James Traficant: “Mr. Chairman, last week, six prisoners, most of them incarcerated for murder, escaped from a private for-profit prison…”

“Mr. Chairman, last week, six prisoners, most of them incarcerated for murder, escaped from a private for-profit prison in my congressional district. The development of private prisons for profit around America is a sign of the times, but in the contract that this private prison had these were to be medium security prisoner inmate risks. There is still one murderer at large. The Traficant amendment simply calls for a study to evaluate the growth and development of private for-profit prisons, the training qualifications of their personnel, the security program and the quality of security programs that they offer and how their standards compare to those of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It requires that this study be completed in 9 months and that the fruits of this study shall be reported to both the Judiciary Committees of the House and Senate and the Appropriations Committees of the House and Senate. It is just the beginning, because on the D.C. appropriations bill, where this contract exists between D.C. prisons and the City of Youngstown, and I do not at this point support closing that prison, I just want to make sure that the guidelines and the contractual stipulations for the inmate risk is as it should be.”