal date, and a lawyer. A person has rights that do not expire because the company running the building missed its quarterly earnings target.

American Proletariat proposes ending private for-profit contracts for operating prisons and replacing them, where necessary, with publicly accountable correctional administration. The objective is not to pretend that every public prison is humane, efficient, or well managed. It is to ask whether the exercise of confinement should be run by an institution financially rewarded for continuing to sell bed space—and then specify how government can assume responsibility without sacrificing safety, services, or due process.

THE MANDATE

AP would phase out new and renewed contracts under which for-profit companies operate secure prisons holding people convicted of crimes. It would inventory existing agreements and require careful transition plans for facilities, staff, medical services, food, transportation, education, family contact, reentry, and safety. Federal legislation would address federal contracts and incentives; states would need to change their own statutes, procurement rules, and budgets to end state-level contracts.

This policy concerns the operation of correctional facilities. It is not an automatic ban on every private vendor selling medicine or repairing a boiler; nor does it alone abolish privately run immigration detention, municipal jail contracting, or nonprofit reentry services. Those require separate, explicit policy choices. AP would publish the contract map rather than conceal those distinctions behind a more satisfying slogan.

ROOTS · THE GOVERNMENT REMAINS RESPONSIBLE

For decades, governments have contracted with companies to operate correctional facilities or provide detention capacity. The Bureau of Prisons reported that it had previously maintained contracts involving 15 private prisons and about 29,000 inmates. Its last privately managed prison contract, at McRae Correctional Facility in Georgia, ended on November 30, 2022 (Source 01). The federal experience demonstrates that ending a particular class of contracts is administratively possible; it does not prove every state can make an identical transition at the same cost.

President Joseph R. Biden Jr. issued Executive Order 14006 on January 26, 2021, directing the Attorney General not to renew Justice Department contracts with privately operated criminal detention facilities where consistent with law (Source 02). President Donald Trump revoked that order through Executive Order 14148 on January 20, 2025 (Source 03). These dates matter: the earlier order is no longer operative national executive policy, and the order never directly controlled state prison contracting.

A Justice Department inspector-general review released August 11, 2016 compared contract prisons with selected comparable federal institutions, examining data from fiscal years 2011 through 2014. It found more incidents per capita at contract prisons in most assessed safety-and-security categories, but acknowledged that demographic differences could explain some of the variation (Source 04). That is evidence demanding scrutiny, not a finding that privatization caused every measured incident.

TODAY · WHAT THE NUMBERS CAN TELL US

The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported 88,618 people under state or federal correctional jurisdiction held in privately operated prison facilities at year-end 2023, representing 7.1% of the relevant prison population. Most were held under state jurisdiction. The report also counted people housed in local jails separately, which must not be added to the private-prison figure as though they were all in for-profit institutions (Source 05).

The 2023 national count is a historical benchmark, not a verified census of November 2026 facilities. A serious transition plan needs a fresh state-by-state inventory, including contracts, renewal dates, actual capacity, population security needs, and legal authority. Without it, even a morally confident announcement can turn into a very practical disaster at the receiving facility.

The private detention industry also includes immigration contracts, which are administered through different federal authorities. A 2026 Prison Policy Initiative industry analysis estimated almost $5.5 billion in 2025 combined private prison and detention revenue, including about $3.1 billion from criminal-legal-system contracts and $2.4 billion from ICE detention (Source 06). Those are research estimates of company revenue across sectors, not the federal cost of implementing this AP prison policy.

THE LEGAL PATH

Congress could prohibit future federally funded for-profit prison-operation contracts, set transition and reporting requirements, and appropriate money for federal alternatives within its authority. It could also condition some grants on defined standards, subject to constitutional limits on spending conditions and state autonomy. Federal executive agencies must implement laws Congress enacts; they cannot simply cancel a state government's lawful contract by issuing a federal press release.

States would have to examine their own corrections codes, leases, bonds, procurement obligations, collective-bargaining arrangements, and existing contracts. Some may own buildings operated by contractors; others may pay to house prisoners in privately owned buildings. Transferring operations is not identical to purchasing real estate. Contracts may contain termination charges and rights that require lawful resolution.

Constitutional protections, court orders, disability accommodations, medical standards, and correctional obligations continue during a handoff. The American Bar Association's criminal justice standards advise that core decisions affecting duration and location of confinement should not be delegated to private entities and recommend substantial government oversight of contracted operations (Source 07). Those standards are influential professional guidance, not federal statutes governing every prison.

THE PLAN · NO CHAOTIC HANDOFFS

PHASE ONE · DISCLOSE EVERY CONTRACT

Publish a verified contract inventory: operator, public agency, location, capacity, people confined, term, renewal and cancellation provisions, per-diem payments, capital ownership, outstanding debt, staffing, health-service arrangements, and independently documented inspection results. Redact genuinely protected personal and security information, not the basic financial facts of public confinement.

PHASE TWO · BUILD THE PUBLIC ALTERNATIVE

Create a facility-by-facility transition plan with realistic public staffing, clinical services, labor protections, training, fire and safety inspections, educational programming, grievance systems, and appropriate reentry support. Where existing public capacity is adequate, transfer custody according to individual safety and family-distance needs. Where it is not, do not improvise by overcrowding a different building or by moving people hundreds of miles without evaluation.

PHASE THREE · REPLACE, RETRAIN, REVIEW

Prioritize expiring contracts and sites with urgent documented deficiencies, subject to lawful procurement and safeguarding obligations. Protect continuity of medicine, legal access, scheduled court appearances and family contact. Offer qualified workers fair opportunities to join public service while retaining background checks, professional qualifications, and accountability. Independent monitors should continue inspections after the operator changes. A public logo is not a substitute for a functioning prison.

THE TEN-YEAR LEDGER

A genuine ten-fiscal-year analysis must show a separate year-one forecast and compare the enacted-contract baseline against transition alternatives. Gross costs include buyouts or early termination, public wages and benefits, recruitment and training, property purchase or lease, renovations, utilities, healthcare, security, transport, oversight, litigation risk, pensions where applicable, and ongoing programming. Receipts or offsets may include avoided contract payments and reductions in overlapping management charges, but those cannot be counted twice.

The Government Accountability Office reported in 2007 that a methodologically sound federal public-private confinement cost comparison was not then feasible because comparable data on facility design, populations, security levels, quality and other factors were insufficient (Source 08). That historic finding does not decide every later state comparison, but it is a warning against claiming that government operation automatically saves a fixed amount per incarcerated person.

AP has not yet specified a national inventory or precise transition dates, so a defensible ten-year net cost remains unscored. The ledger should present low, central, and high scenarios by state, ownership model, staff cost, capital needs and affected population, with independent verification. Savings from changes in sentencing or incarceration rates belong to separate criminal-justice reforms unless this policy itself actually produces those changes.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Rushed closure can worsen overcrowding, drive people farther from families and attorneys, overwhelm public corrections staffing, or interrupt medical treatment. Governments may inherit deteriorated facilities and large repair bills. Some jurisdictions may face higher short-term operating costs, and displaced private employees may lose jobs or benefits. Advocates of private operation argue that contracting can offer rapid capacity and flexibility; those assertions should be tested with transparent comparable costs and performance, not accepted or dismissed by reflex.

Public agencies can themselves fail to prevent neglect, misconduct, assault, or inadequate healthcare. Changing who signs the paychecks does not automatically change the conditions inside the walls. Any phaseout must include enforceable inspection, independent complaint channels, public data, adequate clinical capacity, and protection against retaliation. The solution is not to trade privately managed neglect for publicly managed neglect with a better flag outside.

MEASURING SUCCESS

A public dashboard should track contract expirations, facilities converted, people transferred and distances, occupancy and staffing ratios, staff turnover, assaults, uses of force, medical waiting times, grievance resolution, programming access, family visitation, accessibility, reentry outcomes, and fully comparable per-person costs. Report measures consistently by jurisdiction, facility type and security level; protect confidential information and independently audit both public and private operations during transition.

A PUBLIC DUTY CANNOT BE SOLD WITH THE BUILDING.

The decision to imprison a person is among the state's gravest powers. AP's proposal is to place day-to-day prison operation firmly within publicly accountable institutions and to prove—rather than merely announce—that safety, lawful treatment, rehabilitation and fiscal integrity improve. The people confined have rights. The employees deserve safe workplaces. The public deserves a complete accounting.

Ending private prison contracts would not end incarceration, guarantee rehabilitation or solve every grievance in American corrections. It would change who operates the facility and who is directly responsible when the doors close. That is a real policy choice, one requiring a real transition plan. A government serious enough to impose confinement must be serious enough to answer for what happens there.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

01 · Federal Bureau of Prisons — BOP Ends Use of Privately Owned Prisons, December 1, 2022. https://www2.fed.bop.gov/news/20221201_ends_use_of_privately_owned_prisons.jsp

02 · Federal Register / National Archives — Executive Order 14006, January 26, 2021. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/DCPD-202100088

03 · Federal Register — Executive Order 14148, January 20, 2025, revoking Executive Order 14006. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-01-28/html/2025-01901.htm

04 · U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General — Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Monitoring of Contract Prisons, August 11, 2016. https://oig.justice.gov/archives/reports/2016/e1606.pdf

05 · Bureau of Justice Statistics — Prisoners in 2023: Statistical Tables, September 2025, Table 14. https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2023-statistical-tables

06 · Prison Policy Initiative — Following the Money of Mass Incarceration 2026, private prison and detention revenue analysis. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/money2026.html

07 · American Bar Association — Standards for Criminal Justice: Treatment of Prisoners, sections concerning private correctional facilities. https://s3.amazonaws.com/static.nicic.gov/info.nicic.gov/files/media/file/aba-criminal_justice_standards-1.pdf

08 · U.S. Government Accountability Office — Cost of Prisons: Bureau of Prisons Needs Better Data to Assess Alternatives for Acquiring Low and Minimum Security Facilities, GAO-08-6, 2007. https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-08-6.pdf

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