Advocates release tool tracking private equity-owned companies operating in surveillance, detention industry

Today, the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) released a tracker detailing the extensive presence of private equity in companies servicing prisons and detention centers as well as surveillance and law enforcement tools. The Private Equity Detention and Surveillance Tracker is a first-of its kind tool for activists, investors, and policymakers to provide transparency into the dozens of private equity-owned companies servicing the United States’ $182 billion mass incarceration system. 

With nearly two million people detained by the US immigration and criminal legal systems, hundreds of companies compete for lucrative government contracts to provide services to carceral programs. The private equity industry owns companies that provide a wide variety of services in the detention and surveillance industry, including healthcare, food and commissary services, facility management, telecommunications, and more. While many of the companies in the tracker also provide products or services outside of correctional facilities, all of them market specifically to correctional institutions and rely on correctional contracts for some revenue.

The private equity business model, which typically aims to double or triple an investment over short time horizons and through substantial cost-cutting, may amplify the already horrific conditions that many incarcerated people face in these settings. In some cases, particularly in critical services like food and medical care, profit motives lead to dangerous cost-cutting measures that negatively impact an already vulnerable population. 

“Private equity firms have no qualms profiting from human misery, and at any cost,” said Azani Creeks, Senior Research and Campaign Coordinator at PESP. “Investors should be aware that their funds are being used to conduct deportations, to provide maggot-riddled food and substandard healthcare to incarcerated people, and to incarcerate children. Private equity’s profit motives have spelled disaster for millions of Americans, including those detained by the United States government.”

As the US expands and builds more jails, increases police funding, and implements the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportation, private equity-owned companies may seek even greater profits driven by restricting the freedom of more and more people. A December 2024 report by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project examined how private equity profits from the U.S. immigrant detention system, revealing that 63 percent of federally-designated ICE facilities contract with private equity-owned companies for a range of services.