Haslam says TN private prisons accountable

Gov. Bill Haslam and Williamson County legislators celebrate the new campus of Columbia State Community College.

On the heels of a call by the Tennessee State Employee Association for the state to phase out the usage of private prisons, after the federal Department of Justice's decision last week to do so, Gov. Bill Haslam says the state's four private prisons are working just fine.

"[The feds] make the decisions that they would," Haslam said when asked if Tennessee should phase out private prisons. "I think if you talk to Tony Parker, who’s our commissioner of corrections, he would say we provide supervision and oversight to private prisons just like we do to ours."