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Congressman Cohen Leads Letter to President Biden Encouraging the Elimination of Private Prisons

November 23, 2021

MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, today led a letter to President Biden, urging him to enforce his Executive Order to eliminate the use of privately operated detention facilities by the Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Marshals Service. This comes after new efforts of private prison companies to circumvent the Executive Order and retain federal prison contracts have surfaced.

"For-profit prisons have long been notorious for their mistreatment and mismanagement of inmates, endangering the lives of those in their custody," the letter reads in part. "We must remove profit-based incentives from our criminal justice system to address the incarceration crisis in our country and ensure the humane treatment of those who are detained."

See the entire letter here.

On January 26, his sixth day in office, President Biden signed Executive Order 14006, "Reforming our Incarceration System to Eliminate the Use of Privately Operated Criminal Detention Facilities."

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