According to The Sentencing Project, 99,754 individuals were incarcerated in privately owned prisons in the United States in 2020. Criminal justice is the role and obligation of government, not of for-profit private entities. Indeed, private prisons have had a history of questionable behavior and poor service, lacking in quality in comparison to state facilities. Safety and rehabilitation should be the primary goals of every correctional facility. Private companies benefit from and profit off the incarceration of individuals. Accordingly, private prison companies have little or no incentive to accomplish the fundamental goal of rehabilitating incarcerated persons; if anything, there is disincentive.

Our legislation would address this problem in Pennsylvania by prohibiting state and local contracts with private prison facilities and corporations. While we cannot change federal law, we must take action as a state to end the privatization of corrections, prisons and immigrant detention centers at the state and local level.There is no acceptable reason for private entities to be in charge of the custody, care and rehabilitation of any incarcerated individual.

Criminal justice is a public, not a private, function. Please join us in supporting this legislation to prevent future privatization and profiting from a system that should focus on public safety and rehabilitation.