Kentucky Prison & Jail Overcrowding Leads State To Consider Using Private Prison Contracts Again

On June 23, 2016, Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Secretary John Tilley said that due to prison and jail overcrowding, the state is considering temporarily reopening two private prisons to ease overcrowding. The state stopped housing inmates in private prisons in 2013. Over 11,000 of Kentucky's roughly 23,600 state inmates are currently being held in county jails. He said the privately run Marion Adjustment Center in St. Mary and the Lee Adjustment Center in Beattyville, both owned by the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, could accept about 1,642 inmates. Mr. Tilley discussed the issue . . .