Sigh.

Now, TBF, the Feds rely on privates a lot more than the publics do--at nearly twice the rate (even though 76% of ppl in privates are held by the states). But still: 85% of Feds in publics!

But: don't see how this addresses racial equity, for two equally important reasons. https://twitter.com/CNBCnow/status/1354119715849981953

First, and less appreciated, if you're concerned abt racial impact of privatization in prisons, the PRISONS are not the thing to focus on.

Focus on Bob Barker (private commissary, and not that one), Securus (pay-phones), etc.

HUGE private fees w racially disparate impacts.

Second, no one ever seems to game out what closing the privates will do.

It reduces capacity, but there's a lot of excess capacity out there right now. Will the Feds just contract with, say, Texas (not a private! it's public!)?

And if they d cut back pops, who will be released?

Also, this is just DOJ, not DHS. The nature of all this is confusing--the BOP lists 15K ppl in privates on its website, while BJS has it at 27K, and wonder if those 13K are immigration cases--but think a lot of those awful places that enraged us are CBP/ICE: DHS, not DOJ.

That a lot of those in private BOP facilities are facing deportation--which is my understanding of the non-random nature of who ends up in private BOP facilities--only further suggests that the overall racial impact of this will be slight.

As always, this overpowering emphasis on the privates is far more feel-good spectacle than solid policy.

And that's before you get to the inescapable fact that the public prisons profit off ppl as well, only at vaster scale, and with seemingly similar levels of cruelty.

I'd also add, to make this all the more complicated, that esp in the south--where most Fed private prisons are--we often see that correctional staff tend to be people of color.

That's NOT a defense of prisons-as-public-works, but it def complicates racial impact analysis.