As federal spending on immigrant enforcement and detention soars, a private prison company is advertising detention officer positions at vacant prisons in Watonga and Sayre.
Tennessee-based CoreCivic, whose stock has risen 52% since President Donald Trump’s victory last November, is offering $27 per hour to detention officer recruits as it negotiates contracts with the federal government to reopen the idle facilities. That’s $5.50 per hour more than what Oklahoma pays its entry-level correctional officers.
No law enforcement or corrections experience is necessary to apply, according to the postings. Applicants must be 21 or older, have a clean driving record and hold a high school diploma or GED.
The Watonga prison, which housed out-of-state prisoners from Hawaii, Wisconsin and California during the late 1990s and 2000s, has been empty since May 2010. The Oklahoma Department of Corrections vacated the North Fork facility more recently in June 2023, citing persistent staffing shortages. The facilities have a combined capacity of 4,560 beds.
During a third quarter earnings call on Aug. 7, CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger said the company was in advanced negotiations with the federal government to open two of its vacant prisons. In May, company officials described its Oklahoma facilities as especially attractive to the federal government because they’re centrally located and close to the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City.
“Contracting activity is happening at a much quicker pace,” Hininger said. “They have a need and a funding for all these solutions.”
CoreCivic spokesman Brian Todd directed questions about when the facilities could reopen to the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement public affairs office. ICE did not respond to a request for comment.
The Sayre city manager said they have not received any information from CoreCivic. Watonga city officials did not return a call seeking comment.
Todd said CoreCivic detention staff receive training that meets or exceeds standards approved by the American Correctional Association. One sample contract reviewed by Oklahoma Watch found that ICE requires 60 hours of classroom curriculum and 40 hours of on-the-job training for new detention officers.
In contrast, Oklahoma law sets a baseline of 200 hours of training for state correctional officer certification. Cadets typically receive 400 hours of training during an eight-week training academy.
Gabriela Ramirez-Perez, an immigration policy analyst at the Oklahoma Policy Institute, said transparency has been lacking as ICE and companies such as CoreCivic and The GEO Group have sprinted to reopen vacant private prisons as detention centers. The federal government has frequently used no-bid contracts to populate the facilities, citing a compelling urgency for thousands of detention beds. So-called letter contracts have also allowed private prison companies to update facilities and recruit staff without a formal agreement.
Organized opposition to the facilities reopening would likely have to happen at the local level, Ramirez-Perez said. That sort of resistance is playing out in Leavenworth, Kansas, where residents are protesting the reopening of the Midwest Regional Reception Center. The privately run facility was plagued by severe understaffing, rapes and inmate-on-staff assaults for years before shuttering in 2021.
“These facilities have quite a long history in the two towns that’s not the best,” Ramirez-Perez said.
She said the potential reopening of private detention centers contrasts with Oklahoma’s successful effort to eliminate private prisons.
The North Fork prison in particular has a lengthy history of large-scale violence. Forty-six out-of-state prisoners from California were injured, with 30 requiring hospitalization, during an October 2011 riot. In April 2017, seven Oklahoma prisoners were hospitalized after a large-scale fight broke out.
CoreCivic also faced allegations of violating state policies when it housed state prisoners. In 2017, The Frontier reported that private prison staff destroyed audio and video evidence of a large-scale gang fight at the Cimarron Correctional Facility in Cushing, which itself began housing hundreds of ICE detainees this year.
Polina Rozhkova, a data analyst with the Oklahoma Policy Institute who has researched Oklahoma’s history with private prisons, said private prisons are often a net negative for communities.
“The job postings may sound great, but this is not a stable source of employment or an institution in these communities,” Rozhkova said.
Oklahoma Watch intern Valerie Scott contributed to this story.
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
