Peak Annual Vendor Revenue
Combined private vendor spending at peak years
Source: Oklahoma Watch, DOC budget data
Total Paid to Private Prisons
CoreCivic + GEO Group since 2004
Source: Prison Legal News (2017), OK Appleseed
Lawton Prison Purchase Price
State bought GEO Group’s last private prison in 2025
Source: NonDoc Media (2025)
Parent Companies
Controlling the vendor ecosystem
Source: State procurement records
Who Owns What
Five parent companies control the major private revenue streams flowing through Oklahoma’s prison system. Two private equity firms—H.I.G. Capital and Platinum Equity—hold overlapping monopolies that create structural conflicts of interest.
H.I.G. Capital
Private Equity
Oklahoma Interests
- Keefe Group (commissary)
- Trinity Services Group (food)
- ICSolutions (phones, Keefe subsidiary)
Double play: H.I.G. owns both prison food (Trinity) and commissary (Keefe). Worse food = more commissary sales = more revenue for the same PE firm.
Platinum Equity
Private Equity
Oklahoma Interests
- Securus Technologies (phones)
- JPay (money transfers, tablets, messaging)
Monopoly: Platinum Equity controls phone calls, video visits, tablets, messaging, AND money transfers through Securus + JPay. No competition exists.
GEO Group
Public REIT(GEO)
CoreCivic
Public REIT(CXW)
Gladstone Capital
Public BDC(GLAD)
Oklahoma Interests
- Turn Key Health Clinics ($11M investment, 2021)
Vendor Breakdown
Expand each vendor to see contract details, controversies, and source links. Every dollar figure comes from public records, investigative journalism, or state procurement documents.
Private Prison Facilities
Oklahoma paid nearly $1 billion to rent prison beds it did not own, then paid $312 million more to buy the last facility outright. Here is every private prison in the system.
| Facility | Operator | City | Beds | Per Diem | Est. Annual Cost | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lawton Correctional Facility | GEO Group | Lawton | 2,682 | $50.18 - $56.88 | $49.0M | Purchased by State(2025) |
| Great Plains Correctional Facility | GEO Group | Hinton | 2,000 | $13.56 | $9.9M | State-Operated(2023) |
| Davis Correctional Facility | CoreCivic | Holdenville | 1,670 | $55.00 - $68.00 | $33.0M | State-Operated(2023) |
| North Fork Correctional Center | CoreCivic | Sayre | 2,600 | $55.00 - $68.00 | --- | Empty(2016) |
| Cimarron Correctional Facility | CoreCivic | Cushing | 1,700 | $1.02 | --- | Closed(2020) |
| Diamondback Correctional Facility | CoreCivic | Watonga | 2,160 | --- | --- | Empty |
Lawton Correctional Facility
Purchased by StateOperator: GEO Group
Location: Lawton
Beds: 2,682
Est. Annual Cost: $49.0M
Great Plains Correctional Facility
State-OperatedOperator: GEO Group
Location: Hinton
Beds: 2,000
Est. Annual Cost: $9.9M
Davis Correctional Facility
State-OperatedOperator: CoreCivic
Location: Holdenville
Beds: 1,670
Est. Annual Cost: $33.0M
North Fork Correctional Center
EmptyOperator: CoreCivic
Location: Sayre
Beds: 2,600
Cimarron Correctional Facility
ClosedOperator: CoreCivic
Location: Cushing
Beds: 1,700
Diamondback Correctional Facility
EmptyOperator: CoreCivic
Location: Watonga
Beds: 2,160
Total Financial Impact
Nearly $1 billion paid to private operators since 2004 — for facilities the state did not own. Then $312 million more in 2025 to purchase Lawton CF. Total beds across all six facilities: 12,812.
Prison Labor Expose
Between 2014 and 2020, private companies operated call centers inside Oklahoma prisons. They paid DOC the federal minimum wage — but inmates received a fraction of that, with DOC pocketing the difference.
$5.80/hr
The Gap DOC Keeps
| Company | Inmates | DOC Rate | Inmate Pay | 2-Year Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TruEnergy (Greenwave Concepts)McKinney, TX | 110 | $3.15 | $1.45 | $2,846,297 |
| ProComNew Jersey | 133 | $3.25 | $1.45 | $1,522,966 |
| Memory Lane (Yearbook Project) | --- | $7.25 | $1.45 | $629,740 |
| Records Conversion | --- | $7.25 | $1.45 | $556,280 |
| Case Energy PartnersDallas, TX | --- | $3.65 | $1.45 | $311,712 |
| Air Comfort Solutions | --- | $7.25 | $1.45 | $298,265 |
| Quantus | --- | $7.25 | $1.45 | $142,151 |
| Total (2 Years) | $6,307,411 | |||
Program Shutdown
Programs shut down after investigation revealed an inmate used a prison call center to post child pornography to social media.
Bloomberg Campaign Connection
ProCom's Oklahoma call centers — staffed by incarcerated women — were used by the Mike Bloomberg 2020 presidential campaign through a third-party vendor. The Intercept broke the story in December 2019. Bloomberg's campaign terminated ProCom's contract after the exposure.
Structural Findings
Seven patterns that define how money moves through Oklahoma’s prison-industrial complex. These are not isolated incidents — they are structural features of the system.
Vertical Integration — H.I.G. Capital Double Play
H.I.G. Capital profits from both bad food (Trinity) AND the commissary spending that results (Keefe). The $74M Trinity food contract would have funneled money through prison food and commissary back to the same private equity firm.
Captive Market Monopolies — Securus/Platinum Equity
Securus holds monopolies on DOC phone service, tablet content, messaging, and money transfers through JPay. No competition, no price pressure.
Labor Arbitrage — The $5.80/Hour Gap
Companies paid DOC $7.25/hr (minimum wage) for inmate labor. DOC paid inmates $1.45/hr. DOC kept $5.80/hr per worker — subsidizing corporate call centers while incarcerated people earned less than $28/month.
Site Commissions as Incentive Corruption
DOC awarded phone contracts to the highest site commission bidder. Under GTL, Oklahoma received 50% of profits — a structural incentive to maximize call volume and keep rates high. FCC eliminated this in 2024.
Death and Profit — Turn Key Health
Turn Key grew 87% per year from 2014-2019 while generating 160 lawsuits and 50+ deaths nationally, with 71 lawsuits in Oklahoma alone. The OK Supreme Court then granted the company sovereign immunity in March 2025.
Political Economy of Private Prisons
GEO Group donated $104,000 to Oklahoma legislators since 2014 and $25,000 to a governor's inauguration. The same legislators subsequently appropriated $312M to purchase GEO's Lawton prison.
Nearly $1 Billion for Facilities the State Did Not Own
Oklahoma paid CoreCivic and GEO Group nearly $1 billion since 2004, then paid $312M more in 2025 to purchase the last private prison. The state rented its own prison infrastructure for 20+ years and then bought it.