10 Things That Have Happened Since Our CCA Investigation Broke

It’s been a rough couple of months for the private prison industry.

sorbetto/iStock

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


Nearly two and a half months ago, Mother Jones published Shane Bauer’s blockbuster investigation based on his time working as a guard in a private prison in Louisiana run by the Corrections Corporation of America. Here’s what’s happened since his story dropped:

1. A Department of Justice report came to the same conclusions as our investigation. A report by the department’s inspector general found that federal prisons run by private prison corporations are inadequately supervised and that these gaps in oversight have resulted in the endangerment of prisoners and staff and violations of prisoners’ basic rights.

2. The DOJ decided to stop contracting with private prisons. The announcement noted that private prisons “simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and as noted in a recent report by the Department’s Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same level of safety and security.”

3. As a result of the DOJ announcement, prison companies’ stock plummeted. CCA and the GEO Group, the nation’s two largest private prison companies, lost almost half their share value on the day of the announcement. And the financial hit hasn’t stopped:

4. Shareholders filed class-action lawsuits against CCA and GEO. The lawsuits allege that the companies failed to disclose business practices that were putting their federal contracts in jeopardy.

5. The Department of Homeland Security said it would reevaluate its use of private prisons. A DHS council will consider whether federal immigration detention facilities should follow the Justice Department’s lead and phase out privatized operations.

6. The Washington Post found that the feds brokered a $1 billion deal with CCA two years ago. According to the report, the Obama administration offered CCA a four-year agreement—without engaging in a standard bidding process—to build a large immigration detention facility for Central American women and children seeking asylum.

7. Winn Correctional Center is facing major cuts. The Louisiana prison where Bauer worked is no longer run by CCA. Facing deep budget cuts, the company that now operates it says it will have to offer fewer medical and rehabilitative programs.

8. CCA is facing a civil rights lawsuit. The federal lawsuit, filed by eight former inmates at the Idaho Correctional Facility, allege that understaffing and poor management at the formerly CCA-run facility led to an attack in which they were beaten and stabbed by a prison gang.

9. CCA is fighting to seal documents in another lawsuit. The suit claims that guards at a CCA-run Tennessee prison required female visitors to endure strip searches in order to prove they were menstruating. CCA has asked a judge to keep documents in the case under seal.

10. Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam brushed off our investigation. Haslam, governor of CCA’s home state, was asked if he’d read Bauer’s story. “My experience with Mother Jones is that they’re not exactly a level playing field, in terms of private interest and private enterprise,” Haslam replied. “But I would say this, our corrections folks are confident they provide the same level of oversight and the same accountability to private operators as we do in our facilities.” Through 2013, Haslam had received $43,575 in political contributions from CCA.

P.S. Read about what it took to do the investigation and how this kind of journalism can happen.

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