Prairie Dog
From the Fall 2026 edition of The Prairie Progressive, Iowa’s oldest progressive newsletter. The PP is funded entirely by reader subscription, available in hard copy for $15/yr. Send check to PP, Box 1945, Iowa City 52244. Click here for archived issues
The heated public debate over a new jail in Johnson County has overlooked one player all Iowans should be worried about: the for-profit corporate prison industry.
With privatized prisons already located in more than half of the United States, including Illinois and Indiana, the prison industrial complex is eager to expand to additional states in the Midwest. Funding from Trump’s ICE initiatives has companies like TheGEO Group and CoreCivic licking their chops, hungry to convert warehouses and shuttered buildings into jails and prisons.
According to the website of the University of Essex, CoreCivic and The GEO Group were major contributors to Trump’s first presidential campaign. In his second term, Trump reversed President Biden’s 2021 executive order which did not renew federal private prison contracts. Pam Bondi was a lobbyist for a private prison company before her
appointment as Attorney General.
As of 2023, 90% of undocumented immigrants were housed in for-profit private prisons.
These private companies have the money and clout to lobby legislators for laws that lead to
increased incarceration. They have already wheedled Iowa’s Republican lawmakers into
introducing and passing mandatory minimum sentences, strict immigration enforcement, and “three strikes” laws.
Fighting the private prison industry requires a unified front. The jail issue could unite a divided community over an issue we should all agree on—keeping for-profit jails out of Iowa.
A divided community is exactly what the prison industry thrives on.
If the Johnson County Jail referendum fails, the county will still have an aging jail, still have overcrowding, still have safety issues, and still have legal obligations, with no clear plan. Voters favoring a new jail and voters opposed must become partners in a coordinated effort to stop private correctional facilities from filling the void.
If the referendum passes, both sides will need to stay engaged, ensuring the new jail is safe, humane, and publicly operated. This referendum matters, but what happens after is equally important.
What is currently a heated debate between neighbors may well become a fight between the
community and the corporations itching to jump in.
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Currently Iowa has no private correctional facilities. According to The Sentencing Project, here are the states that do:
• Alabama
• Alaska
• Arizona
• Colorado
• Florida
• Georgia
• Hawaii
• Idaho
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Kentucky
• Mississippi
• Montana
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• Pennsylvania
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Vermont
• Virginia
• Wyoming
— Prairie Dog
