Private Prison Giant CCA To 'Rebrand' as CoreCivic

Nashville-based private prison giant Corrections Corporation of America announced today that it will be "rebranding" itself as something called CoreCivic, which it describes as a "diversified government solutions company."

That company will continue to warehouse human beings for profit.

From the press release:

Under the CoreCivic brand, the Company will provide three distinct business offerings: CoreCivic Safety, a national leader in high quality corrections and detention management; CoreCivic Properties, a wide range of innovative, cost-saving government real estate solutions; and CoreCivic Community, a growing network of residential reentry centers to help tackle America’s recidivism crisis.

“Rebranding as CoreCivic is the culmination of a multi-year strategy to transform our business from largely corrections and detention services to a wider range of government solutions,” said Damon T. Hininger, the Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “The CoreCivic name speaks to our ability to solve the tough challenges facing government at all levels and to the deep sense of service that we feel every day to help people.”

The "rebranding" comes as the private prison industry is reeling from the news that the U.S. Justice Department and possibly other federal agencies will begin phasing out their use of private prisons. A report from the Justice department’s inspector general found private prisons to be less safe and less effective than government-run prisons. That followed years of regularly occurring outbreaks of bad press for the for-profit prison industry. 

Now, you'll notice, CCA — the nation's largest private prison corporation — has come up with a new name that not only doesn't include the already-euphemistic word "correction," but also sounds so bland that it's almost counterproductive. Something that sounds as generic as CoreCivic has to be evil. 

In any case, this is an old trick. Remember Blackwater, the private military company cashing in on perpetual war the way CCA has cashed in on mass incarceration? Well they're not called Blackwater anymore. They're called Academi. (See note above about generic-sounding names.) 

Anyway, just to leave you with the right amount of nausea. More from the CCA press release:

As part of the rebranding, the Company has also adopted a new visual identity. This includes a bolder, sleeker and more modern typeface, as well as a color palette intended to evoke attributes such as safety, strength, passion, stability, integrity and seriousness. The brand’s symbol, a 13-stripe American flag stylized to also represent a building, speaks to the Company’s commitment to public service, the professionalism of its employees and its expanding government real estate focus. There’s also a nod to the Company’s heritage with the right side of the symbol angled at 19.83°, representing the year that the Company was founded, and the left side of the symbol angled at 20.16° to mark the year the Company rebranded as CoreCivic.

Best of luck to the Company, but we repeat:

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