Private prisons benefit from new Trump rules
The Trump administration is going back to the “tough on crime” policies of the 1980s and ’90s. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered federal prosecutors to bring charges that carry heavy penalties – sometimes mandatory minimum sentences. This is a roll-back of Obama administration rules telling prosecutors not to charge nonviolent drug offenders with crimes that would automatically land them in jail. The Sessions order could lead to a substantial increase in the prison population. That’s big news for the private prison industry.
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