Private prisons in California no longer hold any state inmates. A 2019 law, Assembly Bill 32, barred the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation from signing or renewing contracts with for-profit prison operators starting January 1, 2020, and set a hard deadline of January 1, 2028, to remove every state inmate from any private facility. CDCR beat that deadline by years, closing its last private contract in May 2021. Privately operated federal immigration detention centers, however, still run in California, because federal courts ruled the state cannot shut them down.1California Legislative Information. AB 32 Detention Facilities
What AB 32 Prohibits
AB 32 works on two tracks. Penal Code Section 5003.1 targets CDCR directly: as of January 1, 2020, the department cannot enter into or renew any contract with a for-profit prison, whether that facility sits inside California or in another state. After January 1, 2028, no state inmate can be held in a private facility at all.1California Legislative Information. AB 32 Detention Facilities
Penal Code Sections 9500 through 9505 go further. They make it unlawful for anyone to operate a “private detention facility” within California, defined as any facility where people are incarcerated or involuntarily confined under a government contract by a private, for-profit company.2California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 9500 This language was written broadly enough to reach federal immigration detention, which triggered the lawsuit discussed below.
One safety valve exists in the CDCR provision. The department can renew or extend a private prison contract if doing so is necessary to comply with a court-ordered population cap.1California Legislative Information. AB 32 Detention Facilities California has not needed to use it.
Which Facilities Closed, and When
California started winding down private contracts before AB 32 even passed. Agreements with private prisons in Mississippi and Oklahoma ended as early as 2013 as the state worked to meet the federal population cap. The last out-of-state contract, with the La Palma Correctional Facility in Eloy, Arizona, ended in June 2019, when the final 33 California inmates were transferred back home.3California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Ends Contract with Private Prison
Inside California, seven in-state community correctional facilities operated by private companies closed between September 2019 and May 2021:
- Central Valley Modified CCF — September 2019
- Desert View Modified CCF — February 2020
- Golden State Modified CCF — March 2020
- Delano Modified CCF — August 2020
- McFarland Female Community Reentry Facility — September 2020
- Shafter Modified CCF — October 2020
- Taft Modified CCF — May 2021
With the Taft closure, California exited for-profit prison contracts entirely.4California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Reduction/Closure Information – Prison Closures A declining prison population made the quick exit possible. As of mid-2025, California’s adult institution population stood at roughly 90,600, well below the levels that once pushed the state to ship inmates across state lines.5California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Fall 2025 Population Projections
Why Immigration Detention Centers Are Still Private
AB 32’s broad language was meant to reach federal immigration detention, not only state prisons. That ambition ran into the Supremacy Clause. The GEO Group, a private prison company operating ICE detention centers in California, sued. In 2022 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, ruled that California cannot use AB 32 to shut down facilities operating under federal immigration contracts.6United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Geo Group v. Newsom
The court’s reasoning was direct. If California could ban the private detention facilities that Immigration and Customs Enforcement relies on, the state would effectively control how the federal government runs immigration enforcement. Forcing ICE to abandon its existing detention network and start over crossed the constitutional line between state and federal authority.6United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Geo Group v. Newsom
Privately operated immigration detention centers therefore continue to function in California. The GEO Group runs the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County and the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield, among others. These facilities hold people awaiting civil immigration hearings or removal proceedings, not people serving criminal sentences. They operate under federal detention standards, with on-site compliance reviews by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division.7U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Detention Management California has no regulatory authority over them.
What Private Companies Can Still Do Inside State Prisons
The ban targets facilities where a private company has primary responsibility for confining people. It does not sweep every private-sector contract out of the prison system. Penal Code Section 9502 preserves several categories, and the one that matters most for state prisons allows private vendors to provide educational, vocational, medical, and mental health services to inmates who remain in CDCR custody and under direct state supervision.1California Legislative Information. AB 32 Detention Facilities A private company can still run a vocational training program inside a state-operated prison, for example, as long as custody stays with the state.
Other Section 9502 carve-outs reach outside the prison system entirely. They cover juvenile treatment and rehabilitation facilities, civil mental health commitments, licensed residential care under the Health and Safety Code, school disciplinary detention, public health quarantine, and short-term holds by store security or private citizens making a lawful arrest.1California Legislative Information. AB 32 Detention Facilities The common thread across the exceptions is treatment, education, or very brief holds, not long-term incarceration run by a private operator.
Where Things Stand
For state inmates, the transition is done. CDCR houses everyone in government-run facilities, the last private prison contract ended in May 2021, and the 2028 statutory deadline is now a backstop rather than an operational concern. The court-order exception in Section 5003.1 remains on the books if overcrowding ever forces the issue again.
For federal detainees, private detention is still part of the picture. The Ninth Circuit drew a clear line in Geo Group v. Newsom: California controls its own prisons, but it cannot dictate how the federal government runs immigration detention. Private ICE facilities will keep operating in California for as long as the federal government chooses to contract for them, whatever state law says.