Arizona’s Private Prisons Withstand Constitutional Challenges

Arizona inmates don’t have a constitutional right to avoid being placed in private prisons, the Ninth Circuit said Tuesday.

Two former inmates and the NAACP sued, claiming that private prisons’ profit-making motive makes them less safe and secure than state-run prisons. They claimed that private prisons violate equal protection, due process, and the Eighth and 13th Amendments.

“There can be little debate that private prisons pass constitutional muster,” said Judge Kenneth K. Lee in an opinion for the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. "[T]he Constitution does not prohibit states from turning to private companies to help run ...