News Articles
This site contains over 2,000 news articles, legal briefs and publications related to for-profit companies that provide correctional services. Most of the content under the "Articles" tab below is from our Prison Legal News site. PLN, a monthly print publication, has been reporting on criminal justice-related issues, including prison privatization, since 1990. If you are seeking pleadings or court rulings in lawsuits and other legal proceedings involving private prison companies, search under the "Legal Briefs" tab. For reports, audits and other publications related to the private prison industry, search using the "Publications" tab.
For any type of search, click on the magnifying glass icon to enter one or more keywords, and you can refine your search criteria using "More search options." Note that searches for "CCA" and "Corrections Corporation of America" will return different results.
Tennessee Attorney Sues Federal Court Over Gag Order in CoreCivic Suit
In a suit filed on September 30, 2024, attorney Daniel Horwitz accused four judges in the federal court for the Middle District of Tennessee of violating his First Amendment rights with a gag order that was issued in a case he was litigating against private prison giant CoreCivic. As PLN reported, the Court’s July 2022 order silenced Horwitz’s criticism of the company and even required him to delete related tweets from his social media account on Twitter, now known as X. [See: PLN, Feb. 2023, p.42.]
CoreCivic settled that case, along with four others Horwitz had pending against the firm, leading the judges in each to dismiss his appeal to the gag order as moot. That left only a lawsuit to continue his challenge to the Court’s local rule, under which the order was issued. “Mr. Horwitz needs to know the extent to which Rule 83.04 restricts his speech about his litigation in the Middle District because he continues to litigate in this Court, and he continues to do so against CoreCivic—a party that has already invoked Rule 83.04 to silence Mr. Horwitz’s speech and has demonstrated that it will do so again each time Mr. Horwitz asserts his right to speak,” his lawsuit declared.
Relying on the same audits and reports that Horwitz cited in his now-deleted tweets, the federal Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation in August 2024 into conditions at CoreCivic’s Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, one of four lockups that the firm operates under contract from the state Department of Corrections. Because Horwitz has successfully sued the CoreCivic so many times, he received many requests for interviews—which the gag order compelled him to decline, he said.
His case remains pending, and PLN will update developments as they are available. Horwitz is represented by attorneys Jared McClain and Benjamin A. Field of Institute for Justice in Arlington, Virginia, and Braden H. Boucek of Southeastern Legal Foundation in Roswell, Georgia. See: Horwitz v. Campbell, USDC (M.D. Tenn.), Case No. 3:24-cv-01180.
Additional source: Reason
