Most troubling, the modest criminal justice reforms that were achieved during the Obama administration coincided with the expansion of the system of mass deportation. At the same time that the administration was phasing out federal contracts for private prisons, it was making enormous investments in private detention centers for immigrants, including the granting of a $1 billion contract to Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest prison company (recently renamed Core Civic), to build a massive detention facility for women and children seeking asylum from Central America.
