October 28, 2016

Private Prison Company Frees Itself From Its Old Corporate Identity

The Corrections Corporation of America would now like to be known as CoreCivic.

CoreCivic (logo); JosefHanus/iStock (fence)

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The Corrections Corporation of America, the private prison company that was the subject of a recent Mother Jones investigation, has announced that it’s rebranding itself in the wake of increased scrutiny of the for-profit prison industry. CCA will now be known as CoreCivic, a “diversified government solutions company.” Don’t let the corporatespeak fool you; it will remain a private prison corporation offering “high quality corrections and detention management.”

The makeover comes after a slew of bad news for the company. After Mother Jones published its investigation, the Department of Justice announced it would phase out its use of private prisons. The Department of Homeland Security said it would reevaluate its relationship with private prisons. CCA shareholders filed a class action lawsuit against the company for allegedly failing to disclose that its practices could put its government contracts in jeopardy. Over the past six months, CCA’s stock price has fallen more than 50 percent, and the company announced a round of layoffs last month.

“Rebranding as CoreCivic is the culmination of a multi-year strategy to transform our business from largely corrections and detention services to a wider range of government solutions,” said Damon T. Hininger, the president and CEO of the business formerly known as CCA in a press release about the rebranding. “The CoreCivic name speaks to our ability to solve the tough challenges facing government at all levels and to the deep sense of service that we feel every day to help people.” The release claims the rebranding has been years in the making and was finalized before the Justice Department’s announcement in August.

The company formerly known as CCA is also adopting a “new visual identity”:

This includes a bolder, sleeker and more modern typeface, as well as a color palette intended to evoke attributes such as safety, strength, passion, stability, integrity and seriousness. The brand’s symbol, a 13-stripe American flag stylized to also represent a building, speaks to the Company’s commitment to public service, the professionalism of its employees and its expanding government real estate focus. There’s also a nod to the Company’s heritage with the right side of the symbol angled at 19.83°, representing the year that the Company was founded, and the left side of the symbol angled at 20.16° to mark the year the Company rebranded as CoreCivic.

Read more about the history of CCA and private prisons and Shane Bauer’s investigation into a CCA prison in Louisiana.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate