Puerto Rico Wants To Send Thousands Of Inmates To Private Prisons In the US

Puerto Rican civil rights groups and the families of prisoners are demanding the government stop its plan to send a third of the island’s inmates to prisons on the mainland U.S.

Moving the inmates is part of a series of cost-saving measures outlined in Puerto Rican 2018 fiscal plan. The agency will move 3,200 — about a third of the island’s incarcerated population — to private prisons on the mainland over the next five years.

In a letter released Wednesday morning, the ACLU of Puerto Rico said the move would ”substantially affect the process of rehabilitation of inmates and cause anguish and suffering to their families and friends as the ties preserved through their visits will be broken.”

The Puerto Rico Department of Corrections hopes to save between $44 million and $50 million in the coming fiscal year alone with the prison transfer plan.

Read here about the “National Prisoners Strike” slated to pop off this summer.