James Traficant: “the District of Columbia had closed its prison at Lorton and had engaged in a contract with a private for-profit prison…”

“the District of Columbia had closed its prison at Lorton and had engaged in a contract with a private for-profit prison that ended up being in my district that desperately needs jobs. Since that time, there have been 13 stabbings, two of them fatal, an escape of six prisoners, four of them murderers, and one still at large. I am not here to lay blame and I am not here for any political purposes of any party back in the State of Ohio. I believe the Governor and everybody has done the best they can. And I am not here to lay a big blame on D.C. Private for-profit prisons are a thing of the future and we will learn much about them from what happens in my district. But one of the main problems for Congress to understand is this is a low to medium security level facility that has been built. The contract calls for low to medium level security inmates. What we are getting is prisoners and inmates that qualify for supermax type of maximum security prisons. The Traficant amendment basically says none of the funds in the bill can be used to transfer or to place inmates in the Youngstown facility that are above a medium security level risk as defined by the Federal Bureau of Prisons classification system.”