Taft Correctional Institution (Closed): Former BOP Prison

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

Taft Correctional Institution at a glance

Taft Correctional Institution is closed. The Bureau of Prisons finished moving every prisoner out of the federally owned, contractor-run institution at Taft, California in April 2020, after ground settlement cracked its buildings, and in a release dated July 1, 2026 it described Taft as “currently non-operational” and said it “will be permanently closed.” Taft was absent from the Bureau’s institution roster on September 18, 2026, and its old bop.gov page returned a 404. This page carries no mailing address, deposit instructions, visiting schedule or telephone number: the prison has held no one for six years.

Its history comes from a 2005 Bureau evaluation, a 2023 Inspector General audit and federal contract records, all named beneath the table.

Official name	Taft Correctional Institution (TCI) in the Bureau’s 2005 evaluation; “CI Taft” in the Inspector General’s 2023 audit; “Taft FCI” in the Bureau’s July 1, 2026 release
BOP facility code	TAF
Status	Closed. Every inmate transferred out by April 2020, with a closure date of April 30, 2020 in the Inspector General’s audit. The July 1, 2026 release says Taft “will be permanently closed.” No roster record, and a 404 on bop.gov, on September 18, 2026.
Location	Taft, California, about 115 miles north of Los Angeles
Security level	Low, with a minimum-security camp (Bureau evaluation, 2005); “Low-security, contract prison” (Inspector General, 2023)
Held	Men
Bureau region	Western Region
Built	1996 (Inspector General, 2023)
Bureau relationship	Federally owned, contractor operated. Wackenhut Corrections Corporation, renamed The GEO Group in 2003, ran it from 1998; Management & Training Corporation ran it under contracts awarded from April 25, 2007, the last of which ended April 30, 2020.
Now	Federal award records list maintenance and security services at the site through September 30, 2026, and a building-demolition contract there from January 2024 to August 2025.
Finding someone	Use the Bureau’s Inmate Locator

What happened to Taft Correctional Institution?

The ground under it moved: “Ongoing soil settlement led to structural damage,” in the Inspector General’s summary (at p. 17).

• February to May 2008. The Bureau paid for an evaluation of structural distress at Taft, the earliest such entry we found in federal award records.
• 2019. After a contractor assessed repair options, the Attorney General ordered the prison vacated because “the risk to staff and inmates for continued occupancy was deemed too great and it is more cost effective to complete the repairs when vacant” (Report 23-064 at p. 39).
• October 9, 2019. The first of three closure notices filed with California’s Employment Development Department for the Taft operation is dated this day, covering 344 employees with an effective date of November 23, 2019. Notices dated January 31 and March 23, 2020 moved the effective date to March 31 and then April 30, 2020.
• March 10, 2020. Emergency shoring for one building, recorded as Building P.
• April 30, 2020. The last contract for managing and operating the prison ended; “The BOP completed transferring all inmates” that month (at p. 39).
• June 1, 2020 onward. Contracts for maintenance and security at the empty site, running through September 30, 2026. In the first 25 months the Bureau reported almost $8.6 million in contracted security, maintenance and utility costs (at p. 18).
• April 14, 2022. Inspector General staff visited and documented “significant structural damage caused by ongoing ground settlement” (the office’s web presentation on Taft). Crack monitors placed throughout the buildings were showing, month by month, “ongoing movement, including openings and closings” (at p. 39).
• March 2023. The Bureau told the Inspector General it had “determined repairs were not feasible” and would demolish some structures, then study the soil (at p. 39).
• January 22, 2024 to August 28, 2025. A contract for building demolition at the site.
• July 1, 2026. The Bureau’s facility-closures release listed “Taft FCI” among six closures and said: “Minimal staff will be affected at La Tuna FSL and Taft FCI, as both facilities are currently non-operational; however, each facility will be permanently closed.”

It also named FCI Beaumont Low, FCI Big Spring, FCI La Tuna, the camp at FMC Lexington and FCI Petersburg Low.

Where are the people who were held at Taft Correctional Institution?

Not at Taft, and not since April 2020, when the Bureau moved them into its other institutions; the Inspector General found the Bureau “was able to absorb the CI Taft population” (at p. 39). No list of destinations was published, and this page names none; see prison transfers.

Look on the Bureau’s Inmate Locator, by register number or by first and last name together, trying compound surnames in parts. It shows an institution only while no release date is recorded; after that the record gives a status such as “Not in BOP Custody as of:” with a date. A city such as Sacramento in a result often means a reentry office; our locator walkthrough shows each screen.

What was Taft Correctional Institution?

A prison the government owned and paid companies to run. The Bureau’s 2005 evaluation gives its origin: “In 1996, the United States Congress directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to operate the federal prison at Taft, California as a demonstration of prison privatization” (at vii), citing the fiscal 1997 omnibus appropriations act, Public Law 104-208. Its performance-based contract was, the Bureau said, “the first of its kind in corrections” (at vii).

Wackenhut Corrections Corporation ran it from 1998, becoming The GEO Group in 2003 (at 1 and n.1). In 2005 the Bureau described Taft as “the only secure, private prison to incarcerate general population inmates,” its other contract prisons holding special groups such as noncitizens or people sentenced in the District of Columbia (at 1–2). It measured Taft against three of its own prisons of the same design, opened at about the same time at Elkton, Ohio, Forrest City, Arkansas, and Yazoo City, Mississippi (at 2), and found that “TCI had higher counts than expected for most forms of misconduct, including all types of misconduct considered together” (at ix).

Management & Training Corporation followed, under a 2007 award for operating a government-owned, contractor-operated institution at Taft, and held the work until April 30, 2020. In 2019 Taft held as many as 2,095 men against a rated capacity of 1,904: “low-security criminal alien offenders and minimum-security U.S. person offenders” (at p. 39).

Earlier versions of this page called Taft a private prison owned by its operator, opened in 1997. The records say federally owned, built in 1996, and run by Wackenhut from 1998.

Why was Taft never reopened?

Cost, first. Repairs were estimated at close to $200 million (at p. 39); the Bureau received $27 million, spent part on design, and asked Congress to cancel the rest as “uniquely expensive,” which Congress declined to do (at p. 18 n.19). The budget submissions, the Inspector General wrote, “indicate that the BOP, at the direction of DOJ and OMB, would not rehabilitate and reopen CI Taft” (at p. 18).

Then the contract model. “When this facility was opened, it was required to be contract-run,” the audit notes (at p. 39), while Executive Order 14006 of January 26, 2021 provided that “The Attorney General shall not renew Department of Justice contracts with privately operated criminal detention facilities, as consistent with applicable law” (§ 2). The Bureau announced on December 1, 2022 that it “has ended all contracts with privately-managed prisons,” the last of them at McRae, Georgia, on November 30, 2022. The Inspector General said the two requirements would have to be reconciled before any reopening (at p. 39).

That executive order was itself revoked on January 20, 2025, by Executive Order 14148 (§ 2(q)). Taft stayed shut, and on July 1, 2026 the Bureau said it will be permanently closed.

Federal prisons still operating in California

Our California federal prisons hub lists the ten institutions on the roster we queried September 18, 2026, which held 11,196 people on the Bureau’s September 10 population report, and the state’s other departures, the former FCI Dublin and FCI Terminal Island. The Bureau alone decides where a person is held; we recommend no institution. See also major federal prison closures and deactivations.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where we can help

We work with people in federal custody on problems where they are held now; see problems inside a federal prison, how to file a BP-9 and compassionate release.

Talk Through a Custody Problem. You leave knowing whether this is grievable, and how long there is to act. Conditions inside are sometimes evidence, and the administrative clock runs whether or not anyone files.

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Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a federal criminal defense and post-conviction firm based in Columbia, South Carolina, practicing nationwide. Mentions of California places on this page do not imply an office or a lawyer there.

Sources and currency

Bureau of Prisons records

• Federal Bureau of Prisons Announces Facility Closures and Operational Changes, July 1, 2026.
• Our Locations, Federal Bureau of Prisons, queried September 18, 2026; the Taft page returned HTTP 404 the same day.
• BOP Ends Use of Privately Owned Prisons, Federal Bureau of Prisons, December 1, 2022.
• Evaluation of the Taft Demonstration Project: Performance of a Private-Sector Prison and the BOP, Federal Bureau of Prisons, October 7, 2005, at vii, ix, 1 and 2.

DOJ Office of the Inspector General

• Audit of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Efforts to Maintain and Construct Institutions, Report 23-064, May 2023, at pp. 17, 18 and 39.
• CI Taft, the Inspector General’s web presentation of its April 14, 2022 site visit.

Laws, orders and public records

• Pub. L. No. 104-208 (Sept. 30, 1996), cited in the Bureau’s 2005 evaluation.
• Exec. Order No. 14006, 86 Fed. Reg. 7483 (Jan. 29, 2021), § 2; revoked by Exec. Order No. 14148, § 2(q), 90 Fed. Reg. 8237, 8238 (Jan. 28, 2025).
• WARN Report for 7/1/2019 – 6/30/2020, California Employment Development Department. Three Taft closure entries, notice dates October 9, 2019, January 31, 2020 and March 23, 2020.
• USAspending.gov awards DJBWXRHX310021, DJB1PC009, 15B70020CV3T10005, 15BPCC20C00000034, 15BFA024C00000009 and 15B70026F00000022, read September 18, 2026.

Sources reviewed September 2026. Any Bureau decision on the Taft land will be added when it is published.

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026