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The Private Prison Industry

The private prison industry includes for-profit companies that provide correctional services. Most well-known are companies such as Corrections Corporation of America (CCA, which has rebranded as "CoreCivic"), the GEO Group and Management & Training Corp. (MTC), which own and operate prisons, jails and other detention facilities. CCA and GEO are publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

A wide variety of other correctional services are also privatized, and thus monetized -- including prison medical care, mental health care, food services, transportation services, pharmaceutical services, telephone services, money transfer services, commissary/canteen services, video visitation, secure email services and more. Together these companies make up the private prison industry, which directly profits and benefits from incarceration.


 Are you aware of private prison contract violations? 

We are interested in hearing from whistleblowers, including current or former private prison employees, who are aware of contract violations or fraud by private prison firms. For example, contracts may require that private prison operators provide specific services or programs that they are not providing, or specific staffing levels they have failed to meet. If you have documentation about contract violations or fraud at private prisons, please contact us confidentially via our contact page. Note that whistleblowers may be entitled to financial compensation for exposing fraud by government contractors.

 

Recent Articles

 

Securus Wipes Out Months of Washington Prisoners’ Writing—Again

Writers are intimately familiar with the effort it takes to organize ideas and direct them through a keyboard into text. Most have the comfort of knowing their draft work waits for them to take the next step. But incarcerated writers do not have that comfort.

In November 2023, Christopher Blackwell ...

Third Circuit Denies Qualified Immunity to Pennsylvania Jail Guards and PrimeCare in Detainee’s Overdose Death

by David M. Reutter

 

On December 6, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed denial of qualified immunity (QI) to defendant officials with Pennsylvania’s Harrisburg Police Department (HPD) and the contracted medical provider for Dauphin County Booking Center (DCBC), PrimeCare Medical, in a suit accusing ...

Tennessee DOC Faulted for High Staff Vacancy and Turnover, Inadequate Programs, PREA Violations

The Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury’s Division of State Audit released a performance audit of the state Department of Correction (DOC) on December 12, 2023. Covering a four-year period ending the previous July 31, 2023, the audit found significant deficiencies at the DOC’s 10 state prisons, plus four more operated ...

West Virginia Slammed for High Costs, Low Quality of Privatized Prison Food

Before food service in West Virginia’s prison system was taken over by Aramark Correctional Services, the nation’s largest for-profit food service provider in prisons and jails, all meals were prepared by prisoners, often using fresh vegetables grown in gardens and greenhouses as part of a culinary arts program.

But according ...

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