Taft Correctional Institution was a low-security federal prison for male inmates located in Taft,

Kern County, California Kern County is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 909,235. Its county seat is Bakersfield, California, Bakersfield. Kern County comprise ...

, owned by the

Federal Bureau of Prisons The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Justice that is responsible for the care, custody, and control of incarcerated individuals who have committed federal crimes; that i ...

(BOP) and operated by

Management and Training Corporation Management & Training Corporation or MTC is a contractor that manages private prisons and United States Job Corps centers, based in Centerville, Utah. MTC's core businesses are corrections, education and training, MTC medical, and economic & soci ...

under contract with the BOP. It also included a satellite prison camp for minimum-security male inmates. The facility opened in 1997 as the first private prison contract of the BOP; the contract was awarded to Wackenhut Corrections Corporation, and then operated the facility under the name of The GEO Group. In August 2016, Justice Department officials announced that the BOP would be phasing out its use of contracted facilities, on the grounds that private prisons provided less safe and less effective services with no substantial cost savings. The agency expects to allow current contracts on its thirteen remaining private facilities to expire. The facility was slated to close in 2019, but was extended several times into 2020. The congressman for the area,

Kevin McCarthy Kevin Owen McCarthy (born January 26, 1965) is an American politician, serving as Party leaders of the United States House of Representatives, House Minority Leader in the United States House of Representatives since 2019. A member of the Rep ...

, opposed the closure. The correctional institute closed on April 30, 2020.

Notable inmates

Jordan Belfort Jordan Ross Belfort (; born July 9, 1962) is an American entrepreneur, speaker, author, former stockbroker, and financial criminal. In 1999, he pleaded guilty to fraud and related crimes in connection with stock-market manipulation and running ...

Don Blankenship Donald Leon Blankenship (born March 14, 1950) is an American business executive and political candidate. He was chairman and CEO of the Massey Energy Company—the sixth-largest coal company (by 2008 production) in the United States—from 2000 ...

Tommy Chong Thomas B. Kin Chong (born May 24, 1938) is a Canadian-American actor, comedian, musician, activist. He is known for his marijuana-themed Cheech & Chong comedy albums and movies with Cheech Marin, as well as playing the character Leo on Fox's ' ...

Sunny Garcia Vincent Sennen "Sunny" Garcia (born January 14, 1970) is an American professional surfer. He grew up in Waianae, Hawaii and, after leaving school, debuted on the 1986 Gotcha Pro at Sandy Beach, Oahu, beating the 1984 champ Tom Carroll. His to ...

Vic Kohring Victor H. Kohring (August 2, 1958 – September 6, 2022) was an American politician who was a member of the Alaska House of Representatives. A Republican, he was elected to seven consecutive two-year terms beginning in 1994. Kohring represented W ...

Rudy Kurniawan Rudy Kurniawan (born 10 October 1976, in Jakarta, Indonesia) is an Indonesian convicted criminal and perpetrator of wine fraud. He was found to be offering more magnums of the limited edition 1947 Château Lafleur than had been produced, and ...

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References

{{Federal Bureau of Prisons Defunct prisons in California Buildings and structures in Kern County, California Management and Training Corporation 1997 establishments in California