Private Equity Detention and Surveillance Tracker
May 13, 2025
Table of contents
- Introduction
- Services in detention facilities
- Surveillance and law enforcement tools
- Research Methods
- References
Introduction
The estimated cost of the U.S. mass incarceration system is $182 billion a year, with hundreds of companies competing for lucrative government contracts.[1] The average cost of incarcerating someone increased from $150,000 per year in 2011 to over $500,000 as of 2021.[2] There are nearly two million people detained by the US immigration and criminal legal systems.
Life in detention is entirely controlled by the state and corporations that service the facilities – beyond various physical space constraints, incarcerated people have little choice in what they consume, how they communicate with loved ones, and the structure of their day. Private equity firms seek to profit from incarcerated people as a captive audience through contracts with local governments to provide various services. And 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.
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 see even greater profits driven by restricting the freedom of more and more people.
Private Equity Stakeholder Project has compiled a list of private equity-backed companies currently operating in the detention and surveillance sectors.
While many of the companies in the tracker provide products or services outside of correctional facilities, all of them market specifically to correctional institutions and rely on correctional contracts for some revenue. 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.
The following sections offer some examples of how private equity-backed companies from incarceration, immigrant detention, and surveillance.
Services in Detention Facilities
Facility Management
While private prison operators CoreCivic and GEO Group have a near duopoly on managing prison facilities, several private equity-owned companies contract with federal, state, and local governments to operate immigrant detention facilities and migrant shelters.[3] According to the most recent estimates, ICE detains nearly 50,000 people in private prisons, local jails, federal detention centers, and temporary facilities (shelters). GardaWorld (BC Partners, HPS Investment Partners), Favorite Healthcare (Onex, TowerBrook Capital Partners), and Caliburn/Acuity International (DC Capital Partners) have all managed detention facilities or shelters in recent years.
Healthcare
Two of the largest prison healthcare providers are owned by private equity firms: Wellpath and YesCare/Corizon.
H.I.G. Capital owns Wellpath, which the firm created in 2018 by combining two other correctional healthcare companies. In November 2024 Wellpath filed for bankruptcy amid a litany of scandals related to quality of care at the facilities it manages. At the time of its bankruptcy filing Wellpath was named in 1,000 federal lawsuits, pending and closed, across the United States and was accused of contributing to at least 70 deaths.
At one of Wellpath’s California facilities, the U.S. Department of Justice’s findings led it to conclude that there was reasonable cause to conclude that “medical care at the jail is inadequate in violation of prisoners’ constitutional rights.”[4]Among other issues, the Justice Department describes medication mismanagement, including delayed medication or not provided at all; wrong dosages or ineffective combinations of medications; and psychiatric staff mismanagement.[5]
YesCare (fka Corizon Healthcare) was owned by various private equity firms (including BPOC, BlueMountain Capital, Flacks Group, and most recently Perigrove Capital) for about 17 years. Beginning in May 2022, Corizon Health took a series of steps to restructure and divide itself in two, becoming Tehum Care Partners, a shell company laden with Corizon’s debts and liabilities, and YesCare, which got all of Corizon’s active corrections contracts. In February 2023 Tehum declared bankruptcy, putting claims against the company on hold.
The company’s liabilities were large and widespread. It was estimated to owe more than $82 million to more than 1,000 creditors including former patients, employees, and vendors. At least 100 people have had holds placed on lawsuits alleging Corizon relating to poor healthcare, including allegations of negligence or worse – including one claim from a patient who says his medical care was so poor that he went blind in one eye.
In March 2025 after a protracted and contentious bankruptcy case, a Texas bankruptcy judge approved YesCare’s restructuring plan. The plan includes $25 million to be paid toward healthcare claims and settlements – a significant increase from the $8 million that the company originally proposed.
Juvenile Detention
Some private equity-owned companies operate or provide services within juvenile detention facilities. For example, prison healthcare provider Wellpath provides healthcare services in juvenile facilities across the country, including in Texas, Kentucky, Ohio, Connecticut, and Michigan.
Youth Opportunity, which is backed by Lago Asset Management,[6] provides residential behavioral health care for adolescents, as well as operates juvenile detention centers.
Youth Opportunity’s juvenile detention centers have been criticized for dangerous conditions and policy failures, including being accused in 2023 of maintaining “a culture of fear and humiliation,” failing to provide necessary therapeutic and medical care, and “unclean” conditions.
Previously, Altamont Capital’s Sequel Youth & Family Services operated juvenile detention centers as well as residential foster care facilities and psychiatric residential treatment facilities for at-risk youth. The company shut down after being plagued by reports of abuse and neglect, including a 136-page investigatory report by the US Senate Committee on Finance. At least one youth detention facility in Florida that was formerly operated by Sequel is now operated by Youth Opportunity.[7]
Food Service/Commissary
H.I.G. Capital owns TKC Holdings, which provides food, commissary, and telecom services to jails, prisons, and immigrant detention centers. H.I.G. formed the company by combining Trinity Services Group (food services) and Keefe Group (commissary).[8] In 2019, mold, maggots, and dirt were found in TKC-served facilities, leading to unrest and contract termination.[9] In the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Laredo Processing Center in Texas, immigrant detainees complained in 2016 of TKC’s “inedible food and undrinkable, foul-smelling water.”[10]
Prison and jail commissaries have basic necessities like toothpaste, soap, menstrual products, and thermal wear for cold months, but often at prices much higher than stores outside. As the only store in the facility, the commissary has no competition and no incentive to lower prices. For example, in 2022, a 4.6 ounce Crest toothpaste cost $3.77 in a Kentucky commissary run by HIG Capital’s company Keefe Group, but cost just $1.38 at the local Wal-Mart (173% markup).[11] In 2022, Keefe raised commissary prices in Idaho (8.5%),[12]Kentucky (7.2%),[13] and Nevada, citing “world events such as supply chain shortages, shipping cost increases and increased labor costs” after a Nevada state audit.[14]
In April 2022, the New York City Department of Correction awarded The Keefe Group a no-bid contract for commissary services on Rikers Island. A 2023 investigation revealed that Keefe was overcharging for food and other necessities, despite the contract stipulation that goods would not “exceed the market prices of the same products in non-discount stores (i.e., corner stores) in the City of New York.” Following the investigation, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander rejected a $33 million no-bid contract between the company and the Department of Correction. The city originallygranted Keefe a no-bid emergency contract for one year, citing staffing shortages caused by COVID-19. Despite the Comptroller’s office finding a “litany of procedural failures and contract shortcomings,” Mayor Eric Adams overrode the decision. Lander denounced the decision, saying, “The DOC is choosing to stick with the prison industrial complex’s largest private profiteer, rather than find a less mired vendor whose primary motive is not to make a quick buck off the backs of incarcerated people.”
At facilities where TKC Holdings has both the cafeteria and commissary store contracts, the company has an incentive to reduce the quality of cafeteria food so that customers buy food at the Keefe-operated commissary store rather than eating in the Trinity-owned cafeteria. In the cafeteria, meals are covered by the facility according to a set contract – profits can only increase by serving more people (increased incarceration) or reducing cost (and often quality) of food.[15]
Labor
In Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, and Texas, incarcerated people generally do not get paid for their work at all. Televerde, backed by Main Street Capital, operates call centers entirely staffed by incarcerated women in Arizona and Indiana, where in 2019 a third of their federal minimum wage pay immediately goes to the state “to pay for room and board.”[20]
Telecommunications
In July 2024, the FCC voted to implement new rate caps and regulations that would drastically reduce call costs between incarcerated people and their loved ones. According to the FCC, “the cost of a 15-minute phone call will drop to $0.90 from as much as $11.35 in large jails and, in small jails, to $1.35 from $12.10.” Costs for video calling will still vary, but are capped at $0.25 per minute for the smallest jails.
The rate caps will impact revenues for prison telecommunications companies, the largest of which are owned by private equity firms. Securus, owned by Platinum Equity, and ViaPath (formerly Global Tel Link), owned by American Securities, dominated an estimated 74 to 83 percent of the market as of 2019. Prisons and jails contract with a single telecoms provider, which has historically allowed companies to charge “exorbitant” prices in what is literally a captive market.
In November 2024, federal regulators ordered ViaPath to pay $3 million for allegedly freezing and draining accounts for people who are incarcerated. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), ViaPath, through subsidiaries Telmate and Touchpay, violated federal law by blocking consumer accounts, hiding fees, and illegally taking funds from inactive accounts.
Though Securus and ViaPath may attempt to find new revenue streams in e-messaging or tablets, the time for private businesses to profit from incarceration may be coming to an end, especially as nonprofit correctional telecom provider Ameelio gains traction in the industry.
In April 2025, Aventiv announced a distressed debt-for-equity exchange with creditors set to take over the company and lenders issuing a $360 million loan. Aventiv had for over a year been struggling to service its mountain of debt, leading to a default in April 2024. At the time, Bloomberg reported that Aventiv reached a deal with lenders on the condition that Platinum Equity sell Aventiv within a year. With time up and no buyer, Aventiv avoided bankruptcy filings through the 2025 out-of-court restructuring. The FCC will need to approve the change in ownership.
Education
In 2023, Congress reinstated Pell Grants for incarcerated people, opening up educational opportunities to nearly 500,000 people. In anticipation of this decision, Platinum Equity’s Securus began in late 2021 requesting payment for educational services from prison education programs managed by colleges and universities. Securus’ Lantern platform lives on the company’s tablets, which have noneducational content available for purchase. Though the educational materials on Lantern were originally provided at no cost, Securus’ recent financial troubles, including a distressed debt exchange, may have caused the company to reconsider paywalls.
In addition, Anthology (Veritas Capital, Providence Equity Partners), the largest educational technology company in the world, also provides its learning management system to correctional institutions across the country.
Transportation
G4S, a security firm with 800,000 employees globally, has been conducting deportations for the U.S. government since at least 2006.[21] Owned by private equity firm Warburg Pincus through portfolio company Allied Universal,[22] G4S provides Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and ICE with transportation and security services. Between 2008 and August 2024, G4S’ contracts with CBP and ICE amounted to $1.05 billion.[23]
Under its contracts with CBP, G4S transports immigrants arrested at the southern border to detention facilities throughout the U.S.[24] This includes temporarily detaining immigrants in transit or those awaiting their asylum claims to be processed. G4S has also provided detainee transportation services to ICE field offices and Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) (i.e., deportation) offices in cities like Los Angeles,[25] Phoenix,[26] San Francisco,[27] and San Antonio.[28]
Surveillance and law enforcement tools
Biometrics and Digital Surveillance
While some companies are focused on selling directly to retailers and other private entities, others rely heavily on government contracts. Idemia, acquired by Advent International in 2017, is the sole source vendor for facial recognition at US airports, having received billions of dollars from the Department of Homeland Security. Idemia also has contracts with law enforcement agencies at the state level in Louisiana and Montana, where state and local legislatures have considered bans on facial recognition.
FaceFirst is another private equity-owned facial recognition company that has been subject to scrutiny. A 2020 reportfrom Reuters found that FaceFirst regularly misidentified people across 200 RiteAid stores over eight years, though the drugstore chain has since stopped using the technology. RiteAid installed most of the cameras in stores where Black and Latinx shoppers were the largest group, leading to false matches that would ultimately impact people of color the most if acted upon: “At one store Reuters visited, a security agent scrolled through FaceFirst ‘alerts’ showing a number of cases in which faces were obviously mismatched, including a Black man mixed up with someone who was Asian.”
FaceFirst, owned by Graham Partners, enforces non-disclosure agreements with clients, limiting how much the public knows about which entities may be using the tools. Fast Company reported that California’s Automated Regional Justice Information System (ARJIS) used FaceFirst from 2012 to 2019. Through ARJIS, 30 local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies had access to FaceFirst technologies. While the San Diego Police Department used the system most frequently, other agencies like ICE and the US Marshals also used the tools. Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) questioned ICE’s use of the data, considering that using biometric data from ARJIS to detain or deport may violate the “California Values Act, a 2017 law designed to limit how state resources may be used in federal immigration enforcement.”
Beyond biometric data, law and immigration enforcement agencies use phone hacking and social media surveillance software to build cases for criminalization and deportation. Forbesreported that ICE significantly increased its mobile hacking capacities just months before the Trump Administration ordered mass deportations. Magnet Forensics, a Thoma Bravo company that provides tools to unlock confiscated phones, scored $8 million in contracts with ICE in 2024. The agency also purchased $5 million in licenses from Pen-Link (Spire Capital), which wire taps phone lines and scrapes social media platforms for surveillance.
Weapons
Law enforcement officers use weapons from private equity-backed companies such as Sierra Bullets (JDH Capital) and SOG Specialty Knives (Platinum Equity), at times turning them on innocent and vulnerable people. For example, Texas Department of Public Safety officers usedPepperBall (ClearLight Partners, Expedition Capital Partners)launchers to shoot chemical irritants at migrants who were pregnant or carrying children, despite previously saying the launchers would not be used to target migrants.
Research Methods
Private equity ownership was determined through a combination of private equity firms’ online portfolio listings, Pitchbook, press releases, bankruptcy filings, and SEC filings. Contracts between government entities and companies were verified by public record or company self-reporting. Many of the companies in this report market services directly to correctional departments through their websites or attendance as vendors in industry spaces such as the American Correctional Association’s conferences.
References
[1] Following the Money of Mass Incarceration, 2017. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/money.html.
[2] Interrogating Justice, 2022. https://interrogatingjustice.org/ending-mass-incarceration/new-york-city-prison-costs-continue-to-rise/.
[3] “Immigrant detention” is used here to refer to permanent facilities under federal ICE jurisdiction where non-citizen detainees are held for immigration or criminal proceedings. “Migrant shelters” are usually run by local governments for those seeking asylum, and are intended to be temporary.
[4] Civil Rights Division. “Investigation of the San Luis Obispo County Jail.” page 5, U.S. Department of Justice, August 31, 2021. https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/press-release/file/1429106/download
[5] Civil Rights Division. “Investigation of the San Luis Obispo County Jail.” page 1-3, U.S. Department of Justice, August 31, 2021. https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/press-release/file/1429106/download
[6] “PitchBook Profile – Youth Opportunity.” Accessed March 2025. https://my.pitchbook.com/profile/494241-85/company/profile#general-info; Lago Innovation Fund. “PORTFOLIO.” Accessed March 2025. https://www.lagoinnovation.com/ourportfolio.
[7] Former Sequel contract: The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, “Comprehensive Accountability Report: Residential Services,” 2016-17. Accessed March 2025. https://www.djj.state.fl.us/content/download/21299/file/%282016-17-car%29-residential-%28final%29.pdf pg. 10.
Current Youth Innovation contract: Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, Kissimmee Youth Academy. Accessed March 2025.https://www.djj.state.fl.us/programs-facilities/residential-facilities/kissimmee-youth-academy
[8] How Private Equity Is Turning Public Prisons Into Big Profits, 2019. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/prison-privatization-private-equity-hig/.
[9] Report: HIG Capital’s Prison Food and Commissary Store Racket, 2019.
https://pestakeholder.org/reports/report-hig-capitals-prison-food-and-commissary-store-racket/.
[10] What The Rise of Immigrant Detention Means For Some of the Most Vulnerable People Seeking Refuge On Our Border, 2016.
[11] Incarcerated people pay more as inflation hits Kentucky prison stores, 2022. https://www.lpm.org/investigate/2022-07-28/incarcerated-people-pay-more-as-inflation-hits-kentucky-prison-stores.
[12] Prisoners Like Me are Being Held Hostage to Price Hikes, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/02/opinion/inflation-prison.html.
[13] Incarcerated people pay more as inflation hits Kentucky prison stores, 2022. https://www.lpm.org/investigate/2022-07-28/incarcerated-people-pay-more-as-inflation-hits-kentucky-prison-stores.
[14] Costs of incarceration rise as inflation squeezes inmates, families, 2022. https://idahocapitalsun.com/2022/10/13/costs-of-incarceration-rise-as-inflation-squeezes-inmates-families/.
[15] Report: HIG Capital’s Prison Food and Commissary Store Racket, 2019.
https://pestakeholder.org/reports/report-hig-capitals-prison-food-and-commissary-store-racket/.
[16] Pharmaceuticals and automotive driving deals activity, 2017. https://www.thebusinessdesk.com/westmidlands/news/2011028-pharmaceuticals-automotive-driving-deals-activity.
[17]https://www.jrwald.com/about.
[18] Hochul Proposes Bringing Back Private Prison Labor, 2022. https://nysfocus.com/2022/02/23/hochul-proposes-bringing-back-private-prison-labor.
[19] Open Book New York. https://wwe2.osc.state.ny.us/transparency/contracts/contractresults.cfm?order=CONTRACT_START_DATE&ID=17493&sort=ASC.
[20] This call center company relies on a workforce of incarcerated women to help companies like Microsoft, SAP, and Dell power their sales and marketing, 2019. https://www.businessinsider.com/televerde-incarcerated-women-perryville-arizona-indiana-2019-6.
[21] G4S. “G4S North America,” 2008, page 32. https://www.g4s.com/-/media/g4s/corporate/indexed-files/files/financial-presentations/2004/2008_g4s_north_america_presentation_may_2008.ashx.
[22] Dummett, Ben. “Allied Universal Set to Create Private-Security Giant With G4S Deal,” Wall Street Journal, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/allied-universal-set-to-create-private-security-giant-with-g4s-deal-11613987683.
[23] G4S contracts with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. https://www.usaspending.gov/search/?hash=bcb16e5742d5083c403d4a75abfb8bf5.
[24] Ibid.
[25] G4S contract with DHS for Los Angeles ERO, 2023. https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_70CDCR23FC0000005_7012_70CDCR18A00000002_7012.
[26] G4S contract with DHS for Phoenix AOR, 2023. https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_70CDCR23FC0000006_7012_70CDCR18A00000002_7012.
[27] G4S contract with DHS for San Francisco, 2022. https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_70CDCR22FC0000007_7012_70CDCR18A00000002_7012.
[28] G4S contract with DHS for San Antonio Field Office, 2022. https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_70CDCR23FR0000011_7012_70CDCR20D00000017_7012.
