MuckRock wants to learn more about the operations of these immigration detention facilities, private and public. If you’re a group local to a facility and want to help our effort, let us know.

Last Friday, lawmakers made two major moves in challenging the use of privately-owned detention centers and prisons in the United States.

The Bureau of Prisons has announced four awards related to its operations at the Reeves County Detention Complex in Texas. In total, the agreements are worth more than $1.3 billion over the life of the contracts, which could remain active for up to ten years.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees at a jail in Newark, New Jersey have been fed spoiled food and subjected to deteriorating conditions, according to a report released last week by the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General.

In response to our Private Prison Feedback Line, one MuckRock user asked us to take a look at what’s going on with a facility in Basile, Louisiana, and, in response, we’ve filed requests with the town for its previous agreements and payments from private immigration detention giant GEO Group.

Between a federal shutdown, ongoing litigation, and new efforts to change bad policy, there’s a lot going on in the nation’s criminal justice system. Here’s what you might have missed.

Since the 2016 general election, Florida-based for-profit prison operator GEO Group has donated over a million dollars to Political Action Committees and political candidates throughout the State of Florida, support Republican PACs and gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis, as well as a number of elections for representation in both houses of the Florida Congress.

Two of the least populated states in the nation are experiencing enough prison crowding to warrant, by their estimates, the transfer of hundreds of inmates to private prison facilities in other states.

Earlier this month, on the same day that GEO Group execs held a Second Quarter earnings call with shareholders detailing its immigration-based growth, the company issued a Cease and Desist order to the group Dream Defenders, in part a response to its organizing a day of action against the company.

Last fall, Goshen, Indiana, seat of the conservative Elkhart County which overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election, was approached by private prison company CoreCivic with plans for a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. However, instead of quickly signing on the dotted line with the promise of financial windwall, the Goshen citizenry took pause, and began to voice their concerns.

Want to stay up-to-date on how the incarceration industry is growing? Visit MuckRock’s Private Prison Project page and check out years’ worth of articles covering the micro to the macro.

Are you a journalist? An activist? A concerned citizen who thinks there should be better accounting behind corporatized corrections? Help contribute to the Private Prison Project.

Here are five close-to-home ways for you to learn more about the private prison industry, and to contribute to the ongoing discussion about their use.

Private prison company CoreCivic sees growth in demand from U.S. Marshals Service as part of its forward-moving plan.

This week, Representative Pramila Jayapal from Washington and Senator Kamala Harris from California filed the legislation, dubbed the ‘‘Detention Oversight, Not Expansion Act’’ or ‘‘DONE Act.”

Each year, dozens of private prison contracts come up for re-bid. Help MuckRock’s Private Prison Project by letting us know about the contract debate near you.

As part of efforts to rebuild and restructure Puerto Rico after last fall’s destructive hurricane season, the island territory is actively planning to use private prisons on the mainland to house a third of its current inmate population.

Private prison giant GEO Group appeals to the powers of the federal government and property rights to allow continued operation in Tacoma, Washington.

The Trump administration’s policies will be benefiting the bank accounts of the country’s largest for-profit prison operators and echo correctional policies that have been controversial since the ’80s.

The administration’s attitude has helped to make the last year one of the most promising for the private prison industry, but local initiatives continue to combat its expansion at home.

Private prisons were still on notice at the start of the year, but they quickly regained their footing. Here are some developments from this year in privatized incarceration.

With a prison population straining within aging facilities and under the effects of opioid addiction, the Bluegrass State is returning to the Lee Adjustment Center to house some of its inmates.

Divesting from companies at the municipal level is a city-wide form of direct action that, this summer, New York City used this against for-profit prisons.

The task of enforcing our country’s immigration laws has become a sprawling responsibility in the United States, and the mechanisms by which non-citizens are detained and removed are facing a lot of strain: practically, financially, and socially.

We’ve filed requests with privately-run prisons and immigration detention centers in Harvey’s path to find out how they weathered the storm.

MuckRock’s mission has been to make government more accountable and open to the people. For the past three years that’s included a special focus on private prisons, and late last year we launched a project focused on the incoming Trump administration. Today, we’re excited to announce a $10,000 grant by the Kindle Project to further those missions, as well as a part-time opening.

Congress is looking to limit the secrecy of for-profit prison companies, and MuckRock has joined a coalition of 50 nonprofit and public interest organizations to support this cause of transparency and accountability at contract facilities.

Developments in the last three years have injected drama into the lives of private prison companies, but the criticisms of watchdogs in and out of government proved no match for correctional companies in support of the new Presidential administration.

Private prisons face many of the same obstacles as their public counterparts: drugs, violence, rowdy inmates or rowdy correctional officers. But their operations and how they manage these ubiquitous issues remain a black spot on the corrections ecosystem.

Private prisons have received increased scrutiny in the last few years, and Inspectors General and independent investigations have found more than a few questionable habits behind one of the government’s top contracting agents.

Though challenges have been brought successfully in four states where private prisons operate, federal public records law remains inapplicable to the operations of for-profit prisons.

Who’s overseeing America’s largest for-profit immigration detention operation? More than a few familiar faces, including former leaders at the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Justice.

Who’s overseeing America’s largest for-profit prison operation? More than a few familiar faces, including one former head of a federal law enforcement agency.

Nevada’s move to ban for-profit prisons ended in a veto last week. Instead the state, which is dealing with overcrowding in its own facilities, will send prisoners to for-profit operators out-of-state without any anticipated caps on the practice.

New York City announced last week that it had become the first city to fully divest from private prisons in its pension fund investments, liquidating approximately $48 million in stocks and bonds supporting for-profit prison companies.

Three states currently have explicit prohibitions on the use of for-profit prisons for the housing of state and local inmates, and Nevada now stands to become the first southwestern state to ban the housing private correctional facilities.

Beryl Lipton’s research trip to the desert mecca of for-profit detention is derailed by broken computers, misinformed security guards, and police on the look-out for “suspicious activity.”

In the next few weeks President Donald Trump is slated to release a highly-anticipated plan for an overhaul of the nation’s infrastructure, and with an anticipated total tag of nearly a trillion dollars, there will certainly be plenty of feeders fighting at the trough of public funds.

The houses of the Texas State Congress effectively split on whether to consider immigrant detention centers as “child care”-like facilities, keeping a federal judgement on acceptable standards for family detention in place for now.

As recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings from the Alaska Department of Revenue show, these investments can cover the gamut of companies, as one might expect from a diversified portfolio

Home to dozens of prisons, Arizona is a hotbed for private corrections, which operate local jails, state facilities, and immigrant detention centers. Public records can help gain entry to how things are going in the prison champion of the West.

A report released by the Department of Justice yesterday details an assortment of concerns with wider implications for prisons that contract with the U.S. Marshals Service nationwide.

According to the most recent 10-K filings submitted by the giants of the private prison industry, GEO Group and CoreCivic (formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America), the leaders in for-profit incarceration enjoy an effective tax rate in the low single digits.

The U.S. installation continues to claim millions of dollars in private contracts, including for G4S, an outgrowth of prison operator GEO Group’s parent, Wackenhut, and other private security operators tasked with running the base’s Migrant Operations Center.

We know that CoreCivic and GEO Group continue to dominate the field of for-profit incarceration. But what do we know about the little guys looking to help the government with lock-ups? Meet Ahtna, Alaska’s very own private prison company.

Many states have already paved a way for a private prison presence, even if not all of them use it. Check out our map to see if you live someplace that could allow them right now.

Mere months after the Department of Justice announced that it would be “phasing out” its use of private prisons, newly-confirmed Attorney General Jeff Sessions has reversed course on the department’s intentions.

A public records request in Louisiana can lead to a laundry list of reasons why it won’t be fulfilled.

Vermont’s supply of a few hundred prisoners is set to close a Michigan prison this summer. If all of them go home, just Hawaii and California will remain as states that outsource their inmates to out-of-state for-profit prisons.

A year ago, the New Mexico Department of Corrections tried to change private operators for its sex offender population. Soon after, citizens stepped up to say no.