Think Private Prison Companies Are Going Away Under Biden? They Have Other Plans
For the second time in four years, fears that a Democrat would be elected president sent private prison stocks plummeting earlier this month. To the casual observer, the prospect of President-elect Joe Biden—who promised to “stop corporations from profiteering from incarceration”—presented an existential threat to the multi-billion dollar industry.
But the big players in private prisons, CoreCivic and Geo Group, are not panicking—and rumors of their impending demise have been exaggerated. That’s because they’ve been steadily diversifying, placing their bets on a future that includes revenue from commercial real estate, electronic monitoring, and halfway houses.
On a quarterly earnings call just two days after the election, CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger was asked about the possibility that a Biden administration may end the company’s contracts with the federal Bureau of Prisons. He replied confidently, “We think our risk is pretty minimal
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