Author’s Note: The issue of the use of private prisons in criminal justice is fraught with moral and constitutional problems. Add in corporate profitability, and one has a volatile recipe for corruption and political influence peddling. If one then considers the issues of inmate health care, recidivism prevention, and proportionality, it is a path to disaster. I’ve broken this into two sections. Part I: The Moral Failure of America’s Private Prison System and Part II: Sick for Profit: The Crime of Private Prison Healthcare. The resources used to develop these pieces are listed at the end.
For Profit, For Punishment: The Moral Failure of America’s Private Prison System
An Op-Ed
There is something uniquely American about the private prison industry, and not in a way that inspires pride. Only in a society that has confused the market for a moral framework could we conclude that the best way to ensure justice is administered fairly is to hand responsibility for it to shareholders.
We did. And we are living with the consequences.
The facts, as they stand in the spring of 2026, are not complicated. Two companies, GEO Group and CoreCivic, dominate a private corrections market worth billions of dollars annually, operating detention centers, prisons, jails, and immigration facilities under contract with the federal government and dozens of states. They are publicly traded. They answer to investors. Their executives draw compensation packages in the millions. And they have spent, with breathtaking openness, vast sums of money to ensure that the politicians who control their contracts remain in power.
The numbers speak plainly. GEO Group and CoreCivic together contributed nearly $2.8 million to Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign and inaugural fund. During the 2024 election cycle, GEO Group employees and its PACs contributed $3.7 million to candidates and political committees. CoreCivic’s CEO personally contributed more than $1 million in political donations over five years, including to the Republican National Committee. GEO Group’s Executive Chairman George Zoley did the same. In Tennessee alone, CoreCivic lavished $3.6 million in lobbying and political donations since 2019 on the Republican-controlled government that oversees its contracts.
What did these investments purchase? On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which allocated $170 billion for immigration enforcement, including $45 billion to build or reopen immigration detention centers. The majority of those new beds will be managed by private contractors, the same contractors who wrote the checks that helped elect the men who wrote the bill.
By 2025, GEO Group and CoreCivic each expected their ICE contracts to generate more than $1 billion in annual revenue.
“Our business is perfectly aligned with the demands of this moment,” CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger announced on an earnings call.
He was not wrong. But what, exactly, does this alignment reveal about the moment?
The Perverse Incentive Machine
The private prison industry is not merely a passive beneficiary of harsh criminal justice and immigration policy. It is an active architect of it.
Private prison contracts routinely contain “bed guarantee” clauses, provisions requiring states to keep between 80% and 100% of prison beds filled or pay financial penalties to the company. A 2013 study of 62 private prison contracts in 21 states confirmed this practice was the industry norm. The result is a system in which states are literally fined for reducing their incarceration rates.
Taxpayers pay for empty cages. Communities are punished for producing fewer convicts.
This is not an accident of contract design. It is a feature. Private prison companies have actively lobbied for mandatory minimum sentencing laws, truth-in-sentencing provisions, and immigration enforcement measures that guarantee a steady supply of human beings to fill their facilities. In a remarkable act of candor, the companies have essentially acknowledged this logic. They tell investors their revenues depend on incarceration rates. Their stock prices spike when restrictive immigration policies are announced.
For a private company to prosper, it must either attract more customers or keep the ones it has longer. In the corrections business, customers are human beings in cages. More laws that put people in prison, longer sentences, and broader definitions of detainable offenses are, from the balance sheet’s perspective, simply growth strategies.
Defenders of private prisons typically offer two justifications: cost savings and operational efficiency. Neither holds up under scrutiny.
A landmark meta-analysis of 33 cost-effectiveness evaluations across 24 independent studies found that private prisons were no more cost-effective than public prisons. A Bureau of Justice Assistance study found that instead of the projected 20% savings, privatization yielded only about 1% savings on average. Meanwhile, research consistently shows that what savings do exist come at a steep price: private prisons achieve them by reducing staff, cutting training, eliminating rehabilitation programs, and providing inferior healthcare, each of which increases violence, increases recidivism, and ultimately returns more dangerous individuals to the community.
The statistics are stark. Private prisons record 49% more inmate-on-staff attacks and 65% more inmate-on-inmate assaults than their public counterparts. Drug addiction rates are double those in public facilities. Staff, paid significantly less than their public-sector equivalents, are less qualified and more likely to participate in contraband distribution. A Department of Justice report found that private contract prisons incurred more safety and security incidents per capita than Bureau of Prisons facilities across nearly all eight categories examined.
The recidivism rates tell the ultimate story. Private prisons, by eliminating educational programs, vocational training, and behavioral health services that reduce reoffending, produce graduates more likely to return to crime, ensuring, with grim circularity, that the beds are filled again.
The private prison model is not just economically marginal. It is a machine for manufacturing recidivism.
The corruption of this system does not end with campaign contributions. The private prison industry has built an intricate human network connecting it to the agencies that regulate and contract with it.
At least six former ICE officials now hold senior positions at GEO Group. The day before the 2024 election, a 15-year ICE veteran left to become a Senior Vice President at GEO Group. David Venturella, who had worked as an ICE assistant director before joining GEO Group, was brought back into the Trump administration as a DHS adviser and granted an ethics waiver allowing him to work on matters involving his former employer.
The flow runs in both directions. ICE’s former acting director for the New Orleans region left to work for LaSalle Corrections, which runs six facilities in that region. BOP’s former assistant director for private prison oversight left to become GEO Group’s director of operations. The pattern is so consistent, so documented, and so flagrant that bipartisan coalitions in Congress have demanded investigations into it.
The result is a government that has, in a meaningful sense, fused with the industry it is supposed to regulate. The same individuals who negotiated contracts on behalf of taxpayers are later paid to extract value from those contracts on behalf of shareholders. This is not a revolving door. It is a corruption pipeline.
Inside the facilities this industry operates, the abstract language of profit margins becomes concrete human suffering.
At the time of this writing, at least 59,000 people are held in immigration detention, 71% of whom have no criminal record, housed overwhelmingly in private facilities. Of the 38 people who died in ICE custody from 2025 through early 2026, 71% were held in for-profit facilities.
Children at the Dilley Family Residential Center in South Texas—a CoreCivic facility expected to generate $180 million annually—are allegedly routinely denied medical treatment, lack access to drinkable water and child-friendly food, and are subjected to sleep deprivation. A measles outbreak was reported there in early 2026.
These are not isolated incidents. They are systemic outcomes. A private company whose revenue depends on the number of bodies it houses and whose profits depend on minimizing costs per body will, by the iron logic of the market, minimize care. The calculus is cold and predictable: every dollar spent on adequate nutrition, medical care, or mental health services is a dollar not returned to shareholders.
Mass incarceration, as the ACLU observed, “disproportionately impacts communities of color, with people of color making up 30 percent of the U.S. population but 60 percent of the incarcerated population.” The private prison industry has built its fortune on this disparity. It lobbies not just for more imprisonment, but for the specific policies that ensure the over-incarceration of the most politically vulnerable populations.
There are certain functions of government that cannot be delegated to the profit motive without corrupting both the function and the motive. The administration of justice is one of them.
When we incarcerate a person, we are exercising the most profound power the state possesses: the coercive removal of a human being’s liberty. This act carries enormous moral weight. It demands that the state pursue goals that cannot be reduced to cost per bed or earnings per share. Goals like rehabilitation, public safety, proportionality, dignity, and the preservation of constitutional rights. These goals are not compatible with a business model that prospers when more people are imprisoned for longer.
The private prison industry exists not because it is better at delivering justice, the evidence conclusively shows it is not. It exists because it has successfully monetized incarceration and then used that money to purchase the political conditions necessary to ensure that incarceration rates remain high.
This is not a market solving a problem. It is a market creating one.
The data is unambiguous. The $2.8 million in political contributions to Trump’s 2024 campaign and inaugural fund, the $170 billion in detention funding signed into law by the administration those contributions helped elect, the $3.7 million GEO Group spent during the 2024 cycle, the six former ICE officials now working at GEO Group, these are not coincidences of a well-functioning market. They are the documented architecture of institutional corruption.
The question is not whether we can afford to take corrections back from the private sector. Decades of evidence establish that private prisons cost more, produce more violence, generate more recidivism, and corrupt the political processes that should govern criminal justice.
The question is whether we have the moral seriousness to acknowledge that some responsibilities are too consequential to be handed to shareholders, whether we possess the political courage to act on that acknowledgment, or whether we will continue to allow the checks written in corporate boardrooms to determine who lives behind bars in America.
The private prison industry has made its position clear. Its executives call this “the most exciting period” of their careers. They are excited about an opportunity measured in human detention.
We should be ashamed to have given them that opportunity. And we should be resolute about taking it back.
Data overview: The Five Largest Private Prison Corporations
The private prison industry in the United States represents one of the most troubling intersections of profit motive and public safety obligation. Two publicly traded corporations dominate the sector, while several smaller players fill regional and specialized roles. Together, these companies house hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people — including federal prison inmates and immigration detainees — and generate billions of dollars in revenue annually from government contracts paid with taxpayer money.[1][2]
Headquarters: Boca Raton, Florida
Market Valuation: ~$4 billion[^3]
Stock Ticker: GEO (NYSE)
GEO Group is the largest private prison company in the United States, serving as ICE’s single largest contractor. As of 2025, GEO Group and its subsidiaries operate more than 20 immigration detention centers nationwide, having expanded its bed capacity significantly under the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement surge.[4][5]
Major Executives:
| Executive | Title |
| George C. Zoley | Founder & Executive Chairman |
| J. David Donahue | Chief Executive Officer (effective January 1, 2025) |
| Brian Evans | Former CEO (retired December 31, 2024) |
George Zoley, the Greek-born founder of GEO Group who built the company over decades, stepped back from day-to-day operations but remains one of the company’s most powerful figures as Executive Chairman. He described Trump’s election as “a unique moment in our company’s history.” J. David Donahue, his successor as CEO, came to the role with more than 40 years of corrections experience, having previously served as Indiana’s Corrections Commissioner and spent years inside GEO as Eastern Region Vice President. Daniel Bible, a former ICE official of nearly 15 years, joined GEO as a Senior Vice President just days before the 2024 election.[5][6][^7]
Headquarters: Nashville, Tennessee
Market Valuation: ~$2.2 billion[^3]
Stock Ticker: CXW (NYSE)
Formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), CoreCivic is the second-largest private prison operator in the United States. The company operates prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers across multiple states and holds lucrative contracts with both the Federal Bureau of Prisons and ICE. During the second quarter of 2025, CoreCivic reported total revenue of $538.2 million, a 9.8% increase from the same quarter in 2024.[8][9][^1]
Major Executives:
| Executive | Title |
| Damon T. Hininger | President & CEO (departed 2025) |
| Various Successor | New CEO following Hininger departure |
Damon Hininger served as CoreCivic’s CEO from 2009 through 2025, overseeing the company’s massive expansion during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdowns. He infamously declared on an earnings call that “this is truly one of the most exciting periods of my career with the company” while the administration detained tens of thousands of immigrants. CoreCivic reported that it expects its South Texas Family Residential Center contract alone to generate approximately $180 million in annual revenue.[10][11][^4]
3. Management & Training Corporation (MTC)
Headquarters: Centerville, Utah
Ownership: Privately held (Markwart family)
MTC is the third-largest for-profit prison corporation in the United States. Founded in 1981, it operates 17 correctional facilities, 14 detention centers, 15 Job Corps centers, and various treatment programs. Unlike GEO Group and CoreCivic, MTC is a privately held, family-owned company and therefore does not trade on a public stock exchange.[12][13][^14]
Major Executives:
| Executive | Title |
| Dan Markwart | President (Markwart family leadership) |
| Scott Marquardt | CEO |
| Bernie Warner | Senior VP of Corrections |
| Michael Bell | VP of Region III |
The Markwart family has been central to MTC’s leadership since the company’s founding. Scott Marquardt has served as CEO and has been the public face of the organization in its outreach efforts.[15][16][^12]
Headquarters: Ruston, Louisiana
Ownership: Privately held (McConnell family)
LaSalle Corrections is unique among large private prison companies in that it is entirely family-owned, controlled by William “Billy” McConnell and his son Clay. The McConnells co-founded the company in 1997 after Billy McConnell entered the corrections business by constructing and then operating a prison in Alexandria, Louisiana. LaSalle primarily operates facilities in Louisiana, Texas, and Georgia, including facilities that hold ICE detainees. The company has faced significant legal scrutiny, including a record-setting $7 million settlement connected to conditions at its Texarkana jail.[17][18][^19]
Major Executives:
| Executive | Title |
| William “Billy” McConnell | Co-Founder & Managing Director |
| Clay McConnell | Director of Offender Programming |
| Patrick H. Temple | Co-Founder & Managing Director |
| Kevin Sumrall | Director of Operations |
| Ryan Horvath | Director of Legal Affairs & Risk Management |
Rodney Cooper has also served as a senior executive and represented LaSalle in Congressional testimony. ICE’s former acting director for the New Orleans field office later took a position with LaSalle, a facility operator in that region — a textbook example of the “revolving door” that critics have long documented between federal oversight agencies and the private prison industry.[20][21]
5. Wellpath (Formerly Correct Care Solutions / Corizon)
Headquarters: Franklin, Tennessee
Ownership: Previously owned by H.I.G. Capital; emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2025
Wellpath occupies a distinct but critically important niche in the private corrections ecosystem: it is the nation’s largest provider of healthcare services to incarcerated people. It operates across 37 states and provides medical and behavioral health services to nearly 270,000 patients in correctional facilities. The company is active in 34 of California’s 56 county jail systems. It emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in May 2025, restructured for continued operations.[22][23][^24]
Major Executives:
| Executive | Title |
| Ben Slocum | Chief Executive Officer |
| Jessica Mazlum | Division President, Local Government-California |
| Cindy Watson | Former President, Local Government Healthcare Division |
| Jeremy Barr | Former Division President, Recovery Solutions |
| Brad Dunbar | Former President, State and Federal Healthcare Division |
The company’s history has been marred by serious misconduct. Its predecessor company, Correct Care Solutions, was led by Gerard “Jerry” Boyle, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit honest services mail fraud after paying bribes to secure jail healthcare contracts. Wellpath has faced more than 1,000 federal lawsuits and multiple Department of Justice investigations into its quality of care.[25][22]
Political Contributions and the Money Trail
The private prison industry has transformed itself into one of the most effective political spending machines in American government contracting. What distinguishes this spending from ordinary corporate lobbying is its directness: these companies pay politicians, those politicians set criminal justice and immigration policy, and those policies directly determine how many people are imprisoned — which is the sole source of private prison revenue. The feedback loop is as simple as it is corrupting.[^26]
From 2021 through 2025, leading for-profit prison companies donated approximately $500,000 to Republican members of Congress currently in office and $57,000 to Democratic members of Congress, according to an investigation by The Appeal reviewing hundreds of Federal Election Commission records. This, however, is only the visible tip of a much larger iceberg.[^10]
GEO Group: Trump’s Most Loyal Corporate Ally
GEO Group has been among the most politically aggressive private prison companies, with a documented pattern of targeting its contributions precisely where they will generate maximum policy returns.[^27]
- GEO Group’s PAC became the first corporation to max out its contribution to Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, doing so in February 2024.[^27]
- GEO Group used a subsidiary, GEO Acquisition II Inc., to contribute $500,000 to the Make America Great Again super PAC, a pro-Trump outside group.[^27]
- Executive Chairman George Zoley contributed more than $1 million in personal political contributions from 2021 through 2025, including donations to the Republican National Committee and PACs affiliated with President Trump.[^10]
- GEO Group’s PAC donated to more than 32 members of the “Sedition Caucus” — members of Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election — giving more than $266,000 to these members and their supporting party committees.[^27]
- In 2016, the day after the Obama-era DOJ announced a plan to phase out private prisons, GEO Group donated $100,000 to a pro-Trump super PAC.[^27]
- During the 2024 election cycle, GEO Group employees and its PACs contributed a total of $3.7 million to candidates, outside spending groups, and other political committees.[^28]
- GEO Group’s wholly-owned subsidiary contributed $1 million to support Trump, a contribution critics argue violates the spirit — if not the letter — of federal campaign finance law prohibiting government contractors from making pay-to-play contributions.[^29]
CoreCivic: Republican Kingmaker in Tennessee and Beyond
CoreCivic has pursued a parallel strategy, concentrating its political spending on the officials who control its state and federal contracts.[^30]
- CoreCivic contributed $500,000 to Trump’s 2025 inaugural committee.[^31]
- CEO Damon Hininger personally contributed more than $1 million in political contributions from 2021 through 2025, including donations to the RNC and Trump-affiliated PACs.[^10]
- CoreCivic spent $3.6 million since 2019 on lobbying and political donations to state lawmakers in Tennessee alone — mostly Republicans who control the state government overseeing its contracts.[^30]
- CoreCivic’s PAC donated more than $248,000 to sitting members of Congress from 2021 through 2025.[^10]
- Hininger chaired the Tennessee Republican Party’s Statesmen’s Dinner in June 2024, the largest political fundraiser in the state.[^30]
- CoreCivic PACs and employees donated $784,974 during the 2024 election cycle.[^28]
CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) analyzed FEC data and found that CoreCivic, GEO Group, their subsidiaries, and their executives donated nearly $2.8 million to Trump’s 2024 election efforts and inaugural fund combined.[^29]
This investment followed a clear pay-to-play trajectory:
- Trump signed the Laken Riley Act on his first day in office, making it easier to detain undocumented immigrants.[^5]
- Trump reversed Biden’s executive order that had restricted private prison contracts for the DOJ.[^5]
- On July 4, 2025, Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which allocated $170 billion for immigration enforcement — including $45 billion specifically for building or reopening immigration detention centers, the vast majority of which will be run by ICE contractors like GEO Group and CoreCivic.[^32]
- By 2025, GEO Group and CoreCivic’s ICE contracts each were expected to generate over $1 billion in annual revenue for each company.[^10]
CREW noted that “these significant contributions, followed so closely by massive paydays for the private immigration detention industry, raise ethics and corruption concerns.”[^29]
The bipartisan veneer of private prison money is thin but worth noting. The Appeal’s investigation identified that:
- Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Georgia) and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) each received $21,000 from private prison companies — more than any other sitting member of Congress. Both are Democrats.[^10]
- Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi) received $10,000 from GEO Group and MTC.[^10]
- Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) received $5,000 from MTC.[^10]
However, the overwhelming balance of corporate and executive giving flowed to Republicans, with private prison PACs giving roughly nine times more to Republicans than Democrats in recent election cycles.[^33]
Political donations are only one mechanism by which private prison companies secure their access to government. The “revolving door” between federal agencies and the industry is equally significant:
- At least six former ICE officials who left government over the past decade now work in top roles at GEO Group.[^7]
- Days before the 2024 election, Daniel Bible, who worked for ICE for nearly 15 years, left to become a Senior Vice President at GEO Group.[^7]
- David Venturella, a former ICE assistant director who later worked at GEO Group, was hired by the Department of Homeland Security as a full-time adviser under Trump and given an ethics waiver to work on contracts involving his former employer.[^7]
- ICE’s former acting director for the New Orleans field office left to work for LaSalle, a company operating six facilities in that region.[^21]
- BOP’s former assistant director, involved in overseeing private prisons, left to become GEO Group’s director of operations.[^21]
Research compiled May 2026. Political contribution data sourced from the Federal Election Commission, OpenSecrets, CREW, and The Appeal investigation. Statistical data on prison conditions sourced from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, and peer-reviewed criminological research.
Research Summary: Top Five Private Prison Companies
| Company | HQ | Type | Key Executives | Revenue/Size |
| GEO Group | Boca Raton, FL | Public (NYSE: GEO) | George Zoley (Chairman), J. David Donahue (CEO) | ~$4B market cap[^3] |
| CoreCivic | Nashville, TN | Public (NYSE: CXW) | Damon Hininger (former CEO, departed 2025) | ~$2.2B market cap[^3] |
| Management & Training Corp (MTC) | Centerville, UT | Private (Markwart family) | Dan Markwart (President), Scott Marquardt (CEO) | 3rd largest by facilities[^13] |
| LaSalle Corrections | Ruston, LA | Private (McConnell family) | Billy McConnell, Clay McConnell, Patrick Temple | Operates in LA, TX, GA[^17] |
| Wellpath | Franklin, TN | Private (emerged Ch.11, 2025) | Ben Slocum (CEO), Jessica Mazlum (Div. President) | Largest prison healthcare provider[^23] |
Political Contributions Summary (2021–2025)
| Entity | Amount | Recipient(s) |
| GEO Group + CoreCivic total (Trump 2024) | ~$2.8 million[^29] | Trump campaign, inaugural, PACs |
| GEO Group PAC + employees (2024 cycle) | $3.7 million[^28] | Candidates, outside groups |
| CoreCivic PAC + employees (2024 cycle) | $784,974[^28] | Candidates, outside groups |
| George Zoley (personal, 2021–2025) | >$1 million[^10] | RNC, Trump-affiliated PACs |
| Damon Hininger (personal, 2021–2025) | >$1 million[^10] | RNC, Trump-affiliated PACs |
| GEO Group PAC to Congress (2021–2025) | >$280,000[^10] | Sitting members of Congress |
| CoreCivic PAC to Congress (2021–2025) | >$248,000[^10] | Sitting members of Congress |
| MTC PAC to Congress (2021–2025) | >$147,000[^10] | Sitting members of Congress |
| Total to Republican Congress members | ~$500,000[^10] | Republican sitting members |
| Total to Democratic Congress members | ~$57,000[^10] | Democratic sitting members |
DOJ & Federal Research: Private vs. Government-Run Prisons
The Key 2016 DOJ Inspector General Report
The most consequential federal finding came from the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) in August 2016. The OIG compared 14 private with 14 public federal prisons, and concluded that private prisons are not cheaper, nor do they provide better services — the two arguments typically used to justify prison privatization.
In all categories except positive drug tests and sexual misconduct, the privately-run facilities had more safety and security incidents per capita than Bureau of Prisons facilities.
Acting on the report, then-Deputy AG Sally Yates issued a directive stating: “They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and they do not maintain the same level of safety and security. The rehabilitative services that the Bureau provides, such as educational programs and job training, have proved difficult to replicate and outsource — and these services are essential to reducing recidivism and improving public safety.”
Safety & Violence Data
An estimated 49% more violent incidents and guard assaults are reported in private prisons than public, and inmate-on-inmate assaults are said to occur 65% more often in private facilities, according to DOJ data.
Cost Effectiveness — A More Complicated Picture
Not all federal-level research condemns private prisons on cost. A DOJ-funded cost-effectiveness analysis of three Louisiana prisons found that the two private facilities significantly outperformed the public prison on the vast majority of comparison measures, with Allen Correctional (private) costing $22.93 per inmate per day versus $26.60 for the public Avoyelles facility.
Based on multiple reports, the private sector can add prison bed capacity faster and cheaper than most public entities — rebuilding facilities takes the public sector 5 to 6 years versus 3 to 4 years for the private sector.
Quality of Confinement — Mixed Findings
A DOJ/OJP-published study titled Well Kept found more nuanced results: although all three institutions studied met quality standards, the private prison outscored state and federal prisons on six of eight dimensions of quality (security, safety, order, care, activity, justice, conditions, and management). The State prison took second place overall. However, inmate surveys actually ranked the State prison over the private prison.
A separate OJP comparison in New Mexico and West Virginia found: the private facility performed better than the government facility in terms of safety to inmates, safety of correctional officers, number of incidents, use of discipline, and education programs — but the government facility had fewer escapes, less substance abuse, and more rehabilitation, social, and recreational services.
Recidivism
Several studies have found that incarceration in private prisons increases the risk of recidivism by almost 20 percent. Other research has determined that violence in private prisons is significantly higher than in government-run facilities, often due to understaffing, which increases the profit margin for private operators.
The Political Whipsaw
The DOJ’s 2016 conclusion that private prisons were more dangerous and less effective led to policy changes under the Obama Administration to phase out private contracts. However, the Trump administration reversed this directive in 2017, instead opting for expanded use of private facilities tied to harsher immigration and drug policies.
Current Landscape
As of year-end 2022, 27 states and the federal government incarcerated 90,873 people in private prisons, representing 8% of the total state and federal prison population. States show significant variation — Montana incarcerates almost half its prison population in privately run facilities, while 23 states don’t use private prisons at all.
Bottom line: The weight of DOJ and federal research — particularly the 2016 OIG report — leans against private prisons on safety, rehabilitation, and recidivism. Cost savings, once the primary justification for privatization, have proven elusive or marginal. However, some OJP-funded studies show private facilities performing comparably or better on specific operational metrics, making this a genuinely contested empirical question rather than a settled one. For crime fiction purposes, this is rich territory — the profit motive vs. public safety tension is real and well-documented.
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- [PDF] Private Prison testimony – Understaffing and poor training lead to the presence of more drugs and contraband in private prisons…
- Are Private Prisons More Cost-effective Than Public Prisons? A …
- [PDF] Prison Privatization: Turning People into Profits – CWA-Union.org – But understaffing leads to a high rate of violence among prisoners and also higher rates of escape. …
- Are Private Prisons More Cost-Effective Than Public Prisons? A Meta-Analysis of Evaluation Research Studies – Travis C. Pratt, Jeff Maahs, 1999 – The need to reduce the costs of incarceration to state and federal correctional agencies has allowed…
- The Reality of Private Prisons: Discipline, Safety, and Misconduct
- JAYAPAL, WARREN & COLLEAGUES INVESTIGATE REVOLVING … – JAYAPAL, WARREN & COLLEAGUES INVESTIGATE REVOLVING DOOR BETWEEN FEDERAL AGENCIES AND PRIVATE DETENTI…
- How the “Big Beautiful Bill” Has Transformed the Prison Industry – One hundred days ago, on July 4, 2025, President Trump signed into law the One, Big, Beautiful Bill …
- FIGHTING THE INFLUENCE OF PRIVATE PRISONS AND PRIVATE … – WHEREAS, the United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, both in ter…
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