The modern private prison industry began in the 1980s, when the company now known as CoreCivic was founded in 1983. Along with GEO Group, it remains one of the largest operators. According to The Sentencing Project, private prisons held 90,873 people in 2022, about 8 percent of the state and federal prison population.
Private companies play a much bigger role in immigration detention. Most people held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement are in privately operated facilities, and federal detention funding passed in 2025 expanded that business.
Government audits and lawsuits have documented understaffing, poor medical care and violence in private facilities. In 2021, President Biden ordered the Justice Department not to renew contracts with private criminal detention facilities. President Trump rescinded that order in 2025. Private firms also profit across the public system by selling phone calls, commissary goods, health care and electronic monitoring.