GEO GROUP INC

Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (WCC) was formed as a division of the Wackenhut Corporation in 1984 after George Zoley presented the idea of a separate prison management company to Wackenhut founder George Wackenhut. It was incorporated as a Wackenhut subsidiary in 1988. In July 1994, the company became a public company via an initial public offering.

In 2003, WCC management raised funds to repurchase all common stock held by G4S, and in 2004, the company changed its name to The GEO Group, Inc. In 2005, the company acquired Correctional Services Corporation (CSC) for $62 million in cash, and the assumption of $124 million in debt. The company sold CSC's juvenile services division to James Slattery, CSC's former CEO, for $3.75 million. Slattery renamed this business as Slattery's Youth Services International. In December 2008, the company opened the 654-bed Maverick County Detention Center in Eagle Pass, Texas.

On August 12, 2010, the company acquired Cornell Companies, formerly Cornell Corrections, for $730 million in stock and cash. In February 2011, GEO acquired BI Incorporated, provider of electronic offender-tracking equipment and services, founded in 1978 and based in Boulder, Colorado, for $415 million. At the time, BI was the exclusive U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) provider of Intensive Supervision and Appearance Program (ISAP) monitoring and supervision services. In summer 2018, this subsidiary received media attention for the $500 million in contracts it has received from ICE since 2004.

In 2015, GEO launched its Continuum of Care program to assist prisoners in returning to society. In 2016, the firm's revenues totaled $2 billion, and on April 4, 2017, GEO announced the closing of a $360 million cash purchase of Community Education Centers ("CEC"), which owned or managed more than 12,000 beds in the U.S., including over 7,000 community re-entry beds. It provided in-prison treatment services at over 30 government-operated facilities. In January 2020, local Pennsylvania lawmakers announced a potential plan to deprivatize the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, the last private prison in the state, with which GEO Group had a nine-year $495 million county contract. The lawmakers alleged that GEO Group had covered up liabilities at the facility.

In 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice announced its intention to phase out contracts with privately operated prisons. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it was reviewing its contracts with private firms, which operate several immigrant detention facilities. In the spring of 2017, officials of the Donald Trump administration said they would be reviewing this policy. In September 2019, California governor Gavin Newsom announced that he would terminate the California contract with GEO's Central Valley Modified Community Correctional Facility in McFarland.

In 2018, GEO Group entered into a collaboration with the National Federation of Federal Employees called Reentry Success DC, designed to enhance "GEO Group's pre- and post-release services by connecting returning citizens to gainful employment". The program is available to prisoners returning to Washington, D.C., from the Rivers Correctional Facility in North Carolina. By February 2020, the company had expanded the Continuum of Care program to 18 prisons. Later in 2020, the company also opened its Connection and Intervention Center in Idaho Falls, Idaho, for this purpose.

Since the beginning of the second Trump administration in January 2025, the GEO Group received $2.1 billion in federal contracts from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), far more than any other ICE contractor. In their 2025 annual report, the company noted that their new and expanded contracts represented "the largest amount of new business we have won in a single year in our Company’s history".

In 2026 it was reported that GEO Group employees and ICE employees had historically transitioned employment between the two organizations at high rates.