When the Obama administration put in place a plan to end the federal government’s use of private prisons, it looked like the days of the DEA/CCA team-up Kanye so eloquently derided in “New Slaves” were over.
But wait!
Here comes the definitely-not-racist Attorney General Jeff Sessions with a memo proving the worried-over-nothing Elizabeth Warren 100 percent misguided. Or bigly wrong, as the president would say.
In a memo sent to the Bureau of Prisons today, Sessions directed officials there to ignore the Obama administration’s August 18, 2016 order not to renew any federal contracts with private prisons, The Hill reports.
Obama’s order was the first piece of a plan to end all private prison use on the federal level, and the administration hoped the program would serve as a model for the states to follow.
Sessions’ memo is only one paragraph. In it, he states that the Obama “memorandum changed long-standing policy and practice, and impaired the Bureau’s ability to meet the future needs of the federal correction system.”
Changing long-standing policy and practice was the point; if the Obama White House hadn’t wanted to change anything, they wouldn’t have issued their order. It seems Sessions has plans that will keep both the federal prisons and the pockets of private prisons very, very full in the years to come.