Great Plains Correctional Facility at a glance
Great Plains Correctional Facility no longer holds anyone for the Bureau of Prisons: the Bureau let GEO Group’s contract there expire on May 31, 2021. Since May 2023 the Oklahoma Department of Corrections has run the Hinton buildings as a state prison, Great Plains Correctional Center, on a lease from GEO. Anyone held there today is a state prisoner, traced through state records rather than the Bureau’s. The page carries no address, deposit instructions, visiting rules or telephone number for the prison under either operator.
| Official name | Great Plains Correctional Facility (GEO Group’s name). The Oklahoma Department of Corrections calls it Great Plains Correctional Center, facility code GPCC. |
|---|---|
| Status | Former Bureau contract prison. The contract’s base period expired May 31, 2021; absent from the Bureau’s institution roster on September 18, 2026. |
| Operated by | The GEO Group, Inc., which owns the facility, for the whole of the Bureau contract |
| Location | Hinton, Caddo County, Oklahoma |
| Security level | Low, in the Bureau’s list of its contract prisons as of April 7, 2016. GEO’s annual reports classed it as minimum security. |
| Held | Men who were not U.S. citizens, under a Criminal Alien Requirement contract |
| Bureau relationship | Contract prison: reactivation contract announced December 30, 2014; intake from early June 2015; renewal option declined March 5, 2021; contract ended May 31, 2021 |
| Now | An Oklahoma state prison, run by the state Department of Corrections under a lease from GEO since May 2023 |
| Finding someone | Federal prisoners: the Bureau’s Inmate Locator. State prisoners: the Oklahoma Department of Corrections’ offender lookup. |
On this page
What happened to Great Plains?
Dates come from GEO Group’s annual reports to the SEC unless another record is named.
- October 2010. The prison went idle.
- December 30, 2014. GEO announced a Bureau contract reactivating the 1,940-bed facility, for ten years with options.
- Early June 2015. Federal prisoners began arriving.
- April 7, 2016. The Bureau listed it at low security, holding 1,639 people (Inspector General Audit Report 17-08 at p. 2).
- January 26, 2021. Executive Order 14006: “The Attorney General shall not renew Department of Justice contracts with privately operated criminal detention facilities, as consistent with applicable law” (86 Fed. Reg. 7483, § 2).
- March 5, 2021. The Bureau declined the renewal option.
- May 31, 2021. The base period expired; GEO recorded the facility as idled that year.
- May 5 to 8, 2023. The state took the keys and its first prisoners arrived (state release, May 10, 2023).
It was the last of five GEO Bureau contracts to end in the first half of 2021, after D. Ray James (January 31), Rivers and Moshannon Valley (March 31) and Reeves County I and II (terminated May 10).
The state’s release of April 24, 2023 says the facility “was depopulated in 2017 when its contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons ended.” GEO’s reports for 2017 through 2020 each still name the Bureau as its customer there, and a state release sixteen days later quoted a legislator welcoming the prison back “after two years.” GEO’s filings control on this point: the federal years ended in 2021, not 2017.
The state’s April 2023 announcement gave its reasons for taking the site: a 66-month lease that it said would save $3.7 million a year, and an exit from North Fork Correctional Center at Sayre, about two hours west of its headquarters, which it had leased from CoreCivic since 2016 and struggled to staff. It put the Hinton facility’s operational capacity at 2,040, a hundred more than the 1,940 beds GEO reports.
Where did the people held at Great Plains go?
Into the Bureau’s own prisons, as a group. On December 1, 2022 the Bureau said that “[a]ll BOP inmates previously housed in these private prisons have been safely transferred to BOP locations without incident.” It published no list, and this page names no one.
Search the Bureau’s Inmate Locator with a first and last name, trying each part of a hyphenated surname; a search on a surname alone fails outright, and a result of zero proves nothing. The contract held non-citizens, and once a release is recorded the screen shows its date, not any immigration facility that followed. Our inmate locator guide walks through the screens. For anyone held at Hinton since 2023, search the Oklahoma offender lookup.
What was Great Plains Correctional Facility?
A prison at Hinton that, by the state’s account, opened in 1991 and held prisoners for Oklahoma and Arizona before the Bureau arrived; GEO dates the additions that brought it to 1,940 beds to November 2008. Under the Bureau it was a Criminal Alien Requirement prison: the Bureau “places low security, criminal aliens serving sentences for 90 months or less in contracted facilities,” in the Inspector General’s words (Audit Report 17-08 at p. 1). Our guide to low-security prisons explains the classification.
On the Bureau’s 2016 list it was low security; every GEO annual report we read for 2014 through 2020 calls it minimum. The Bureau’s own history, in its December 2022 release, is that it began sending “Low security inmates with specialized needs, such as sentenced criminal aliens” to private prisons in the mid-1980s and held contracts with 15 of them over the years.
This page used to call Great Plains a low-security federal prison, in the present tense, and “one of the few remaining private facilities contracted to house federal inmates.” Neither has been true since May 31, 2021.
Federal prisons still operating in Oklahoma
Two: FCI El Reno and FTC Oklahoma City, which held 2,393 people between them in the Bureau’s population report of September 10, 2026. Our Oklahoma federal prisons hub describes both. The Bureau decides where a sentence is served, so we recommend neither. Our page on federal prison closures and deactivations tracks the institutions the Bureau has shut.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Great Plains Correctional Facility still a federal prison?
No. Its Bureau contract expired on May 31, 2021, and the Bureau’s institution roster did not list it on September 18, 2026. Since May 2023 the buildings have held Oklahoma state prisoners, under a lease the state took from GEO Group.
Who runs the prison at Hinton now?
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections, which announced a 66-month lease from GEO Group on April 24, 2023 and received its first prisoners on May 8 that year. GEO’s facility page, read on September 18, 2026, still names the state as the operator.
Why did the Bureau stop using Great Plains?
GEO’s annual report records only that the Bureau gave notice on March 5, 2021 that the renewal option would not be exercised, 38 days after Executive Order 14006 told the Attorney General not to renew private detention contracts. We found no Bureau statement giving a reason specific to Great Plains.
How do I locate a person who served time at Great Plains?
For the federal years, the Bureau’s Inmate Locator, searched by full name or register number; the Bureau says everyone it held in private prisons went to its own facilities. A man released to an immigration detainer shows as released. For the state years, use Oklahoma’s offender lookup.
Was the executive order behind the non-renewal revoked?
Yes. Executive Order 14148 revoked Executive Order 14006 on January 20, 2025. That did not bring the Bureau back to Hinton: the state has leased the facility since 2023, GEO’s report for 2025 lists a third-party tenant there, and it was absent from the Bureau’s roster in September 2026.
Does GEO Group still own the Hinton prison?
On its own filings, yes. GEO’s annual report for 2025, filed February 25, 2026, treats the facility as owned because GEO owns the buildings and improvements and holds a long-term ground lease. The state’s April 2023 release also names GEO as the owner.
Where we can help
If a question from a federal sentence served at Great Plains is still open, such as how the time was computed, we can go through it with you.
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 Oklahoma places on this page do not imply an office or a lawyer there.
Sources and currency
GEO Group filings and pages
- The GEO Group, Inc., Form 10-K for 2014, 2015, 2017, 2020, 2021 (filed Feb. 28, 2022) and 2025 (filed Feb. 25, 2026), SEC EDGAR; the 2018 and 2019 reports were also checked.
- Great Plains Correctional Facility, GEO Group facility page.
Government records
- Oklahoma Department of Corrections, lease announcement (April 24, 2023), ODOC opens Great Plains Correctional Center (May 10, 2023) and Orange Alert facility codes (last modified July 29, 2026).
- DOJ Office of the Inspector General, Audit Report 17-08 (December 2016), at pp. 1–2.
- Executive Order 14006, 86 Fed. Reg. 7483; Executive Order 14148, 90 Fed. Reg. 8237.
- Federal Bureau of Prisons, BOP Ends Use of Privately Owned Prisons (December 1, 2022) and institution roster.
Sources reviewed September 18, 2026. If the state lease or GEO’s ownership changes, this page will be updated.
Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026