This category includes companies that, through public-private partnerships, own, manage, and/or lease prisons, jails, and/or immigration detention centers in the U.S. An estimated 8% of people held in U.S. prisons are incarcerated in privately run prisons, while an estimated 79% of those held in immigration detention centers are confined in privately run institutions.
Our research includes the main publicly traded companies within this industry: private prison companies and facility management companies that operate carceral institutions. Not included on our database are the privately held, regional companies that operate a handful of prisons, jails, and/or immigration detention centers each.
For our 2019 report on U.S. prison, jail, and immigration detention center operators, see here. For information on corporate involvement in private prisons internationally, see here.