Warren, Durbin, Markey, Lawmakers Urge Department of Justice, U.S. Marshals Service to End Use of Private Jails, Comply with President Biden’s Executive Order
“Despite President Biden’s order . . . DOJ has continued to rely on private facilities through the Marshals Service: USMS has leveraged workarounds to continue holding roughly 20,000 of its 63,000 detainees in privately run facilities.”
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) along with Senators Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) Director Ronald L. Davis, urging them to stop detaining individuals in private jails, and to comply with President Biden’s Executive Order that prohibits the Department of Justice (DOJ) from contracting with privately operated jails and prisons.
“We write to express deep concern that the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) appears to be circumventing President Biden’s Executive Order 14006, which seeks to ‘phas out the Federal Government’s reliance on privately operated criminal detention facilities,’” wrote the senators. “Despite President Biden’s order that ‘the Attorney General shall not renew Department of Justice contracts’ with private facilities, USMS continues to house roughly one third of its detainees in these facilities.”
President Biden issued Executive Order 14006 directing the DOJ — including the USMS — to “not renew Department of Justice contracts with privately operated criminal detention facilities,” noting that such facilities feed into profit-based incentives to incarcerate, and underperform federal facilities in the safety and services provided to incarcerated individuals. However, the DOJ has continued to quietly rely on private facilities through the Marshals Service: USMS has leveraged two workarounds to continue holding roughly 20,000 of its 63,000 detainees in privately run facilities.
First, USMS forms intergovernmental agreements with county governments, and the counties in turn contract with the private detention operators on USMS’s behalf. Second, the White House has approved at least seven exceptions to Executive Order 14006 for USMS to continue contracting directly with private prison operators.
USMS has justified these workarounds as preferable to the alternative of relocating detainees to federal facilities located hours away from the judicial districts of detainees’ proceedings. “But for many in USMS custody, options exist beyond either remaining in privately run jails or relocating hours away from their families and courts. Some of USMS’s contracts are with private facilities near major population centers where government-run alternatives exist. Others are with private facilities so remote as to not satisfy USMS’s convenience argument. And overall, the DOJ should pursue pretrial release whenever appropriate after considering any public safety or flight risks, which would free space in government-run facilities,” the lawmakers continued.
The White House has assured that the DOJ is “working toward full compliance with the executive directive.” But as of now, more than two years after the issuance of Executive Order 14006, USMS has only ended private contracts for seven facilities holding just 3 percent of the population in its custody, while continuing to hold a much larger share of its detainees in private facilities. “We urge USMS to swiftly come into full compliance with both the text and spirit of Executive Order 14006,” the lawmakers concluded.
This letter builds on oversight done by the Senate Judiciary Democrats in 2021, as well as reporting by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
“The for-profit prison industry’s bottom line requires more incarceration — and it comes at the expense of incarcerated people’s and correctional officers’ health, safety, and well-being,” said Kyle Virgien, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “The U.S. Marshals Service needs to follow through on the Biden administration’s commitment to stop sending our tax dollars to these for-profit prison companies.”
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