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Attorney General Jeff Sessions revoked a directive established during the Obama administration about phasing out private prisons, reports the New York Daily News.

From New York Daily News:

Sessions issued a memo replacing one issued last August by Sally Yates, the deputy attorney general at the time. That memo, which followed a harshly critical government audit of privately run prisons, directed the federal Bureau of Prisons to begin reducing and ultimately end its reliance on contract facilities. Yates, in her announcement, said private facilities have more safety and security problems than government-run ones and were less necessary given declines in the overall federal prison population.

But Sessions, in his memo, said Yates’ directive went against longstanding Justice Department policy and practice and “impaired the Bureau’s ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system.” He said he was directing the BOP to “return to its previous approach.”

The federal prison population — now just under 190,000 — has been dropping due in part to changes in federal sentencing policies over the last few years…Yet the federal prison population may increase again given Sessions’ commitment to aggressive enforcement of drug and immigration laws, and his focus on combating violent crime.

Though Sessions incites more fears about the state of the U.S. Justice Department, private-prison operators have “already stood to benefit substantially from President [Donald] Trump’s aggressive measures to detain and deport illegal immigrants,” reports The Washington Post.

SOURCE: New York Daily NewsThe Washington Post

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