Private Prisons vs. Public Prisons: What’s the Difference?
Updated September 22, 2026
Public prisons are owned and run by the government, funded by tax dollars, and required to disclose how they operate. Private prisons are for-profit facilities that hold inmates under government contract, can decline offenders they don’t want, and face far less disclosure. If you’re weighing a corrections career, that changes who signs your paycheck.
You’ll hear “private prison” and “public prison” used as if they’re interchangeable, but they operate under different funding, rules, and incentives. That matters if you’re eyeing a job as a correctional officer, because who owns the facility shapes your training, your pay, and how much the public can find out about the place you work.
How Public and Private Prisons Actually Differ
Start with who’s cutting the checks. Public prisons are owned and operated by local, state, or federal government and run as non-profits, funded directly by tax dollars. Because that money comes from taxpayers, public facilities are required to make certain operational data available to the public, and the government decides who gets sent there and who gets released early.
Private prisons work differently. A third-party company runs the facility under a government contract, and many of those contracts pay based on the number of inmates the prison holds and how long they stay. The more beds are filled, the more the company earns, which is the incentive critics most often point to. Private operators also aren’t required to release the same operational data public prisons are, and they can accept or decline any offender they choose, frequently turning away people with medical or mental health conditions that cost more to house.
| Factor | Public Prisons | Private Prisons |
|---|---|---|
| Who Runs It | Local, state, or federal government | Third-party for-profit company under contract |
| Funding | Tax dollars | Government contract, often tied to inmate count |
| Public Disclosure | Required to release operational data | Far less required disclosure |
| Who’s Housed | Cannot decline offenders | Can decline offenders, often screening out costlier medical or mental health cases |
You’ll usually see private facilities holding a larger share of nonviolent, drug-related offenders, since higher-security inmates cost more to guard. That doesn’t make the job easier. It just means the population you’re managing skews differently depending on which system you work in.
How Private Prisons Got This Big
Private prisons aren’t new, but their current scale traces back to 1983, when Thomas Beasley, Doctor R. Crants, and T. Don Hutto founded the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the first company to run prisons for profit. Before that, privately operated facilities were rare.
President Reagan’s War on Drugs policy in the 1980s flooded the system with inmates, and private prisons were pitched as a fix for the overcrowding that followed. CCA argued it could run a large facility with fewer staff than a public prison needed, leaning on electronic surveillance instead. That lower-staff, lower-cost model is still the pitch today, and it’s worth knowing before you compare a job offer at a private facility against one at a public one.
Inmates inside private prisons often work, producing goods the companies sell. Many lawmakers oppose the model because it creates a financial incentive to oppose rehabilitation and to oppose reforming harsh sentencing. Some private-prison contracts have included minimum-occupancy guarantees or related payment provisions, meaning the state can owe a penalty if the facility doesn’t stay near capacity.
A 2016 Department of Justice Inspector General review found that federal contract prisons had higher rates of several safety and security incidents than comparable government-run facilities. In response, then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates directed the Bureau of Prisons to begin phasing out contract prisons, citing their provision of fewer rehabilitative services and resources than government-run facilities and their failure to maintain the same safety and security standards. However, the review didn’t establish that private prisons themselves cause higher rates of reoffending. President Trump reversed that phase-out policy in 2017.
Private operators also run a large share of immigration detention facilities under contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This business line operates independently of whatever policy the Bureau of Prisons sets for its own contracts.
How Many Private Prisons You’re Actually Looking At
Per the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the total US prison population stood at 1,254,200 at year-end 2023, and private facilities held 88,618 of those people, or about 7.1%. That’s down substantially from the private-prison population’s 2019 peak of roughly 115,000.
That share isn’t spread evenly. States with the largest shares of their prison population in private facilities as of 2023 (USAFacts, citing BJS) include:
- Montana (48.7%)
- New Mexico (29.2%)
- Arizona (28.5%)
- Tennessee (27.2%)
- Wyoming and Hawaii (both above 20%)
If you’re job hunting, that geography matters. A corrections career in one of these states is far more likely to mean working for a private operator than a state agency, and that changes your training path, your union status, and your benefits. Oklahoma, which relied heavily on private prisons in past years, had fallen below the 20% threshold by 2023, and 22 states use no private prisons at all (USAFacts, citing BJS). Immigration detention is a separate system: private operators held nearly 79% of ICE detainees nationwide, per 2021 data (The Sentencing Project), and 73% of detained immigrants were held in privately run facilities in FY2017 (The Sentencing Project).
The Numbers Behind the Debate
Here’s what the research actually shows, with the source and time period attached to every claim:
- Cost per inmate: In Arizona, FY2010 adjusted medium-custody costs averaged $48.42 per prisoner per day in state facilities, compared with $53.02 in private facilities (Reason Foundation). This is a single-state comparison, not a national figure.
- Safety incidents: A late-1990s/2001-era comparison of minimum- and medium-security facilities found roughly 49% more inmate-on-staff assaults and 65% more inmate-on-inmate assaults in private facilities than public ones (US Department of Justice). The underlying research noted its evidence base was limited, so treat this as historical, not a current nationwide rate.
- Solitary confinement reporting: Public prisons reported at least 67,442 people in restricted housing in fall 2015. Private facilities weren’t included in that same count (The Marshall Project).
- Drug-related incarceration: Roughly one in five people incarcerated nationwide is there on a drug-related charge (Prison Policy Initiative).
- Staff training and turnover: Earlier comparative research found that public-sector agencies required roughly 58 more hours of pre-service training than the private facilities studied provided to new hires, with private-sector turnover running close to three times the public-sector rate (US Courts.gov). Training and turnover both vary by state, agency, and employer today, so ask any prospective employer for their current numbers rather than assuming this historical gap still holds.
- 2016 federal and state share: Private facilities held 18% of the federal prison population and 7% of state prisoners in 2016 (BJS, ACLU).
- Conditions on the ground: A psychiatrist examining conditions at a specific Mississippi private facility reported individual prisoners with substantial weight loss allegedly linked to inadequate food, in a finding specific to that facility rather than representative of private prisons generally (The Salt Lake Tribune).
None of that means one system is automatically the better employer. It means you should ask about staffing ratios, training hours, and turnover before you take a job at either kind of facility—those numbers tell you more about your day-to-day than the ownership label does.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the main difference between a private prison and a public prison?
Ownership and funding. Public prisons are run by government agencies and paid for with tax dollars. Private prisons are run by for-profit companies under government contracts, often paid based on the number of inmates they hold.
Do private prisons pay correctional officers differently than public prisons?
Pay and benefits vary by state and by contract. Earlier research found that private facilities offered fewer pre-service training hours and experienced much higher staff turnover than public agencies, though this varies by employer today. Ask any prospective employer directly about current training hours, benefits, and union representation before you accept an offer.
Why do some states use private prisons and others don’t?
It comes down to state policy and prison capacity. States like Montana and New Mexico lean heavily on private contracts to manage overcrowding, while 22 states don’t use for-profit prisons at all as of 2023. Check your target state’s corrections department for its current policy before you assume either model applies.
Are private prisons being phased out?
It depends on the administration in office, and the policy has changed more than once. The Obama administration moved to phase out federal contract prisons in 2016, and Trump reversed that in 2017. Biden reinstated the ban in 2021, and the Bureau of Prisons fully exited its private-prison contracts by November 30, 2022. Trump rescinded that ban again on January 20, 2025, reopening the door to new BOP and US Marshals Service contracts. None of this affects Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which contracts independently with private detention facilities. Verify current status with the Bureau of Justice Statistics or the Bureau of Prisons before treating any of these as permanent.
Does it matter which system I work for as a corrections officer?
Yes. It affects your training hours, your likely caseload, your job security, and whether you’re a state employee or a private-company employee. Neither system is automatically the safer or better-paying choice, so compare the specific facility’s numbers, not just its label.
Key Takeaways
- Ownership drives everything else – Public prisons answer to the government and taxpayers. Private prisons answer to a contract and shareholders.
- Disclosure isn’t equal – Public facilities have to release more operational data than private ones, which makes private-prison numbers harder to verify.
- The private-prison share has been shrinking – It’s down from a 2019 peak of roughly 115,000 people to 88,618 in 2023, about 7.1% of the total US prison population.
- Geography matters for job hunting – Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, Tennessee, Wyoming, and Hawaii lean heavily on private contracts. At the same time, 22 states use none, so your job market looks different depending on where you’re applying.
- Federal policy swings with administrations – The federal stance on private-prison contracts has reversed four times since 2016, most recently in January 2025, so verify current rules before making a decision based on today’s headlines.
Weighing a corrections career? Start with what the job actually requires day-to-day, not just who signs the paycheck.