Private-prison blues

Pub date July 21, 2006
WriterG.W. Schulz
SectionPolitics Blog

By G.W. Schulz

Nashville is known mostly as a home for some of the best and worst artists country music has to offer. But the city has quietly played host to something else over the years – privatization. The Nashville business community is dominated in part by the nation’s largest privatization outfits, which earn lucrative contracts performing services for the public sector such as hospital and jail management.

Perhaps the biggest player in the Nashville business scene is the Corrections Corporation of America, which endured the popular wrath of lefty journalists several years ago and almost went bankrupt in the late 90s. CCA’s Tennessee neighbor, the Hospital Corporation of American, attracted slightly more attention recently when a certain prominent stockholder, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, was accused of conflicts of interest. Frist’s family helped found HCA, but the senator has insisted his investments haven’t compromised his capacity to legislate fairly.

But these days, after escaping headlines for a few years, CCA is back.