[JURIST] US Attorney General Jeff Sessions [official website] issued a memo [memo, PDF] made public Thursday that rescinds an Obama administration memo [text] calling for the phasing out of the Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] use of private prisons. In the memo, Sessions states that the Obama-era memo “changed long-standing policy and practice, and impaired the Bureau (of Prisons’) ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system.” Currently, 13 of the 146 federal prisons [Reuters report] are privately run. As of 2015, these 13 prisons housed a total of 22,600 inmates, down from roughly 40,000 in 2014.

The treatment of prisoners and prison reform [JURIST podcast] has been a growing concern in the US for years. In January the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin and Juvenile Law Center filed a class action lawsuit [JURIST report] against four Wisconsin state officials alleging that solitary confinement and inhumane conditions are being unconstitutionally used against incarcerated youths in correctional facilities. In August the DOJ reached a settlement [JURIST report] with Los Angeles prisons on mentally ill inmate care. In May 2015 Human Rights Watch released [JURIST report] a report stating that mentally disabled prisoners experience “unnecessary, excessive, and even malicious force” at the hands of prison staff across the US. A federal court earlier that year approved [JURIST report] a settlement agreement between the Arizona Department of Corrections and the ACLU in a class action lawsuit over the health care system within Arizona prisons. Also in February 2015 the rights group Equal Justice Under Law filed suit [JURIST report] against the cities of Ferguson and Jennings, Missouri, for their practice of jailing citizens who fail to pay debts owed to the city for minor offenses and traffic tickets. The ACLU and the ACLU of Texas released a report in 2014 exposing [JURIST report] the results of a multi-year investigation into conditions at five Criminal Alien Requirement prisons in Texas.