Putting a stop to private prison contracts cannot address dire conditions for inmates, especially during a pandemic.
![Signs made by prisoners pleading for help are seen on a window of Cook County Jail in Chicago, Illinois, US, April 7, 2020, amid the COVID-19 outbreak [File: Jim Vondruska/Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/RTS38DU5-1.jpg?resize=270%2C180&quality=80)
James Kilgore is a Media Fellow at MediaJustice, where he directs the Challenging E-Carceration project. He is also the Co-Director of FirstFollowers ... Reentry Program in his hometown of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. He is the author of the award-winning Understanding Mass Incarceration, based largely on his observations from his six-and-a-half years of incarceration in federal and state penitentiaries.
Putting a stop to private prison contracts cannot address dire conditions for inmates, especially during a pandemic.