Despite substantial research that challenges the purported cost-saving benefits of private prisons, and the bipartisan consensus on the need to address mass incarceration, from 2000 to 2016 the number of people housed in private prisons increased 47 percent, compared to an overall rise in the prison population of 9 percent, according to a new report from The Sentencing Project.
The report concludes with policy recommendations, including ending for-profit prison privatization, barring transfers to private facilities far from home and removing mandated bed-quotes for immigration detention which incentive private contracts.