# CoreCivic **CoreCivic** (NYSE: CXW; Nashville) is the company that invented the private prison and, with [[GEO Group]], one half of the duopoly that holds most of America's immigration detention. It was founded in 1983 as **Corrections Corporation of America (CCA)** by Tom Beasley, Doctor Crants and T. Don Hutto, and it is structured as a landlord and operator for governments that want beds without building them. Its fortunes track federal detention policy almost exactly, which makes it one of the cleanest financial readouts of the deportation build-up. ## Near-death and rebrand, 2016–2021 In August 2016 the Obama Justice Department announced it would phase out private contracts for federal prisoners. CCA's stock dropped about 40%. The announcement followed a *Mother Jones* undercover investigation of a CCA-run prison in Louisiana. That October the company renamed itself CoreCivic, which critics read as a way to shed a brand tied to violence and abuse. Attorney General [[Jeff Sessions]] reversed the phase-out in February 2017. Biden's Executive Order 14006 (Jan. 26, 2021) ended Justice Department private-prison contracts again, but it did **not** cover [[ICE]], and immigration detention became the company's main growth business. ## The second Trump term Trump revoked Biden's order in his first hours back, through [[Executive Order 14148]] (Jan. 20, 2025). On the company's February 2025 earnings call, CEO Damon Hininger called it "truly one of the most exciting periods in my career." He predicted "perhaps the most significant growth in our company's history." The [[Big Beautiful Bill]]'s multiyear detention money then put funding behind that forecast. What the growth looks like, from the company's Q2 2026 report (Aug. 5, 2026): - **Revenue of $684.9 million, up 27.3% year over year**, well above analyst estimates. Federal customers, mainly ICE and the U.S. Marshals, accounted for roughly half of revenue. - **Five previously idle facilities reactivated** for ICE: the Dilley family detention center in Texas (2,400 beds), California City (2,560), Diamondback in Oklahoma (2,160), the Midwest Regional Reception Center in Kansas (1,033) and West Tennessee (600). - **A new five-year ICE contract** at Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton, Minnesota, which started Aug. 11, 2026. See below. ## Leadership Hininger retired at the end of 2025. Patrick Swindle became CEO on Jan. 1, 2026, and stepped down for health reasons in September 2026. **Lucibeth Mayberry**, at the company since 2003 and most recently its chief strategy officer, was named president and CEO. ## Contracts in the ledger - [[CoreCivic ICE Prairie Correctional Contract]] (August 2026): five years, 1,600 beds in Appleton, Minnesota, at a facility idle since 2010, with about $75M in expected annual revenue. The structure is the part worth reading: **a fixed monthly payment plus a per-diem**, which guarantees a revenue floor whether or not the beds fill. ## See Also - [[GEO Group]] · [[ICE]] · [[Carceral and Border Security Sector]] - [[Prison Industrial Complex]] · [[Mass Incarceration]] · [[Immigration Removal Pipeline]] - [[Big Beautiful Bill]] · [[Spending Gap - No Role in Selecting Investments vs. the 1,051-Trade June Ledger]]