Statues celebrating Confederates and conquistadors keep old myths alive, with stories of “benevolent slave owners,” heroic colonizers and enslaved people “contented with their lot.”
Seth Freed Wessler
Seth Freed Wessler is an independent journalist and senior fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism. He is the recipient of a 2014-15 Soros Justice Media Fellowship.
Sick on the inside
For decades, the U.S. has run private “shadow prisons” for immigrants convicted of federal crimes. Biden has ordered the government to wind down those contracts.
Justice Department to end all federal private prisons
In a historic rebuke of the private prison industry, the U.S. Department of Justice today announced plans to eliminate the use of private prisons to incarcerate federal inmates.
Feds will shut down troubled private prison in Nation investigation
The Bureau of Prisons has notified one of the country’s leading private prison companies, Corrections Corporation of America, that a troubled federal prison the company operated for 16 years will be closed down.
Private prison operator sued over death at immigrant facility
The family of a federal prisoner has filed a wrongful death lawsuit, alleging that private prison operators negligently left him in the care of underqualified medical workers who failed to respond properly to a medical emergency.
Medical neglect can be fatal in privatized immigrant-only prisons
The Bureau of Prisons has 11 facilities – operated by private corporations – that are used exclusively for noncitizens. But these contract prisons are bound by a less stringent set of rules, and an independent review suggests that inadequate medical care likely contributed to some inmate deaths.