“Just a few months ago, things were looking very bleak for the private prison industry. In mid-August, the Justice Department’s inspector general issued a report finding that privately operated federal prisons are more dangerous than those managed by the federal Bureau of Prisons and need more oversight. Within a week, the Justice Department announced it would phase out private prisons to house federal inmates. Later that month, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would evaluate whether detention operations conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement should move in the same direction. Not surprisingly, shares of the nation’s private prison companies tanked.”