In April 2025, the Tennessee General Assembly passed SB 1115, legislation that imposes penalties on privately-operated prisons if they have death rates twice as high as the rate at an “equivalent state-operated facility.” The bill was signed into law by Governor Bill Lee (R) on May 9, 2025.

The only private prisons in the state are managed by CoreCivic, formerly Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), and include the South Central Correctional Facility, Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, Hardeman County Correctional Facility and Whiteville Correctional Facility. Numerous news reports and state audits have found high levels of violence, staff turnover, and other problems at privately run prisons in Tennessee, particularly at Trousdale Turner which is currently the subject of an investigation by the U.S. Dept. of Justice.

Pursuant to the newly-enacted law, if private prisons have mortality rates twice as high as equivalent state facilities, the state Department of Correction (DOC) “shall reduce the population at such facility by ten percent (10%),” and “the reduction in population must continue until the [DOC] determines that the conditions leading to the reduction have been corrected.” Since for-profit prison operators like CoreCivic are paid on a per-diem basis according to the number of prisoners they house, the decrease in population results in less revenue for the company.

According to the DOC’s Annual Statistical Abstract for FY 2022-2023 there were 144 deaths during that time period, 76 at state prisons and 68 at CoreCivic facilities. That included deaths due to all causes—natural, homicide, suicide, accidental (which typically includes drug overdoses) and pending/unknown—and translates to a death rate of 647 per 100,000 prisoners at state facilities and 949 per 100,000 at private prisons.

However, the deaths at state facilities included prisoners who died at the DeBerry Special Needs Facility in Nashville—which houses prisoners with serious medical and mental health needs. There were 36 deaths at Special Needs in FY 2022-23—more than half of all deaths in DOC facilities—which skewed the mortality rate. Excluding those deaths, state prisons had a mortality rate of 340.7 per 100,000 prisoners, meaning during that time period CoreCivic facilities had a rate 2.78 times higher than DOC prisons.

Regardless, this begs the question of why the newly-passed law requires facilities run by CoreCivic to have death rates twice as high as state prisons before the company is subject to even modest penalties. Any increase in the mortality rate at private facilities above the rate at comparable DOC prisons should be cause for concern, and waiting until the rate is twice as high before the state takes action is egregiously inadequate. A more sensical approach would trigger sanctions against private prisons if their death rate was 10% higher.

The fact that state lawmakers required the mortality rate at privately-operated facilities to be twice as high as at state prisons before penalties are imposed indicates how little they care about the wellbeing of prisoners housed in facilities run by CoreCivic—which has donated generously to the election campaigns of many of those same Tennessee legislators.  

Sources: SB 1115, TDOC Annual Statistical Abstract FY 2022-23