CoreCivic

Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada told the state legislature this week that his department had made progress or completed most of the action steps assigned to them by the statehouse last year. But when attention turned to the department’s relationship with private prison operator CoreCivic, the hearing got heated.

The Tennessee Department of Correction wants to pay $6.8 million more to the state’s private-prison operator next year despite the cloud of a federal civil rights probe and the company’s consistent failure to fulfill contract obligations.

Gov. Lee shows no signs of dumping CoreCivic, which runs four state prisons for $233 million a year

Kentucky is re-entering into a contract with a private prison company, nearly a decade after the state abandoned the organization amid allegations of…