Taft Correctional Institution (Closed)

Taft Correctional Institution (CI Taft, sometimes listed as FCI Taft) was a low-security federal prison in Taft, California, in Kern County southwest of Bakersfield. It was one of the Bureau of Prisons' most watched experiments: a BOP-owned institution run by private contractors for its entire operating life. The Bureau emptied it in April 2020 and, after six years sitting idle, announced its permanent closure on July 1, 2026. This page is maintained as a historical record of the facility.

The private-prison experiment

Taft opened in 1997 as the federal government's test case for contractor-operated prisons, run for the BOP by private operators, most recently Management and Training Corporation (MTC). At its height the complex held roughly 2,000 men across a low-security institution and an adjacent minimum-security camp, drawing comparisons with BOP-run facilities in cost and performance studies that fed the national debate over prison privatization.

Wind-down and closure

The Bureau completed transferring everyone out of Taft in April 2020, as the contract era wound down and ground-subsidence problems at the site raised questions about the facility's long-term safety and viability. The facility then sat vacant for six years while its future was debated, a significant economic question for the city of Taft, which had counted on the prison as a major employer.

On July 1, 2026, the Bureau of Prisons ended the question, listing Taft among six facilities permanently closed as the agency confronted extreme staffing shortages and a maintenance backlog it put at more than $4 billion. Because the facility was already empty, the closure affected minimal staff.

Legacy

Taft's arc, from privatization showcase to six years of vacancy to quiet permanent closure, tracks the broader retreat from contractor-operated federal prisons and the Bureau's 2026 consolidation wave, which also closed FCI La Tuna, FCI Big Spring, and others.