Shane Bauer joins us to talk about private prisons in the Trump era. Last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo supporting the federal government's continuing use of private prisons, rescinding an Obama administration directive last year that aimed to reduce and eventually phase out federal reliance on them. Shane Bauer is a senior reporter at Mother Jones, where he recently won the National Magazine Award for his story "My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard." He was also spent two years imprisoned in Iran after he and two friends were arrested near the Iranian border in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Hosts Baynard Woods and Marc Steiner also discuss Baynard's recent trip to CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he was aided in his reporting by a cannabis edible.

Democracy in Crisis is a weekly podcast hosted by Baynard Woods and Marc Steiner, produced and engineered by Mark Gunnery for The Center for Emerging Media. Theme music by Ruby Fulton and the Rhymes with Orchestra.