Private Prison Operator Surfaces As Tennessee High School Sponsor

Parent questions company’s participation in midst of federal probe and years of state fines.

Image: A t-shirt supporting the Ravenwood High School Band in Williamson County features a logo from private prison company CoreCivic, which is sponsoring the group. (Photo: Submitted)

By Sam Stockard [The Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –

Williamson County parent Lisa Salmon says she was caught off guard when she saw logos for Tennessee’s private prison operator on band T-shirts and the football stadium scoreboard at Ravenwood High School.

Her first thought was that a company under investigation for civil rights violations at a state prison shouldn’t be a sponsor for high school groups and events. Yet “CoreCivic: Better the public good” was prominently displayed on the high school’s electronic scoreboard this football season. It also adorned shirts sold for the Ravenwood marching band.

School sponsorships are nothing out of the ordinary for local businesses. CoreCivic’s headquarters are located in Brentwood, and donations to Williamson County high schools would be typical for most businesses.

But the company has been a lightning rod for controversy since its founding in the mid-1980s as Corrections Corporation of America, and through the decades, lawmakers have questioned the morality of the state contracting with a company that profits from prison inmates.

Over the last few years, objections have grown because of CoreCivic’s failure to properly run state prisons. The shortcomings, which mainly involve failure to hire enough officers to oversee inmates, have been detailed in state comptroller reports. High vacancy rates and heavy turnover lead to a litany of problems such as gang activity, violence and drug use, according to those reports.

Yet Tennessee’s Department of Correction commissioner continues to call the company a partner in running state prisons and foresees no change in the relationship.

In addition to the federal probe, which alleges numerous civil rights violations at Trousdale Turner Correctional Facility, CoreCivic has failed to meet contractual requirements with the state, causing it to lose some $29 million in liquidated damages since 2022, even as it makes $240 million annually running four state prisons.

When she saw the sponsorships, Salmon was familiar with CoreCivic’s problems from reading news reports and brought the matter to the attention of Ravenwood High and Williamson County Schools officials.

“It basically whitewashes what they do in the eyes of society,” Salmon told the Tennessee Lookout.

She recently made her case to the Williamson County School Board but got little feedback. Salmon also received word from Ravenwood High Principal Pam Vaden that CoreCivic’s sponsorships don’t violate school or district policies.

Vaden told her all advertising on school property must be “age appropriate” and meet school district codes of conduct and policies, such as prohibiting discrimination against a protected class. The school won’t allow ads for illegal products or activities, and the CoreCivic ads don’t involve illegal activities for minors or discrimination.

“When a business makes a donation to the schools and purchases a banner or advertisement, it isn’t our practice to further vet the internal practices of those individual businesses before accepting banner purchase. Showcasing the banners at our events is a demonstration of the business’s support of our schools and not an indication of our school’s support of the businesses,” Vaden said in an email.

Asked why CoreCivic is paying for sponsorships at Ravenwood High School, spokesperson Ryan Gustin said in an email, “CoreCivic believes in giving back to our communities and providing economic value to our employees, government partners, communities and investors. We are proud to call Middle Tennessee home for our corporate Facility Support Center. Many of our employees and their families live in the local area. It is not uncommon for us to provide corporate sponsorships to a variety of community organizations.”

Gustin declined to provide a list of other community organizations or schools that receive CoreCivic support.

But the CoreCivic Foundation, a separate entity from the main company, gives heavily to local nonprofits. For example, its 2022 tax return shows it raised about $730,000 in revenue, mainly from a golf event, and donated nearly $500,000 to Nashville-area groups, including $250,000 to the United Way of Metropolitan Nashville, $25,000 each to Play Like a Girl and The Next Door, $12,500 to the Nashville Youth Basketball Association, and $10,000 each to several organizations, such as Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee, Crossbridge, Cul2Vate, Dismas House, Family Reconciliation Center, Fannie Battle, Huggs TN, Leaving the Cocoon, Men of Valor and Nashville Children’s Alliance.

The Ravenwood High School band sponsorship also contains the logo for CoreCivic Foundation while the one on the football stadium scoreboard doesn’t differentiate.

Separately, CoreCivic is a major donor to top lawmakers, and Gov. Bill Lee is its biggest recipient.

Salmon says the scenario for CoreCivic sponsorships would be much different if a company official were to pay for them and have a personal name listed instead of the name of a company under constant criticism for prison operations.

The publicly traded company has multiple state and federal detention contracts, and Salmon points out using CoreCivic funds to pay for school sponsorships with money from government contracts “comes close to crossing the line as to what is appropriate at Ravenwood.”

In light of the company’s shortcomings, Salmon encouraged Ravenwood and its parent teacher organization to do a better job of reviewing sponsors, “beyond looking at the business name and logos.”