Private prisons still operate across the United States. Twenty-eight states contract with for-profit companies to hold some portion of their prison population, and the federal government resumed that option in January 2025 after a short pause. As of 2023, private facilities held about 88,600 people in state and federal custody, roughly 7% of everyone incarcerated nationwide.1Bureau of Justice Statistics. Prisoners in 2023 – Statistical Tables The industry’s reach is wider than that number suggests, because the same companies also run most immigration detention centers and sell services inside publicly operated prisons.
How Many People Are Held, and Where
The 2023 Bureau of Justice Statistics count put the private prison population at 88,618, or 7.1% of all prisoners.1Bureau of Justice Statistics. Prisoners in 2023 – Statistical Tables Reliance on for-profit beds varies sharply by state. A handful lean on them heavily: Montana held about 39% of its prison population in private facilities, New Mexico about 29%, Arizona nearly 29%, and Tennessee around 27%. Most other states with contracts keep the share under 10%, and some use private beds for only a few dozen people.
The biggest raw numbers sit in states with the biggest prison systems. Florida held more than 11,600 people in private prisons, Texas nearly 9,800, Arizona about 9,800, Georgia over 7,600, Tennessee about 6,600, and Ohio roughly 6,500.1Bureau of Justice Statistics. Prisoners in 2023 – Statistical Tables Those concentrations reflect long-standing contracts and political environments that turned to privatization to manage overcrowding without building state-run facilities.
The Federal Picture Keeps Reversing
Federal use of private prisons has whipsawed with each administration. The Bureau of Prisons began placing federal inmates in private facilities in the mid-1980s. In 2016 the Obama administration ordered the BOP to wind down that practice.2Federal Bureau of Prisons. Bureau to Reduce Use of Private Prisons The first Trump administration reversed that direction. President Biden then signed Executive Order 14006 in January 2021, telling the Justice Department not to renew private prison contracts. By November 2022 the BOP had ended its last contract, at the McRae Correctional Facility in Georgia.3Federal Bureau of Prisons. BOP Ends Use of Privately Owned Prisons
On January 20, 2025, President Trump rescinded Biden’s order as part of a package of early executive actions, restoring the Justice Department’s authority to contract with private prison operators.4The White House. Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions One boundary to keep in mind: none of these federal orders ever touched Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracts, which sit inside the Department of Homeland Security rather than the DOJ. Immigration detention kept running on private contracts throughout the Biden years.
How the Contracts and Money Work
Federal law lets the Attorney General contract with private companies for “the housing, care, and security” of people in federal custody under 18 U.S.C. ยง 4013.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 4013 – Support of United States Prisoners in Non-Federal Institutions State contracts run under each state’s procurement laws. The basic mechanism is the same everywhere: the government pays a daily rate per person held, and the company covers housing, security, meals, and some level of medical care out of that payment. Profit lives in the gap between the per-diem rate and actual costs.
Many contracts include occupancy guarantees requiring the government to pay for a set share of beds whether or not they are filled, commonly 80% to 90% of capacity. If crime rates fall or sentencing changes shrink the population, the state still writes the check. Arizona paid $3 million for unused beds at a private facility after it stopped sending new inmates there following a high-profile escape. The structure ties taxpayers to paying for capacity regardless of actual need.
The Two Companies That Run the Industry
Two publicly traded corporations hold most of the market. CoreCivic, formerly Corrections Corporation of America and headquartered near Nashville, is the largest private owner of correctional facilities in the country and operates dozens of prisons, jails, and residential reentry centers. GEO Group, based in Boca Raton, Florida, operates 99 facilities worldwide with roughly 79,000 beds of capacity.6The GEO Group. The GEO Group Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Results
Both companies have moved well beyond running prisons. GEO Group owns BI Incorporated, which sells electronic ankle monitors, smartphone-based location tracking, and alcohol detection devices to federal and state agencies for community supervision.7BI Incorporated. Strengthening Communities Through Innovation The same corporations that profit from incarcerating people also profit from monitoring them after release. Both also run residential reentry centers and transport incarcerated populations.
What the Track Record Shows
A Justice Department Office of the Inspector General report on federal contract prisons found more safety and security incidents per capita at private facilities than at comparable BOP institutions in most categories measured. Contract prisons confiscated eight times as many contraband cell phones per year on average and had higher rates of both inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-staff assaults. BOP monitors had identified serious or systemic safety deficiencies at contract prisons, including one facility that failed to initiate discipline in over half of reviewed incidents during a six-month period.8Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General. DOJ OIG Releases Report on the Federal Bureau of Prisons Monitoring of Contract Prisons
Research on outcomes after release tells a similar story. Studies in Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Mississippi found that people released from private prisons were either more likely to be rearrested or no less likely to reoffend than those held in public facilities, even after controlling for age, offense type, and sentence length.
States That Have Banned Private Prisons
A growing number of states have passed laws prohibiting for-profit incarceration within their borders.
- Illinois passed the Private Correctional Facility Moratorium Act in 1990 and expanded it in 2019 with the Private Detention Facility Moratorium Act, which bars state and local government entities from contracting with private operators for detention of any kind.9Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Compiled Statutes 730 ILCS 141 – Private Detention Facility Moratorium Act
- New York prohibited for-profit prisons in 2007, requiring custody and supervision in state or local correctional facilities to be carried out by government correctional officers.10New York State Senate. Nozzolio Bill Signed Into Law Prohibits For-Profit Prisons in New York
- California’s Assembly Bill 32 barred the state from entering into or renewing private prison contracts as of January 1, 2020, and sets a final deadline of January 1, 2028, after which no person under state jurisdiction can be held in a for-profit facility. The law also prohibits operating private detention facilities in the state.11California Legislative Information. California Code – AB-32 Detention Facilities Private For-Profit Administration Services
- Nevada’s AB 183, signed by Governor Sisolak, required the state to phase out private prison use by July 1, 2022. The 2023 BJS data shows Nevada held zero state prisoners in private facilities.12Nevada Legislature. Nevada Legislature AB183
Oregon, Iowa, and Nebraska also show zero prisoners in private facilities in the most recent federal data. Some of these states never used private prisons; others let existing contracts lapse.
Immigration Detention Is a Separate, Larger Footprint
The criminal side of private incarceration has faced political headwinds, but immigration detention has grown into the industry’s most reliable revenue source. The Department of Homeland Security contracts with private companies to operate detention facilities where people await immigration court proceedings, with the contractor providing the facility, staffing, food, medical care, and supplies.13U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE Contract for Temporary Housing for Detainees An estimated 86% of immigration detainees are held by for-profit operators, a much higher share than in the criminal prison system.
Immigration detention is legally civil, not criminal. People are held to ensure they appear for proceedings or to carry out removal orders, not as punishment. Facilities operating under ICE contracts must meet one of several sets of detention standards, updated in 2025, that govern medical services, grievance procedures, and conditions.14U.S. Immigration and Customs Ice. Detention Management Biden’s 2021 executive order specifically did not cover immigration detention, and the current administration has expanded ICE’s use of private facilities to accommodate higher detention numbers. For CoreCivic and GEO Group, immigration contracts provide a revenue floor that state criminal justice contracts alone cannot match.
Private Services Inside Public Prisons
Even inside publicly operated prisons, private companies draw significant revenue from services like phone calls, video visits, and food preparation. The prison and jail food service industry was valued at roughly $3.2 billion as of 2022, with companies like Aramark, Trinity Services Group, and Summit Correctional Services holding contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Communication services were long a heavy cost for incarcerated people and their families, with some facilities charging several dollars per minute for calls before federal regulation. Under authority granted by the Martha Wright-Reed Act, signed in January 2023, the FCC has set per-minute rate caps for calls from prisons and jails and banned add-on fees like automated payment and third-party transaction charges.15Federal Communications Commission. Incarcerated Peoples Communications Services
Oversight of private facilities is uneven. Advocacy groups and journalists have criticized transparency at private operators, noting that companies can invoke proprietary business information protections to limit what the public learns about conditions. Contract monitors conduct periodic audits, and the BOP historically kept on-site monitors at its contract prisons, but the Inspector General’s findings on safety deficiencies came in part because that monitoring was not rigorous enough to catch problems before they became systemic.