Nationalize the Federal Prison System

Approximately 19,000 people in federal Bureau of Prisons or U.S. Marshals Service custody were held in privately operated facilities as of March 2025, and federal civil detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement is run almost entirely through private contractors. The prohibition on Justice Department private prison contracts established by Executive Order 14006 (January 26, 2021) was rescinded on January 20, 2025, and federal contract awards to GEO Group and CoreCivic exceeded $1.5 billion during 2025. Statutory action is required because executive orders alone are reversible, as the January 2025 rescission demonstrated.

Current federal use of private incarceration and detention

Executive Order 14006, signed January 26, 2021 (86 FR 7483), directed the Attorney General not to renew Justice Department contracts with privately operated criminal detention facilities. The Bureau of Prisons terminated its final private prison contract, the McRae Correctional Facility in Georgia, on November 30, 2022, and announced the end of its use of privately owned prisons on December 1, 2022. The Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions, signed January 20, 2025, revoked Executive Order 14006 and restored the Bureau of Prisons’ and U.S. Marshals Service’s authority to renew or enter new private contracts.

The federal contract structure ties payment to per-diem rates and, in many contracts, to occupancy guarantees. A 2013 review by In the Public Interest of 62 state and federal private prison contracts found that 65 percent contained occupancy guarantees, with 90 percent occupancy the most common threshold and ranges between 80 and 100 percent across contracts. Under these clauses, the contracting government pays for empty beds when the population falls below the guaranteed level. Where occupancy guarantees apply, the contracting government’s fiscal interest in reduced incarceration conflicts with its contractual obligations.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention operates almost entirely through private contractors. Federal contracts to GEO Group exceeded $1 billion and contracts to CoreCivic exceeded $544 million for detention and reentry services in 2025, in addition to multi-year agreements signed in prior fiscal years. The 2025 reconciliation legislation appropriated approximately $45 billion for ICE detention.

The statute and executive order

The End For-Profit Prisons Act of 2025 (H.R. 3612, 119th Congress) is the available legislative vehicle. As introduced, the bill requires that, beginning six years after enactment, all core correctional services at facilities used by the Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Marshals Service be performed by federal employees, and directs the Attorney General to phase out existing private contracts during the transition. If enacted with the following provisions, and if extended to civil detention, the statute would end federal use of private incarceration and detention:

• Prohibit the Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Marshals Service, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement from contracting for the operation of any facility for the housing, safeguarding, protecting, or disciplining of persons in federal custody.
• Prohibit occupancy guarantee clauses in any federal procurement for incarceration or detention, and void existing clauses on the date of enactment.
• Federalize correctional and detention staff at any facility acquired during the transition, with collective bargaining rights and Civil Service Reform Act protections.
• Prohibit subcontracting that effectively privatizes core correctional or detention services, including security staffing, transportation between federal facilities, and intake processing.
• Authorize appropriations for direct federal operation of all current detention beds, covering staff, training, oversight, and the capital costs of acquiring or replacing currently contracted facilities.

A companion executive order would reinstate the substance of Executive Order 14006 and extend it to ICE detention by directing the Department of Homeland Security to halt new private detention awards and to begin terminating existing contracts under standard contract-termination procedures.

Precedent

Direct federal precedent: Executive Order 14006 of January 26, 2021 (86 FR 7483) directed the Attorney General not to renew Justice Department contracts with privately operated criminal detention facilities. The Bureau of Prisons announced an end to the use of privately owned prisons on December 1, 2022, after terminating its final contract on November 30, 2022. The order was rescinded by the Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions, signed January 20, 2025.

State-level statutory precedent: Illinois enacted the Private Correctional Facility Moratorium Act (730 ILCS 140), which prohibits state, local, and county contracts for private operation of correctional facilities. The legislative findings state that “the management and operation of a correctional facility involves inherently governmental functions.” Illinois has a separate statute prohibiting private immigration detention.

Operational data: A 2016 Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General review of 14 contract prisons compared with 14 Bureau of Prisons institutions over fiscal years 2011 through 2014 found that contract prisons had higher rates of inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-staff assaults, more frequent lockdowns and inmate disciplinary findings, elevated rates of selected grievance categories, and confiscated approximately eight times as many contraband cell phones per capita.

First 100 days

Day one. The administration reissues the substance of Executive Order 14006, directing the Attorney General not to renew or enter contracts for privately operated criminal detention facilities, and extends the prohibition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention by separate order. The Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Marshals Service halt renewal of all expiring contracts.

Day thirty. The Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security publish a registry of every active federal incarceration or detention contract, including contractor, facility location, contract value, per-diem rate, occupancy guarantee, and inspection history. The Attorney General identifies contracts that can be terminated for cause based on documented contractual breaches.

Day ninety. The President signs the End For-Profit Prisons Act, extended to cover Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. The statute phases out federal private incarceration and detention contracts on a defined timeline, voids occupancy guarantee clauses, and federalizes correctional and detention staff at acquired facilities.

Effect of the prohibition

A statutory prohibition on private operation of federal incarceration and detention removes the contractual financial incentive to maintain occupancy when the underlying detained population would otherwise decline. Federalization places correctional and detention staffing under the merit-system protections of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (5 U.S.C. § 2301) and within the federal collective bargaining framework. Facilities currently outside the standard Office of the Inspector General inspection cadence applied to Bureau of Prisons institutions become subject to it.