Private Prison Giants GEO And CCA Accused of “False and Misleading Statements”

The companies are under fire for hiding the truth about its business from investors.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Update, 8/29/2016, 2:38 p.m. EST: On Friday, August 26, a similar shareholder lawsuit was filed by investors in GEO Group, the United States’ largest private prison company. It alleges that the company failed to disclose risks of losing its federal contract due to a lack of adequate safety standards.

A shareholder class-action lawsuit was filed Wednesday against Corrections Corporation of America, a private prison company that was the subject of a recent Mother Jones investigation. Last week, the Department of Justice announced it would work to end its private prison contracts.

The shareholders allege that CCA and its executive officers made false or misleading statements that put the business in jeopardy, charging that CCA failed to disclose to its investors that “facilities lacked adequate safety and security standards and were less efficient at offering correctional services than the Federal Bureau of Prisons” and that “consequently, the U.S. Department of Justice (‘DOJ’) was unlikely to renew and/or extend its contracts.”

The complaint notes Deputy Attorney Sally Yates’s announcement on August 18 that the DOJ would work to stop contracting with private prisons. That decision came a week after the DOJ inspector general released a report showing lacking safety and security in private prisons, and seven weeks after a Mother Jones investigation drew national attention to CCA’s operation of a facility in Louisiana. On the day of the DOJ announcement, CCA’s stock value fell more than 35 percent.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate