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In August, the future of private prisons appeared to be hanging in the balance. 

The Department of Justice announced it would phase out federal use of private prisons, and stock prices for corporations that run the facilities 

Obama administration to end use of private prisons

Sally Yates, the U.S. Deputy Attorney General, said in a 

But the financial outlook for these same companies 

 after the November election of Donald Trump. 

While President-elect Trump's plans for private prisons remain unclear, he has supported the use of such facilities in the past. In a town hall conversation with Chris Matthews on 

 in March, Trump said, "I do think we can do a lot of privatizations and private prisons. It seems to work a lot better."

Trump's comments stand in contrast to Yates' memo, and to the conclusions of 

, a freelance journalist who has reported on 

Dayen joined MPR News host Kerri Miller to share what he learned in his research on Corecivic, formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America, and GEO Group — two companies that operate private prisons. 

"They're two companies that control most of the market, so there's not a lot of competition in the private sector for new techniques or new ways of going about managing these facilities. It's really about radically cutting costs by limiting services," Dayen said.

"It's sort of the rationale underpinning all forms of privatization: The idea that the private market can always and forever provide these services more efficiently and more cheaply. Experience has yet to bear that out in all circumstances, and the private prison industry is just another example." 

, a writer, civil rights lawyer, and adjunct professor at Georgetown Law, also joined the conversation. 

"These are for-profit corporations, in many cases publicly traded companies," Sethi said. "What they're interested in is their bottom line, and often that means things like rationing toilet paper, low wages, which means constant staff turnover, not enough blankets ... We've just seen this experience repeated time and again." 

Representatives from several corporations that operate private prisons — CoreCivic, GEO Group and Management and Training Corproration — declined to participate in the conversation.

Sethi pointed to what he sees as an inherent conflict of interest within the private prison industry. 

"The purpose of prisons is to, ostensibly, rehabilitate, and we should be hopeful that people who go to prisons can go in and out quickly." Sethi said, "But when a private prison is in the mix, they have every incentive for that prisoner to stay in that system because the longer that they stay in the system, the more money they make off that prisoner."

For the full discussion with David Dayen and Arjun Sethi on the future of private prisons, use the audio player above.

This conversation is the first in a series on criminal justice. Throughout the month of January, MPR News with Kerri Miller will host discussions on different facets of the justice system.

Crime, Law and Justice

Shows

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

Kerri Miller Feature

Kerri Miller

Author

Marcheta Fornoff

The Department of Justice announced in August that it would phase out federal use of the privately run facilities, but President-elect Donald Trump has expressed support for them in the past.

Last year, the Department of Justice said privately owned prisons are less safe than prisons ran by the federal government. They also announced they would not renew contracts with private prisons. Civil rights advocates praised this announcement and afterwards stock for those prisons plummeted, but rebounded with the election of Donald Trump. What exactly is the future of private prisons? A law professor and journalist tried to answer that question with MPR News host Kerri Miller.

The future of private prisons

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