CoreCivic Profile
CoreCivic, Inc. (CoreCivic) operates as a diversified government solutions company.
The company provides a broad range of solutions to government partners that serve the public good through corrections and detention management, a network of residential reentry centers to help address America's recidivism crisis, and government real estate solutions. The company is a flexible and dependable partner for government.
The company is the nation's largest owner of partnership correctional, detention, and residential reentry facilities and one of the largest prison operators in the United States. As of December 31, 2023, through its CoreCivic Safety segment, the company operated 43 correctional and detention facilities, 39 of which it owned, with a total design capacity of approximately 65,000 beds. Through its CoreCivic Community segment, the company owned and operated 23 residential reentry centers with a total design capacity of approximately 5,000 beds. In addition, through its CoreCivic Properties segment, the company owned 6 properties, with a total design capacity of approximately 10,000 beds.
In addition to providing fundamental residential services, the company’s correctional, detention, and residential reentry facilities offer a variety of rehabilitation and educational programs, including basic education, faith-based services, life skills and employment training, and substance abuse treatment. These services are intended to help reduce recidivism and to prepare offenders for their successful reentry into society upon their release. The company also provides or makes available to offenders certain health care (including medical, dental, and mental health services), food services, and work and recreational programs.
Segments
The company operates through three segments: CoreCivic Safety, CoreCivic Community, and CoreCivic Properties.
CoreCivic Safety segment, consisting of 43 correctional and detention facilities that are owned, or controlled via a long-term lease, and managed by CoreCivic, as well as those correctional and detention facilities owned by third parties but managed by CoreCivic. CoreCivic Safety also includes the operating results of the company’s subsidiary that provides transportation services to governmental agencies, TransCor America, LLC, or TransCor.
CoreCivic Community segment, consisting of 23 residential reentry centers that are owned, or controlled via a long-term lease, and managed by CoreCivic. CoreCivic Community also includes the operating results of its electronic monitoring and case management services.
CoreCivic Properties segment, consisting of 6 correctional real estate properties owned by CoreCivic and held for lease to third-party operators.
The company’s customers primarily consist of federal, state, and local government agencies. Federal correctional and detention authorities primarily consist of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, the USMS, and the BOP. Payments by federal correctional, detention and residential reentry authorities represented 52% of the company’s total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2023.
The company’s customer contracts for providing bed capacity and correctional, detention, and residential reentry services in its CoreCivic Safety and CoreCivic Community segments typically have terms of three to five years and contain multiple renewal options. Most of the company’s facility contracts also contain clauses that allow the government agency to terminate the contract at any time without cause, and its facility contracts are generally subject to annual or bi-annual legislative appropriations of funds. Notwithstanding these termination clauses, the contract renewal rate for properties the company owned or controlled via long-term lease in these segments was approximately 95% over the five years ended December 31, 2023. The lease agreements in its CoreCivic Properties segment typically have terms of five to twenty years including renewal options, and generally have more restrictive termination clauses.
In its CoreCivic Safety and CoreCivic Community segments, the company is compensated for providing bed capacity and correctional, detention, and residential reentry services at a per diem rate based upon actual or minimum guaranteed occupancy levels.
Reentry Programs.
The company provides a wide range of evidence-based reentry programs and activities in its facilities. The company provides opportunities for postsecondary educational achievements and chances to participate in college degree programs.
For the offenders who are close to taking their GED/HiSET exam, the company has invested in the equipment needed to use the GED/HiSET Academy software program, which is an offline software program providing over 200 hours of individualized lessons up to a 12th grade level. The GED/HiSET Academy incorporates teaching best practices and provides an atmosphere to engage and motivate students to learn everything they need to know to pass the GED/HiSET exam.
In addition, the company offers a broad spectrum of career/technical education opportunities to help individuals learn marketable job skills. The company’s construction trade programs are certified by the National Center for Construction Education and Research, or NCCER. This progressive program has evolved into curricula for more than 70 craft and maintenance areas and a complete series of more than 70 assessments offered in over 6,000 NCCER-accredited training and assessment locations across the United States. Graduates of these programs enter the job market with certified skills that significantly enhance employability. The company also offers other effective vocational programs, such as the Persevere and Pivot Tech coding programs.
The company offers and intends to maintain and continue to develop such programs.
In 2023, the company deployed a Resident Network, or ResNet, at approximately 20 of its correctional facilities, which involved the installation of a secure controlled network, and the addition of an average of 20 new Microsoft Surface laptops at each of these sites. With strict security measures in place designed to ensure compliance and public safety, an important component of ResNet is connecting residents to online job skills training, testing and certification. ResNet is the means by which many of the company’s programs are offered, including its educational and vocational programs, and other programs that are vital to reentry, such as anger management, substance abuse education, and financial literacy.
In 2023, the company partnered with Re-entry Coaching Academy, or ReCA, a non-profit organization, to offer Life Coaching training and certification for incarcerated individuals at its Saguaro Correctional Facility in Arizona. The program is peer-based, being led by certified life coaches, facilitators, and community leaders with lived experience. Graduates of the program will serve as future Peer Life Coaches at the Saguaro facility.
In 2023, the company partnered with Our Journey, a non-profit organization led by an individual who has lived experience. Our Journey produces reentry booklets customized for each state. The booklets are written from the lived-experience perspective and use information gathered from focus groups and community networks to develop customized local information. The company has partnered with Our Journey to produce these booklets for each state in which it has facilities. In 2023, a booklet for the state of Georgia was completed and a booklet for the state of Tennessee is in process.
In 2023, the company implemented several additional programs to help prepare returning citizens for life after release, including 2nd Opportunity, a life skills and employment readiness program that it is piloting at its Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi, and Rebound Employment Training, which teaches the skills necessary to become a successful online freelancer or remote worker upon release. The company is piloting the Rebound Employment Training program at five facilities. In 2023, the company also partnered with Geographic Solutions whose Virtual One Stop Reentry Employment Opportunities software system was customized for it and allows incarcerated persons the opportunity to search and apply for current job openings in the communities to which they will be released. The Geographic Solutions program also provides employment readiness and resume building skills and is being piloted at the company’s Jenkins Correctional Center in Georgia with plans of expanding the program to additional facilities.
In 2023, the company began piloting Steered Straight's One Step Away recovery program at its Hardeman County Correctional Facility in Tennessee and at its Cibola County Corrections Facility in New Mexico.
In 2023, the company partnered with Reboot Recovery to offer a peer-led, 12-week research-based PTSD/Trauma and Resiliency program for incarcerated veterans. The company piloted the program at four facilities and are now expanding the program to all of its CoreCivic Safety facilities.
In 2022, the company introduced MaxxContent as a pilot program at each of its Crossroads Correctional Center in Montana, its Lee Adjustment Center in Kentucky, its Red Rock Correctional Center in Arizona, its Trousdale Turner Correctional Center in Tennessee, and its La Palma Correctional Center in Arizona. MaxxContent is a custom online Learning Management System that includes content such as life skills, mental health, financial literacy, GED preparation, communications, workforce skills, and reentry preparation, and is available to students in the education computer labs at each of the pilot program facilities.
In 2022, the company partnered with Felon Education Project and introduced Felon Education as a pilot program at its Wheeler Correctional Facility in Georgia. Felon Education is a course that teaches inmate students how to start their own businesses. The course teaches the students how to write a business plan, obtain funding, set goals, and work through small business finances, regulations and much more. Since 2019, the company has partnered with Persevere, a national non-profit organization, to offer offenders at its Trousdale Turner facility an opportunity to learn software coding and job readiness/employability skills specific to the technology field. The partnership with Persevere was expanded to include the company’s Red Rock Correctional Center in 2020 and its Saguaro Correctional Facility in 2021. Both the Red Rock and Saguaro facilities are in Arizona. The instructor-led, self-paced program utilizes both a coding instructor and a Technology Employability Specialist to ensure students are learning the craft and how to obtain and maintain a job in the field, post-incarceration. The program is split into two phases that allows students to become certified Front-end Developers (phase 1) and Full Stack Developers (phase 2) upon completion. In 2022, to further expand the company’s programming in this area, it partnered with Pivot Technology School to pilot Pivot Tech, a technology career program, at its Jenkins facility. Pivot Tech is a five-month boot camp style course taught in a classroom setting with instructors participating virtually. The company plans to expand the Pivot Tech program to other facilities.
For those with assessed substance abuse disorders, the company offers cognitive behavioral evidence-based treatment programs with proven clinical outcomes, such as the Residential Drug Abuse Program. The company offers both therapeutic community models and intensive outpatient programs. The company also offers drug and alcohol use education/DWI programs at some of its facilities. The company’s drug and alcohol education programs help participants understand their relationships with drugs and alcohol and the links between drug and alcohol use and crime, as well as equipping participants with information designed to help them make better choices that can lead to healthier relationships in their lives.
Additional program offerings include its Victim Impact Programs, available at a number of the company’s Safety and Community facilities, which seek to educate offenders about the negative effects their criminal conduct can have on others. All of its facility chaplains facilitate diverse and inclusive opportunities for those in the company’s care to engage in the practice of spirituality and to exercise individual religious freedom. In several facilities, the company offers faith-based programs with an emphasis on character development, spiritual growth, and successful reentry. Presently, the company utilizes Threshold, an innovative, evidence-based inter-faith component of comprehensive reentry services.
The company’s Reentry and Life Skills programs prepare individuals for life after incarceration by teaching them how to successfully conduct a job search, how to manage their budget and financial matters, parenting skills, and relationship and family skills. Equally significant, the company offers cognitive behavioral programs aimed at changing anti-social attitudes and behaviors in offenders, with a focus on altering the level of criminal thinking. In 2017, the company introduced a comprehensive reentry strategy it calls Go Further, a forward thinking, process approach to reentry. Go Further encompasses all facility reentry programs, adds a proprietary cognitive/behavioral curriculum, and encourages staff and offenders to take a collaborative approach to assist in reentry preparation.
In 2021, the company opened a Go Further Release program in the Denver, Colorado area. Go Further Release is a program the company developed that provides stabilization services and reentry coaching to individuals being released from its facilities. In 2022, the company received approval from the Georgia Department of Corrections, or GDOC, to implement a Go Further Release program to support its Coffee, Jenkins, and Wheeler facilities. The company is providing this program through a partnership with Life Empowerment Enterprises, a local non-profit organization.
Through its community corrections facilities, the company provides an array of services to defendants and offenders who are serving their full sentence, the last portion of their sentence, waiting to be sentenced, or awaiting trial while supervised in a community environment. The company offers housing and programs with a key focus on employment, job readiness, life skills and various substance abuse treatment programs, in order to help offenders successfully reenter their communities and reduce the risk of recidivism. For example, some of its community corrections facilities have community networking programs, like those at its Cheyenne Transitional Center in Wyoming, to help residents connect with community members and match them with jobs. The company’s staff takes an active role in going into the community and creating collaborative relationships with employers to assist residents when they first arrive at its facility and provide support for a smoother transition in job seeking. Beginning in 2022, its programs in the state of Colorado partnered with a financial institution to conduct classes with its residents on financial wellness, including the importance of having a savings account, the importance of, and how to establish, credit, and how to establish a bank account. In addition, in 2023, 24 residents at its CAI Ocean View facility in California received a Certificate of Completion in Money Smarts and Transitional Skills. The classes are taught by its Employment Specialist and Program Facilitator at the Ocean View facility and are offered to all residents on a daily basis. The Ocean View facility has also partnered with the San Diego City College to offer residents classes in Forklift Operation, Auto Mechanics, and Carpentry. Also in 2023, the company partnered with Coastline and Career Expansion, Inc. at its CAI Boston Avenue facility in California to provide a training program in workforce development, construction, utilities, energy and safety. Students learn skills from basic industry awareness to Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, requirements in this five-week, on-site program. They also learn how to properly use hand and power tools, and how to safely handle construction materials. Upon completion, students receive an industry-recognized certificate. In some of its community corrections facilities, the company offers housing and program services to parolees who have completed their sentence but lack a viable reentry plan. Through a focus on employment and skill development, the company provides a means for these parolees to successfully reintegrate into their communities.
In addition, the company provides day-reporting and substance abuse treatment programs at some of its community corrections facilities. These programs, depending on the needs of the offender, can provide cognitive behavioral-based programs to assist in the offender's successful reentry while holding the individual accountable while living in the community.
The company also provides a number of non-residential correctional alternative services, including electronic monitoring and case management services, under its CoreCivic Community segment. Governmental customers use electronic monitoring products and services to monitor low risk offenders as a way to help reduce overcrowding in correctional facilities, as a monitoring and sanctioning tool, and to promote public safety by imposing restrictions on movement and serving as a deterrent for alcohol usage. Providing these non-residential services is a natural complement to its broad network of residential reentry facilities and can help keep individuals from returning to prison or being incarcerated in the first place.
Further underscoring its long-term commitment to reducing recidivism, since October 2017, the company has maintained a nationwide initiative to advocate for a range of government policies that will help formerly incarcerated people successfully reenter society and stay out of prison. As part of this continued initiative, the company apples government relations resources and expertise to advocate for the following policies:
Ban-the-Box proposals to help improve former inmates' chances at getting a job;
Reduced legal barriers to make it easier and less risky for companies to hire former incarcerated individuals;
Increased funding for reentry programs in areas such as education, addiction treatment, faith-based offerings, victim impact and post-release employment; and
Social impact bond pilot programs that tie contractor payments to positive outcomes.
In 2020, the company announced that it will publicly advocate at the federal and state levels for a slate of new policies that will help people succeed in their communities after being released from prison. Specifically, the company pledged its support for Pell Grant Restoration, Voting Rights Restoration and Licensure Reform Policies. Also in 2020, the company began a partnership with, and continue to invest in, Prison Fellowship, a leading advocate for criminal justice reform serving formerly incarcerated individuals and their family members. Through a network of programming and advocacy efforts, the organization seeks to effect positive change at every level of the criminal justice system. The company has committed to a multi-year partnership in Prison Fellowship's First Chance Network, or FCN. Serving over 230,000 children annually, the FCN addresses persistent gaps in opportunity for children who have incarcerated parents and seeks to create a trajectory toward healthy life outcomes and prevent youth justice involvement.
Advocacy for Pell Grant Restoration is an extension of its longtime commitment to providing educational opportunities in the company’s facilities, as research consistently shows that educational attainment can significantly reduce an incarcerated person's likelihood of recidivating. CoreCivic has working partnerships with fifteen colleges and institutions of higher learning nationwide to facilitate provision of post-secondary educational opportunities in various facilities. The company continues to pursue opportunities to expand this network and the facilities in which these services are offered.
Supporting policies that advance the expansion of reentry programs aligns closely with the company’s ongoing efforts to assess and expand reentry-focused programming in its facilities. The company actively engages subject matter experts and practitioners, including formerly incarcerated individuals who bring valuable, lived experiences that better inform innovations and enhancements to those programmatic offerings.
Operating Guidelines.
The American Correctional Association, or ACA, is an independent organization comprised of corrections professionals that establishes accreditation standards for correctional and detention facilities around the world. Outside agency standards, such as those established by the ACA, provide it with the industry's most widely accepted operational guidelines. ACA accredited facilities must be audited and re-accredited at least every three years. The company has sought and received ACA accreditation for 33, or approximately 97%, of the eligible facilities it operated as of December 31, 2023, excluding its residential reentry facilities.
Beyond the standards provided by the ACA, the company’s facilities are operated in accordance with a variety of company and facility-specific policies and procedures, as well as various contractual requirements. Many of these policies and procedures reflect the high standards generated by a number of sources, including the ACA, the National Commission on Correctional Healthcare, OSHA, as well as federal, state, and local government codes and regulations and longstanding correctional procedures.
In addition, the company’s facilities are operated in compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA, standards. All confinement facilities covered under the PREA standards must be audited at least every three years to maintain compliance with the PREA standards. The company utilizes DOJ certified PREA auditors to help ensure that all facilities operate in compliance with applicable PREA regulations.
The company’s facilities operate under these established standards, policies, and procedures, and also are subject to annual audits by its Quality Assurance Division, or QAD, which operates under, and reports directly to, its Office of General Counsel and acts independently from its Operations Division. Through the QAD, the company has devoted significant resources to ensuring that its facilities meet outside agency and accrediting organization standards and guidelines.
The QAD employs a team of full-time auditors, who are subject matter experts from all major disciplines within institutional operations. Annually, QAD auditors generally conduct unannounced on-site evaluations of each CoreCivic Safety facility the company operates using specialized audit tools, typically containing approximately 1,350 audit indicators across all major operational areas. In most instances, these audit tools are tailored to facility and partner specific requirements. In addition, audit teams provide guidance to facility staff on operational best practices and assist staff with addressing specific areas of need, such as meeting requirements of new partner contracts and providing detailed training on compliance requirements for new departmental managers.
The QAD management team coordinates overall operational auditing and compliance efforts across all correctional, detention, and residential reentry facilities it manages. In conjunction with subject matter experts and other stakeholders having risk management responsibilities, the QAD management team develops performance measurement tools used in facility audits. The QAD management team provides governance of the corrective action plan process for any items of nonconformance identified through internal and external facility reviews. The company’s QAD also contracts with teams of ACA certified correctional auditors to evaluate compliance with ACA standards at accredited facilities. Similarly, the QAD routinely incorporates a review of facility compliance with key ACA standards and PREA regulations during annual audits of company facilities.
In addition to its own internal audit and contract compliance efforts, the company is subject to oversight by its government partners. As part of their standard monitoring and compliance programs, approximately 71% of its federal and state government partners typically conduct formal contract-compliance audits and inspections at least annually at CoreCivic Safety facilities. In addition to these annual audits of its facilities, many partners conduct additional area-specific operational audits and inspections on a more frequent basis, including monthly, quarterly, and semi-annually. Some of these audits and facility inspections by the company’s partners are conducted on an unannounced basis.
Facility Portfolio
CoreCivic Safety and Community Facilities and Facility Management Contracts
The company’s correctional, detention, and residential reentry facilities can generally be classified according to the level(s) of security at such facility. Minimum security facilities have open housing within an appropriately designed and patrolled institutional perimeter. Medium security facilities have either cells, rooms or dormitories, a secure perimeter, and some form of external patrol. Maximum security facilities have cells, a secure perimeter, and external patrol. Multi-security facilities have various areas encompassing minimum, medium or maximum security.
The company’s CoreCivic Safety and Community facilities can also be classified according to their primary function. The primary functional categories are:
Correctional Facilities: Correctional facilities care for and provide contractually agreed upon programs and services primarily to sentenced adult prisoners, typically prisoners on whom a sentence in excess of one year has been imposed.
Detention Facilities: Detention facilities care for and provide contractually agreed upon programs and services to individuals being detained by ICE, individuals who are awaiting trial who have been charged with violations of federal criminal law (and are therefore in the custody of the USMS) or state criminal law, and prisoners who have been convicted of crimes and on whom a sentence of one year or less has been imposed.
Residential Facilities: Residential facilities provide space and residential services in an open and safe environment to individuals who have been detained by ICE and are awaiting the outcome of immigration hearings. As contractually agreed upon, residential facilities offer services, including but not limited to, educational programs, medical care, recreational activities, counseling, and access to religious and legal services pursuant to Family Residential Standards issued by ICE.
Community Corrections: Community corrections/residential reentry facilities offer housing and programs to offenders who are serving the last portion of their sentence or who have been assigned to the facility in lieu of a jail or prison sentence, with a key focus on employment, job readiness, and life skills.
As of December 31, 2023, through its CoreCivic Safety segment, the company operated 43 correctional and detention facilities, 39 of which it owned and managed and four of which it managed and were owned by its government partners. Through its CoreCivic Community segment, the company also owned and managed 23 residential reentry centers. Owned and managed facilities include facilities placed into service that the company owns or controls via a long-term lease and manage.
Competition
The company competes with government agencies that are responsible for correctional, detention, and residential reentry facilities and a number of companies, including but not limited to, The GEO Group, Inc. and Management and Training Corporation.
Government Regulations
The company is subject to complex and evolving the U.S. federal and state privacy laws and regulations, including those pertaining to the processing of personal data, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act and similar laws in Colorado and Virginia.
History
CoreCivic, Inc., a Maryland corporation, was founded in 1983. The company was incorporated in 1998.
