New Hampshire House Votes to Ban Private Prison Option

New Hampshire’s Democratic controlled House of Representatives vote to prohibit the executive branch from privatizing the state’s prison system by a 197 to 136 vote, yesterday. The House Bill 443 is sent to the Senate, where Republicans hold a slim 13-11 majority. Although the bill prohibits prison privatization, it gives the governor the right to enter into a temporary contract with a private provider during times of a “corrections emergency”, but this can be done only with the approval of the Executive Council. Private prison industry had its eye on New Hampshire for a while. In January 2012, more than…