ATTORNEY GENERAL/TRUMP PEOPLE/JEFF SESSIONS: “Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday withdrew an Obama-era Justice Department memo that set a goal of reducing and ultimately ending the Justice Department’s use of private prisons.
In a one-page memo to the acting head of the Bureau of Prisons, Sessions wrote that the August 2016 memo by former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates ‘changed long-standing policy and practice, and impaired the Bureau’s ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system.’
A Justice Department spokesman said Sessions’ memo ‘directs the Bureau of Prisons to return to its previous approach to the use of private prisons,’ which would ‘restore BOP’s flexibility to manage the federal prison inmate population based on capacity needs.’ “
–Ryan J. Reilly and Ben Walsh, “Jeff Sessions Reverses Obama-Era Policy That Curtailed DOJ’s Private Prison Use,”The Huffington Post online, Feb. 23, 2017