Washington has a toggle switch for the private prison industry, and it sits in the Attorney General's office.
When a new administration takes office and issues a DOJ directive ordering the Bureau of Prisons to phase out private facility contracts — as happened in January 2021 — shares of the two dominant operators, GEO and CXW, can shed a third of their value in weeks. When the next administration reverses that directive — as happened in early 2025 — those same shares rip back. The underlying business barely changes. The federal policy signal does all the work.