What is CoreCivic? Inside private prison’s troubled Leavenworth tenure

CoreCivic, the largest private prison chain in the U.S., won a hard-fought victory in Leavenworth on Tuesday evening, when the city commission granted a special use zoning permit that will allow the company to reopen its shuttered detention center under a contract with ICE.

The 4-1 zoning decision comes after nearly a year of CoreCivic arguing in court that it should be allowed to reopen its facility without a permit.

The debate roiled a community divided over both the prospect of playing a role in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign and allowing CoreCivic to reopen following its previous stint in Leavenworth, which ended in a run of months marked by chronic violence and understaffing.

Now that local leaders have cleared the way, CoreCivic can begin accepting detainees under its $60 million-a-year contract with ICE. Company officials say the rebranded Midwest Regional Reception Center can accommodate up to 1,033 adult detainees.

CoreCivic’s history in Leavenworth

The Brentwood, Tennessee-based company first opened a detention center in Leavenworth in 1992.

Before its closure at the end of 2021, the facility served as a maximum-security federal prison, housing violent offenders on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service in 192,000 square feet of stark white cinder blocks, drywall and closed-circuit television cameras.

That contract lapsed after then-President Joe Biden issued an executive order barring the Department of Justice from contracting with private prisons.

Conditions at the facility deteriorated in its final year of operation, as chronic violence and the stockpiling of weapons and drugs threatened the safety of employees and inmates. Attorneys representing inmates there said the facility’s culture of violence and inattentiveness led to two suicides and at least 10 severe beatings and stabbings in its final year of operation.

The company blamed the understaffing and dangerous conditions on industry-wide challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Who owns CoreCivic?

CoreCivic is a privately traded company. Public records show that institutional investment groups BlackRock and The Vanguard Group own the most shares of the company.

CoreCivic’s current CEO is Patrick Swindle, who took over on Jan. 1 after serving in several other leadership roles, including executive vice president and chief operating officer.

The company reported record revenue in 2025, thanks in large part to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and the federal government’s need to enter into new contracts with private prisons to house ICE detainees.

“Our business is perfectly aligned with the demands of this moment,” CoreCivic’s former CEO Damon Hininger said during an August 2025 earnings call.

Problems at CoreCivic ICE prisons

The company operates at least 14 immigrant detention centers around the country.

Despite CoreCivic’s insistence that it prioritizes inmates’ medical care and provides adequate accommodations, the company has faced numerous lawsuits in recent years over conditions at its facilities.

Those lawsuits allege a wide array of misdeeds by CoreCivic, including accusations of medical neglect, falsifying records to cover up unsafe conditions, human rights violations and failure to protect inmates from harm, including physical and sexual assaults.

There have also been a number of deaths in CoreCivic facilities in recent years, including 32-year-old Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas, a Mexican man who died last September at the CoreCivic-managed Central Arizona Correctional Complex in Florence.

His cause of death is still unknown, but he had multiple medical conditions, and his family members have raised questions about the adequacy of his care.

Jobs at CoreCivic

CoreCivic says it has already hired around 280 of the roughly 300 workers it plans to employ at the Midwest Regional Reception Center.

The company’s website listed 27 active job openings for its Leavenworth facility on Friday evening. Open positions include detention officer, recreation supervisor, certified medical assistant, psychiatrist, shift supervisor, assistant shift supervisor, master scheduler, locksmith, maintenance worker and human resource assistant.

Detention officer pay is listed as $28.25 an hour. Some hourly workers make more than that and others make less, according to the website. Shift supervisors have a listed salary of $80,027.

This story was originally published March 10, 2026 at 10:18 PM.