BIG SPRING, Texas — Big Spring was home to a few privately owned prisons. Now, a few of them are closing because contracts were not renewed.
It's part of President Joe Biden's plan to close private prisons; however, the wheels to this plan were set in motion during the Obama administration before the Trump administration reversed course.
Now, inmates at the Big Spring CI and the Big Spring (Flightline) CI, two prisons owned by GEO Group, have been transferred out to other facilities out of the area. Where they have been transferred currently remains unknown.
At the beginning of 2021, there were approximately 152,000 people in federal prison. About 14,000 of those people were being held in privately managed facilities such as the Big Spring CI and Big Spring (Flightline) CI.
Big Spring officials were made aware of this situation back in January and were hopeful that there might be changes to prevent these closures, but nothing came to fruition over the course of the year.
One of the biggest impacts surrounding these closures has to do with job loss. Several hundred people are facing the prospect of unemployment by the end of the year once these facilities officially shut down.
As for what will become of the facilities in Big Spring? That is still up in the air at this point in time.
According to Big Spring officials, opening one of those facilities as an ICE immigrant detention center has been floated around, however, nothing has officially been set in stone at this time.