Issue Position: Prison Privatization

Issue Position

Outsourcing our corrections responsibilities is not good public policy.

Strafford County officials have an outstanding record of maintaining a correctional facility and providing leadership to the courts and law enforcement community in protecting our citizens. Our Strafford County facility is so well run that other New Hampshire counties and federal officials utilize our jail to house inmates and Strafford County is compensated for this service.

Strafford County's corrections staff and facility is an example that can be studied and applied elsewhere and that's one of the reasons I supported HB 443 prohibiting the department of corrections from transferring custody of prisoners to a correctional facility operated by a private or for-profit entity, except when the governor, upon recommendation of the commissioner of the department of corrections, declares by executive order that a corrections emergency exists.

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