Adams County Correctional Center at a glance
The Bureau of Prisons contract at Adams County Correctional Center expired on August 30, 2019, and CoreCivic has since run the prison at Natchez for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It is privately owned, not a county-run jail, and this page records its ten years as a federal contract prison. Nothing on it tells a reader how to write to, pay into or visit anyone held at Natchez, then or now.
| Official name | Adams County Correctional Center, CoreCivic’s and ICE’s name. This site’s address for the page still reads “adams-county-detention-center.” |
|---|---|
| Status | Former Bureau contract prison. Contract expired August 30, 2019; absent from the Bureau’s institution roster on September 18, 2026. |
| Operated by | CoreCivic, Inc., the owner, known as Corrections Corporation of America until November 2016 |
| Location | Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi |
| Security level | Low, in the Bureau’s contract-prison list as of April 7, 2016. CoreCivic classes the facility as medium security. |
| Held | Men who were not U.S. citizens: the contract covered up to 2,567 low-security, non-citizen adult men |
| Bureau relationship | Contract DJB1PC010, awarded April 1, 2009 under the Bureau’s eighth Criminal Alien Requirement solicitation; non-renewal announced May 1, 2019; expired August 30, 2019 |
| Now | ICE detention under an intergovernmental agreement between Adams County and ICE, run by CoreCivic (CoreCivic facility page, read September 18, 2026; ICE page, New Orleans Field Office, updated August 6, 2026). CoreCivic’s report for 2025 shows the ICE contract term running to May 2029, and ICE’s fiscal 2026 statistics (data through July 11, 2026) list it as a dedicated intergovernmental-agreement facility holding men. |
| Finding someone | Federal prisoners: the Bureau’s Inmate Locator. Immigration detainees: ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System. |
On this page
What happened to Adams County Correctional Center?
From the Inspector General’s 2016 audit and CoreCivic’s records:
- April 1, 2009. Contract DJB1PC010 awarded to Corrections Corporation of America, now CoreCivic (Audit Report 17-08 at pp. 1–2).
- August 1, 2009. A four-year base period began, followed by three two-year options; the prison opened that year (at pp. 1, 3).
- May 2012. A riot killed a correctional officer and injured about 20 staff and prisoners; a Bureau after-action report made 15 recommendations (at p. 3).
- July 2015. The second option carried the contract to July 2017, at a value near $468 million (at p. 1).
- April 7, 2016. Listed by the Bureau at low security, with 1,906 people (at p. 2).
- May 1, 2019. The Bureau announced it would not renew (CoreCivic Form 10-K for 2019).
- June 28 and July 18, 2019. An amendment let ICE use up to 660 beds, and an extension pushed the July 31 expiry to August 30.
- August 30, 2019. The contract expired, with about 600 ICE detainees already there under its amended terms (CoreCivic release, September 3, 2019). CoreCivic’s 2019 report also records $2.0 million of revenue that year for a performance bonus earned under the Bureau contract.
CoreCivic dates the start of the ICE agreement to August 29, 2019 in its release and to August 31 in its annual report. By 2020 CoreCivic had one Bureau contract prison left, at McRae in Georgia, which the Bureau called its last when it ended on November 30, 2022.
Where did the people held at Adams County go?
To Bureau institutions, as a group: the Bureau has said its prisoners from private prisons were all moved “to BOP locations without incident” (December 1, 2022). It named no destinations, and nor does this page.
The first stop is the Bureau’s Inmate Locator, searched by first and last name. The contract was for non-citizens, so a record showing a release may continue in ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System. Our inmate locator guide reads the Bureau’s screens; our page on the prisoner transfer treaty program covers serving a sentence in a home country.
What was Adams County Correctional Center?
A 75-acre prison at Natchez, owned by CoreCivic, with seven housing units, that opened in 2009 under the Bureau’s Criminal Alien Requirement program, which grew out of a five-year privatization demonstration Congress ordered in 1996 at Taft, California (Audit Report 17-08 at p. 2). Its population, the Inspector General wrote, “consists predominately of Mexican-nationals” (Audit Report 17-08 at p. 3). Adams County, whose name it bears, has been party to the ICE agreement since 2019 but has never owned or run it.
What did the Inspector General find?
Its December 2016 audit, covering April 2012 to March 2015, found at p. i that “CoreCivic’s execution of the contract’s requirements did not fully accomplish the BOP’s program goals in several respects.” Correctional post coverage fell below its level at the time of the riot in 19 of the 38 months that followed (also at p. i); in July 2015 only 4 of 367 staff spoke fluent Spanish (at p. ii); and between December 2012 and September 2015 the prison had a single physician for 434 days and a single dentist for 689 (at p. iii). The audit made nine recommendations (at p. iv).
Behind the staffing numbers, the auditors found that the Bureau paid entry-level officers $18.69 an hour, 48 percent more than CoreCivic’s $12.60, and that CoreCivic required no education beyond high school (at p. ii). Because CoreCivic reported staffing as payroll headcounts rather than full-time equivalents, the Bureau could have taken $1,927,307 in invoice deductions between July 2011 and July 2015, and did not (at p. iii).
The audit also compared grievance rights. CoreCivic’s policy gave a prisoner 7 days to file an informal grievance and 5 days for each later step, and the final word on most complaints belonged to the warden, a CoreCivic employee. Only “BOP-related” grievances, such as medical care at a Bureau institution before transfer, could go through the Bureau’s Administrative Remedy Program toward its General Counsel. The Inspector General called the gap “unjustifiably disparate treatment” and recommended added remedy procedures for contract prisons (at pp. 28–30).
Federal prisons still operating in Mississippi
Three, all at Yazoo City, holding 4,602 people in the Bureau’s population report of September 10, 2026: FCI Yazoo City Low, FCI Yazoo City Low II and FCI Yazoo City Medium. Our Mississippi federal prisons hub describes each. Placement belongs to the Bureau, and we favor none of them. For closures announced elsewhere, see our page on federal prison closures and deactivations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Adams County Correctional Center still a federal prison?
No. CoreCivic has held immigration detainees there for ICE since August 2019, when its Bureau of Prisons contract expired; the Bureau had announced in May that it would not renew. On September 18, 2026 the facility did not appear on the Bureau’s institution roster.
Is this the Adams County jail?
No. This page is about the privately owned prison CoreCivic runs at Natchez, which held federal prisoners under contract from 2009 to 2019. It has never been a county-run jail, and nothing on this page concerns any sheriff’s jail in Mississippi or in any other state’s Adams County.
When did the Bureau’s Adams County contract end?
On August 30, 2019, a month after its scheduled July 31 expiry; the Bureau had extended it on July 18. By then an amendment let ICE use up to 660 beds, and CoreCivic said it was already holding about 600 ICE detainees there.
Where do I look for someone who served time at Adams County?
The Bureau’s Inmate Locator comes first, searched by full name or register number; the Bureau says its prisoners from private prisons all went to its own facilities. The contract held non-citizen men, so a record showing release may lead on to ICE’s locator.
What happened in the May 2012 riot?
The riot killed one correctional officer, injured about 20 staff and prisoners, and led to convictions on murder and rioting charges. An FBI affidavit linked it to what prisoners saw as substandard food, inadequate medical care and disrespectful staff (Audit Report 17-08 at p. 3).
Can a former prisoner sue over conditions at a private contract prison?
Not usually under Bivens. In Minneci v. Pollard, 565 U.S. 118, 131 (2012), the Supreme Court held that a federal prisoner seeking damages from employees of a privately operated federal prison, for Eighth Amendment conduct of a kind state tort law typically covers, such as medical care, “must seek a remedy under state tort law.”
Where we can help
If a federal sentence served at Adams County left a problem that is still open, we can go over where things stand.
Call 843-620-1100 or contact us to arrange a paid one-hour consultation about a specific situation. Calls are answered 24 hours a day.
Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a federal criminal defense and post-conviction firm based in Columbia, South Carolina, practicing nationwide. Mentions of Mississippi places on this page do not imply an office or a lawyer there.
Sources and currency
CoreCivic records
- CoreCivic, Inc., Form 10-K for 2018, 2019 and 2025 (filed February 20, 2026), SEC EDGAR.
- CoreCivic Enters Into New Management Contract at the Adams County Correctional Center (September 3, 2019), and CoreCivic’s facility page.
Government and court records
- DOJ Office of the Inspector General, Audit Report 17-08 (December 2016), at pp. i–iv, 1–3 and 28–30; Pandemic Response Report 20-097 (August 2020), at p. i.
- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Adams County Correctional Center (updated August 6, 2026) and fiscal 2026 detention statistics (data through July 11, 2026).
- Minneci v. Pollard, 565 U.S. 118, 131 (2012).
- Federal Bureau of Prisons, BOP Ends Use of Privately Owned Prisons (December 1, 2022) and institution roster.
Sources reviewed September 18, 2026. If ICE or CoreCivic reports a change of use, this page will be updated.
Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026