José E. Serrano: “My amendment is very straightforward. It would prohibit funds allocated in the bill from being used on the construction…”

“My amendment is very straightforward. It would prohibit funds allocated in the bill from being used on the construction and operation of private, for-profit prisons. The use of private prisons in our country is a crisis. More and more Americans are being locked up in facilities that don't respect basic human rights. One in four people behind bars worldwide is in a United States jail. That is right. A country with less than 5 percent of the world's population accounts for a quarter of all the world's prisoners. In fact, our prison population has continued to increase over the past few decades, even as statistics have shown a decrease in crime. According to the FBI, violent and major property crimes are at historic lows. Nevertheless, more and more Americans are getting locked up. There are several reasons for this: from overly punitive mandatory minimum sentences to the cycle of poverty in the school-to-prison pipeline. But one thing is for sure: so long as there is an incentive to build prison cells for profit, there will be more Americans unnecessarily behind bars. So long as we perpetuate the prison industrial complex, we will find it harder and harder to reduce our bloated prison population and make meaningful reforms to our criminal justice system. Last year, an investigative reporter for The Nation uncovered horrible conditions at private correction facilities. Inmates were not receiving basic medical care, even items required by the Bureau of Prisons.…”