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  • Mother Jones

    A BRIEF HISTORY OF AMERICA’S PRIVATE PRISON INDUSTRY

    by Madison Pauly Jun 26, 2016 3 minutes
    CCA STOCK PRICE, 1997-2016

    1983: Thomas Beasley, Doctor R. Crants, and T. Don Hutto start Corrections Corporation of America, the world’s first private prison company.

    1984: CCA begins operating a county jail and a juvenile detention center in Tennessee. It also opens its first privately owned facility in Houston, a motel hastily remodeled to hold immigration detainees.

    1985: A federal judge orders Tennessee to stop admitting inmates to its overcrowded prisons. CCA offers, unsuccessfully, to pay $250 million for a 99-year lease on the state’s entire

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