Sen. Bernie Sanders said he hopes to end the “private, for-profit prison racket” with the introduction Thursday of bills to ban private prisons, reinstate the federal parole system and eliminate quotas for the number of immigrants held in detention. 
 
 The Vermont independent, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, introduced the “Justice is not for Sale Act” with Democratic Reps. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Bobby Rush of Illinois. It would bar the federal government from contracting with private incarceration companies starting two years after passage. 
 
 “The profit motivation of private companies running prisons works at cross purposes with the goals of criminal justice,” Sanders said. “Criminal justice and public safety are without a doubt the responsibility of the citizens of our country, not private corporations. They should be carried out by those who answer to voters, not those who answer to investors.” 
 
 Taxpayers pay $80 billion a year bill to incarcerate 2.3 million people, according to the lawmakers. Of the nearly 1.6 million people in federal and state prisons in 2013, 8.4 percent were in private facilities. 
 
 Ellison said the private-prison industry spends millions each year lobbying for harsher sentencing laws and immigration policies that serve its bottom line. 
 
 “Incarceration should be about rehabilitation and public safety, not profit,” he said. 
 
 The legislation would reinstate the federal parole system, abolished in 1984, and increase oversight of companies that provide banking and telephone services for inmates. It also would end the requirement that Immigration and Customs Enforcement maintain 34,000 detention beds. 
 
 Sanders said the bill represents only a piece of the major criminal justice reforms he believes are needed, but he’s convinced the issue can find bipartisan support. 
 
 “Making sure that corporations are not profiteering from the incarceration of fellow Americans is an important step forward.” ||||| Today, the Democratic candidate will introduce a bill that, if passed, would eliminate for-profit prisons, expanding a national conversation on social justice, law enforcement, and prison reform. 
 
 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks at a civil rights rally at Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday. Sanders will introduce a bill to eliminate for-profit prisons, expanding a renewed national debate on social justice and prison reform. 
 
 On Thursday, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) of Vt. is set to introduce the “Justice Is Not For Sale” Act on Capitol Hill, which would ban a private prison industry he accuses of creating a “perverse incentive” to keep jails filled. 
 
 The bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Raul Manuel Grijalva (D) of Ariz., calls for federal, state, and local governments to ban privately run prisons within three years, to reduce high fees for prisoner services such as phone calls, and to reinstate a federal parole system, which was eliminated as part of ‘tough on crime’ efforts in the 1980s, The Washington Post reports. The bill also seeks to reduce the number of immigrants held in detention centers, many of which are privately-managed, by eliminating the current minimum quota of housing 34,000 people each day. 
 
 Calling the private prison industry “disgraceful,” and “morally repugnant,” Sanders’ campaign website says “the measure of success for law enforcement should not be how many people get locked up.” 
 
 Private prisons, originally created to lower costs and reduce dangerous overcrowding in public facilities, now house 19 percent of federal prisoners, fueling a $5 billion industry that has quickly become a hot “recession resistant” investment. 
 
 Reform advocates allege that the industry, dominated by The GEO Group and the Corrections Corporation of America, reduces the motivation to rehabilitate prisoners because companies make a profit by keeping them imprisoned. 
 
 A University of Wisconsin study released this spring found that private prison inmates often serve longer sentences, yet are just as likely to recidivate as those in public prisons. 
 
 As researcher Anita Mukherjee highlighted, these longer sentences drive up private prisons’ costs, undermining claims that they save taxpayers money, which is ostensibly the industry’s core purpose. Other analyses have also cast doubt on their cost-saving ability, particularly since state contacts may have to guarantee a certain number of prisoners to their private providers. 
 
 Calling to abolish the industry, Sanders says: 
 
 We need to end the tragic reality that the United States has more people in jail than any other country on earth, and that the people being incarcerated are disproportionately black and Hispanic. We need to take a hard look at why the rate of recidivism in this country is so high and why we are not developing successful paths back to civil society for those who serve prison time. 
 
 By adding a specific plan to the national conversation on law enforcement, racial bias, and prison reform, the bill may help Sanders make inroads with voting demographics he has struggled to reach as an Independent senator from a small, nearly entirely white state. 
 
 Campaigning in South Carolina beside intellectual and civil rights activist Cornel West last week, Sanders stressed investing in “jobs and education rather than jails and incarceration.” Hillary Clinton, who enjoys far more recognition and support from African-American voters, has also criticized mass incarceration, but has yet to propose a specific reform plan. 
 
 Meanwhile, an opinion piece in Al Jazeera reports that Republican candidates Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio have supported, or accepted support from, the private prison industry. 
 
 Although a ban on private prisons would face an uphill battle in Congress, The Christian Science Monitor reports that other bipartisan prison reform bills are likely to pass this fall, as both parties recognize new research casting doubt on the assumption that tough sentencing laws result in lower crime rates. 
 
 Thanks to three-strike laws and minimum sentencing requirements instituted in the 1980s and 1990s, the prison population has more than quadrupled over the past few decades; more than 1 percent of Americans are now behind bars. ||||| Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks in Des Moines, Iowa, last month. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) 
 
 Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will unveil a plan Thursday to ban privately run jails and prisons, which he says have a “perverse incentive” to increase the number of incarcerated people in the country. 
 
 Under the proposal by the Democratic presidential hopeful, the federal government would have three years to end its practice of using private companies to keep people behind bars. The ban would also apply to state and local governments, which have increasingly turned to private contractors in a bid to save money. 
 
 “It runs counter to the best interests of our country,” Sanders said in an interview Wednesday. “You should not be making a profit off of putting people in prison.” 
 
 Sanders’s “Justice Is Not For Sale Act,” which he plans to introduce as legislation in Congress, also includes several provisions intended to dramatically reduce the number of immigrants who are held in detention facilities while awaiting court hearings on their legal status. 
 
 [How Bernie Sanders is plotting his path to the Democratic nomination] 
 
 The release of Sanders’s plan comes as he seeks to broaden his appeal among African-American and Latino voters, two key constituencies in the Democratic nominating process for whom the issue of privately run prisons and detention facilities has emerged as a hot-button issue. 
 
 Sanders is scheduled to appear at a news conference Thursday on Capitol Hill to unveil the bill, which is being sponsored in the House by Rep. Raul Manuel Grijalva (D-Ariz.). 
 
 Hillary Rodham Clinton has also expressed concerns about privately run prisons on the campaign trail but has not put forward a plan regarding their use. Another Democratic presidential hopeful, former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, included a provision to phase out privately run facilities in a broader criminal justice plan he recently released. 
 
 As a lawmaker, Sanders has not previously tackled the issue of privately run prisons, but he said it is consistent with his long-standing concern that the United States is locking up far too many people. On the campaign trail, he frequently describes the “international disgrace” that more people are incarcerated in the United States than any other country in the world. 
 
 [Cornel West joins Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail in South Carolina] 
 
 The bill Sanders will introduce includes another provision aimed at lowering the prison population: reinstating the federal parole system, which was abolished in 1984 as part of a wave of tough-on-crime legislation. Sanders said there needs to be flexibility in the system to release those who have been rehabilitated. 
 
 More than 19 percent of federal prisoners are housed in private facilities, as are nearly 7 percent of state prisoners, according to statistics cited by Sanders in a two-page summary of his legislation. Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds more than 60 percent of its detainees in private facilities. 
 
 Among the immigration-related provisions in Sanders’s legislation is ending a congressional mandate that ICE maintains a minimum of 34,000 detainees a day. 
 
 “That seems pretty silly, and is obviously wrong,” Sanders said. 
 
 On the campaign trail, Clinton has at times spoken derisively of private prison companies, saying in June, for example, that it’s an industry “that makes money off of mass incarceration.” She has also accused the companies of cutting corners to boost their bottom line. 
 
 Clinton has also taken some grief in recent months because lobbyists for two of the largest private prison companies are helping raise money for her campaign. 
 
 Sanders said in the interview that he plans to continue his practice of using his position as a senator to highlight his agenda as a presidential candidate. While presidential candidates typically issue position papers, Sanders said putting his ideas in the form of legislation gives a fuller picture of where he wants to take the country. 
 
 Staff writer Anne Gearan contributed to this report.
– Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders introduced legislation to Congress today that would ban private prisons and jails in the United States, USA Today reports. Sanders—who has called the size of the US prison population an "international disgrace"—says the goal of for-profit prisons and jails is to increase the number of people locked up, according to the Washington Post. “The profit motivation of private companies running prisons works at cross purposes with the goals of criminal justice,” the senator says, per USA Today. Legislation cosponsor Rep. Keith Ellison says for-profit prisons spend millions every year pushing for stricter sentencing laws. “Incarceration should be about rehabilitation and public safety, not profit,” he says. The "Justice Is Not for Sale Act" introduced by Sanders today would ban the government from working with private-prison companies, bring back the federal parole system eliminated in the '80s, and end quotas on how many immigrants are held in detention, USA Today reports. According to the Christian Science Monitor, private prisons are a $5 billion a year industry with 19% of federal prisoners currently being held in one, and banning them could face an uphill battle in Congress. The Post reports the legislation could be an attempt on Sanders' part to appeal to African-American and Latino voters. Democratic challengers Clinton and O'Malley have also come out against private prisons.