This "well actually" feels like it's in the same vein as tobacco companies funding cancer research. 30 seconds with Google shows that CoreCivic's Q1 earnings for 2026 are ~%50 higher than earnings reported for Q1 from last year. So yeah, they're getting rich off this.

My point isn't that they aren't making money. My point is that they aren't making 1.4 billion dollars on it.

It's not quite as impressive to say they've increased their profits 60m which gives a much different impression.