Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Friday unveiled a plan that calls for the elimination of private, for-profit prisons and immigrant detention centers, saying that there shouldn’t be financial incentivizes based on the number of people being put behind bars or detained.
She said that if elected president, should would move to end all contracts that the federal Bureau of Prisons, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the U.S. Marshals Service have with private detention providers.
The Massachusetts Democrat would also condition federal public safety funding for states and localities on their use of public facilities.
Ms. Warren said at a candidate forum in Miami that 73 percent of people detained because of their immigration status are held in for-profit detention centers.
“You’ve just created a group that makes its money by seeing more people locked up, and that means they go to Washington and lobby for laws that keep locking up more people,” she said.
“We have a Washington right now that works great for those who want to invest in private prisons and private incarceration,” she said. “It’s just not working for the families and the people who are destroyed by it…so I say get the profits out of locking people up.”
Ms. Warren also said she she wants to ban contractors from charging incarcerated and detained people for services like phone calls, bank transfers, and health care.
“At some of these places, [do] you realize they charge people $8 a minute to use telephone services?” she said. “They charge people for video conferencing. Families go broke just trying to stay in touch with their loved ones.”
Ms. Warren released the plan just prior to her appearance at the presidential candidate forum in Miami, where she and others were speaking at the event hosted by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO).
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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