Wyoming signs contract of up to $5.1M with private prison company

The state entered into a contract with a private prison company last year to house inmates if the structurally unstable Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins became uninhabitable, the Department of Corrections director said recently.

The Wyoming Department of Corrections inked the deal Aug. 2 with the Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest private prison company, according to a copy of the 29-page contract that the Star-Tribune obtained Tuesday.

The contract is in effect until June 30.

In coming weeks, a new contract will be signed containing the new name of Corrections Corporation of America, CoreCivic, said Mark Horan, the spokesman for the Wyoming Department of Corrections.

The contract states up to 750 male inmates could be sent to prisons owned by the Nashville, Tennessee-based company -- depending on the state's need and available space at the corporation’s prisons.

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