Virginia no longer has any privately operated state prisons. The Virginia Department of Corrections took over the Lawrenceville Correctional Center from the GEO Group on August 1, 2024, ending the commonwealth’s only private state prison contract, and a 2025 law now bars any new private prison or jail contract from taking effect without General Assembly approval. Private companies still run immigration detention facilities inside Virginia, but those operate under federal contracts and follow a separate track from the state system.
What the 2025 Law Changed
Senator Adam Ebbin’s SB 1283, signed by Governor Abigail Spanberger on March 21, 2025 and effective July 1, 2025, stripped the corrections director and regional jail authorities of the authority to contract with private companies to run prisons or jails.1Virginia Public Access Project. SB1283 Management, custody, and security functions can now be handed to a private operator only if the General Assembly specifically approves the contract.
The law also renamed the 1991 Corrections Private Management Act to the Corrections Private Services Act, reflecting the narrower role private companies are now allowed to play. Contracts for food, medical care, transportation, construction, maintenance, and educational programming are not restricted; the private-operator ban applies to running the facility itself.1Virginia Public Access Project. SB1283
The older statutory framework, codified as Chapter 18 of Title 53.1 of the Code of Virginia, always kept certain decisions in state hands regardless of who ran the facility: calculating release and parole dates, granting or revoking sentence credits, approving work release and furloughs, and inmate discipline involving discretionary judgment.2Virginia Code Commission. Corrections Private Management Act Those limits remain, but the bigger practical change is that no private company is running a Virginia prison to apply them to.
Why Virginia Took Over Lawrenceville
The Lawrenceville Correctional Center opened in 1998 under private management, and the GEO Group ran it from 2003 until the state takeover in 2024.3Virginia Department of Corrections. VADOC Assumes Operations at Lawrenceville Correctional Center4Virginia Mercury. Virginia To Close Four Prisons, Reassume Control of Sole Private Prison At its peak it held more than 1,400 inmates. On paper, the arrangement saved money: a 2020 study commissioned by the General Assembly put the per capita daily cost at Lawrenceville at $51.55 under GEO, compared with roughly $70 at state-run prisons, and projected that state management would add about $9.3 million a year in operating costs.5Virginia Mercury. State Investigating After Overdoses, Death at Privately Run Lawrenceville Prison6WVTF. One State Senator’s Push To Close Virginia’s Only Private Prison
The conditions inside told a different story. Between August 2018 and October 2022, VADOC withheld roughly $4.3 to $4.5 million in payments to GEO for failing to meet contractual staffing requirements.4Virginia Mercury. Virginia To Close Four Prisons, Reassume Control of Sole Private Prison7Prison Legal News. Virginia Takes Back One Prison, GEO Group Closes Four More Seven inmates died at Lawrenceville in 2021, including a confirmed homicide and two suspected fatal overdoses.8Prison Legal News. Seven Prisoners Died in 2021, One Homicide, at Virginia’s Only Private Prison Twelve more died in 2022.9WTVR. Richard Robinson Obituary Between January 2021 and May 2022, the facility recorded 204 emergency calls, including 39 drug overdoses and 21 instances of prisoners found unresponsive. As of August 2022, Lawrenceville alone accounted for 55 percent of overdoses across Virginia’s roughly 50 state prisons, and Brunswick County officials called the contract a “failed business transaction.”
Contraband delivered by drone made the drug problem worse. A drone crashed on a private school next door to the prison in September 2021, and police recovered a backpack of drugs; two months later, two men were caught in the surrounding woods with a drone and contraband.8Prison Legal News. Seven Prisoners Died in 2021, One Homicide, at Virginia’s Only Private Prison GEO added restricted movement protocols and drone detection, but deaths continued into 2023.
Legislative efforts to end the contract had already failed once. Senator Ebbin’s 2021 bill to prohibit outsourcing inmate housing to for-profit corporations was defeated in committee.6WVTF. One State Senator’s Push To Close Virginia’s Only Private Prison4Virginia Mercury. Virginia To Close Four Prisons, Reassume Control of Sole Private Prison The decision to end it came from the executive branch in December 2023, when VADOC Director Chad Dotson, a Youngkin appointee, announced the state would assume control on August 1, 2024, citing public safety and staffing.10VPM. VADOC To Take Over Lawrenceville Correctional Center From GEO Group
What Happened After the State Took Over
The transition wasn’t cheap. Virginia hired 93 additional guards and budgeted $5.3 million in fiscal year 2024 for startup hiring and training, $24.5 million in fiscal year 2025 for final GEO payments and initial state operating costs, and $18.4 million in fiscal year 2026 for ongoing operations.11Virginia Secretary of Finance. DOC Transition Plan GEO’s security employees, who lacked Department of Criminal Justice Services certification, were invited to apply for state jobs and complete certification.
VADOC rolled out what it calls “The Virginia Model” at Lawrenceville, pairing behavioral incentives (expanded food options, upgraded mattresses, more programming, extended visitation) with quick consequences for rule violations. Between August 1, 2024 and June 14, 2025, the department reported a 100 percent reduction in confirmed drug overdoses and deaths, a 100 percent reduction in serious assaults on inmates, a 94 percent reduction in positive drug tests, and a 75 percent reduction in cell phone seizures at the facility.12Virginia Department of Corrections. VADOC Announces Expansion of Innovative Virginia Model Facilities VADOC extended the model to Buckingham, Dillwyn, and Greensville beginning September 1, 2025.13Virginia Department of Corrections. Management Information Summary Annual Report for FY Ended June 30, 2025
Immigration Detention Is a Separate System
The end of private state prisons in Virginia does not touch immigration detention, which runs under federal contracts. Two facilities in the commonwealth operate that way.
Farmville Detention Center
Open since 2010 in Prince Edward County, Farmville has a capacity of 736 beds and holds detainees under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.14Zacks. CXW Pending Acquisition of Farmville Facility In March 2024, the Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors voted to enter a new intergovernmental agreement with the Department of Homeland Security and a separate contract with Abyon, LLC for detention services; a coalition of legal and advocacy groups alleged the Board violated Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act by handling the vote in closed session.15National Immigration Project. Legal Groups Call on Prince Edward County To Void New Farmville Detention Center Contracts CoreCivic later entered a pending agreement to acquire the facility, with the transaction expected to close by July 1, 2025, and the underlying county-ICE contract running through March 2029. The detainee population more than doubled between October 2024 and May 2025, rising from 241 to 542.16WRIC. Detainees More Than Double at Farmville Detention Center Since October 2024
Caroline Detention Facility
The 336-bed Caroline Detention Facility near Bowling Green opened in 1999 as the Peumansend Creek Regional Jail and transitioned in March 2017 to holding federal detainees exclusively under an ICE contract.17Caroline Detention Facility. Caroline Detention Facility Under a 2018 intergovernmental service agreement, the federal government pays Caroline County $7 per detainee at a minimum rate of 224 people per day, generating more than $500,000 in annual revenue for the county. Food service and medical care at the facility are contracted to private companies.18VPM. Exploring the Impact of Virginia’s Two Immigration Detention Centers
The Augusta Correctional Center Fight
A closed state prison nearly became a new private-run detention site in early 2026. Internal ICE documents obtained by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit showed the agency considering the former Augusta Correctional Center in Craigsville, closed in July 2024, for use as a detention center, with an unnamed private operator in the discussions.19ACLU of Virginia. ACLU FOIA Litigation Reveals ICE Actively Considering Opening Six New Immigration Detention Centers
On January 16, 2026, outgoing Governor Youngkin directed the Department of General Services to sell the property to Moxie Asset Group, LLC for $3.25 million. Governor Spanberger reversed that directive after her inauguration and ordered a fresh review of all offers.20Virginia Mercury. As ICE Seeks To Expand Footprint in VA, Youngkin’s Final-Day Prison Sale Directive Draws Scrutiny The Augusta County Board of Supervisors formally opposed an ICE facility at the site, and on February 11, 2026, Board Chair Jeff Slaven said the property “will not be sold for the purposes of establishing an ICE detention center.”21WVTF. Augusta County Says No to ICE Facility
The Short Answer
Private companies used to run one Virginia state prison, and they no longer run any. The 2025 law puts the General Assembly in the way of any future private prison or jail contract, and private companies still working with the state are limited to services like food, medical care, transportation, construction, maintenance, and education. Immigration detention in Virginia is a federal matter and continues to involve private operators at Farmville and Caroline, and any attempt to convert a closed state facility to that use will face the same local political scrutiny that stopped the Augusta sale.