CoreCivic, Inc. (CXW)

ITEM 2. MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS.

The following discussion should be read in conjunction with the financial statements and notes thereto appearing elsewhere in this quarterly report on Form 10-Q, or Quarterly Report. In this Quarterly Report we use the terms, the "Company," "CoreCivic," "we," "us," and "our" to refer to CoreCivic, Inc. and its subsidiaries unless context indicates otherwise.

This Quarterly Report contains statements as to our beliefs and expectations of the outcome of future events that are forward-looking statements as defined within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. All statements other than statements of current or historical fact contained herein, including statements regarding our future financial position, business strategy, budgets, projected costs and plans, and objectives of management for future operations, are forward-looking statements. The words "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "plan," "projects," "will," and similar expressions, as they relate to us, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. These include, but are not limited to, the risks and uncertainties associated with:

•
changes in government policy, legislation and regulations that affect utilization of the private sector for corrections, detention, and residential reentry services, in general, or our business, in particular, including, but not limited to, the continued utilization of our correctional and detention facilities by the federal government as a consequence of presidential executive orders, changes in how the federal government, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, elects to use our detention capacity or otherwise procures alternative detention capacity, and the impact of any changes to immigration reform and sentencing laws (we do not, under longstanding policy, lobby for or against policies or legislation that would determine the basis for, or duration of, an individual's incarceration or detention);

•
our ability to obtain and maintain correctional, detention, and residential reentry facility management contracts because of reasons including, but not limited to, sufficient governmental appropriations, contract compliance, negative publicity and effects of inmate disturbances;

•
changes in the privatization of the corrections and detention industry, the acceptance of our services, the timing of the opening of new facilities and the commencement of new management contracts (including the extent and pace at which new contracts are utilized), as well as our ability to utilize available beds;

•
our ability to successfully activate idle facilities in a timely manner in order to meet the growth in demand for our facilities and services from the federal government that has occurred as a result of changes in policies and actions of the current presidential administration, and to realize projected returns resulting therefrom;

•
general economic and market conditions, including, but not limited to, the impact governmental budgets can have on our contract renewals and renegotiations, per diem rates, and occupancy;

•
fluctuations in our operating results because of, among other things, changes in occupancy levels; competition; contract renegotiations or terminations including as a result of a change in facility ownership; inflation and other increases in costs of operations, including a rise in labor costs; fluctuations in interest rates and risks of operations;

•
government budget uncertainty, the impact of debt ceilings and government shutdowns, including partial shutdowns, and changing budget priorities;

•
our ability to successfully identify and consummate future development and acquisition opportunities, integrate their operations, and realize projected returns resulting therefrom;

•
our ability to successfully consummate the sales of additional company-owned assets, including the potential sale of additional facilities to ICE, on a timely basis and on commercially favorable terms; and

•
the availability of debt and equity financing on terms that are favorable to us, or at all.

Any or all of our forward-looking statements in this Quarterly Report may turn out to be inaccurate. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy, and financial needs. Our statements can be affected by inaccurate assumptions we might make or by known or unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including the risks, uncertainties, and assumptions described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025 (including those risks and uncertainties described under Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC, on February 20, 2026, or the 2025 Form 10-K, and in other reports, documents, and other information we file with the SEC from time to time. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. New risks and uncertainties arise from time to time, and it is impossible for us to predict these events or how they may affect us. We undertake no

22

obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements made in this Quarterly Report, except as may be required by law. All subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to us or persons acting on our behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements.

OVERVIEW

The Company

We are a diversified government-solutions company with the scale and experience needed to solve tough government challenges in flexible, cost-effective ways. We provide a broad range of solutions to government partners that help build safer, healthier, and more productive communities one person at a time through residential corrections, detention, and reentry management, complementary service offerings to the corrections industry that include pharmaceutical, transportation, and alternatives to incarceration, and government real estate solutions.

We are the nation's largest owner of partnership correctional, detention, and residential reentry facilities and one of the largest operators of such facilities in the United States. As of June 30, 2026, through our CoreCivic Residential segment, we operated 64 correctional, detention, and reentry facilities, 60 of which we owned or controlled via a long-term lease, with a total design capacity of approximately 72,000 beds. Through our CoreCivic Services segment, we provided mail order pharmacy services to over 600 correctional facilities, including correctional facilities owned or operated by CoreCivic, across 32 states, as well as transportation and electronic monitoring and case management services. In addition, through our CoreCivic Properties segment, we owned five properties held for lease to government agencies, with a total design capacity of approximately 8,000 beds.

In addition to providing fundamental residential services, our correctional, detention, and residential reentry facilities offer a variety of rehabilitation and educational programs, including basic education, faith-based services, life skills and employment training, and substance abuse treatment. These services are intended to help reduce recidivism and to prepare individuals in our care for their successful reentry into society upon their release. We also provide or make available to individuals in our care certain health care services (including medical, dental, and mental health services), food services, and work and recreational programs. We have been a flexible and dependable partner for government for over 40 years.

We are a Maryland corporation formed in 1983. Our principal executive offices are located at 5501 Virginia Way, Brentwood, Tennessee, 37027, and our telephone number at that location is (615) 263-3000. Our website address is www.corecivic.com. We make available on or through our website certain reports and amendments to those reports that we file with or furnish to the SEC in accordance with the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act. Such reports include our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, our Current Reports on Form 8-K and our definitive proxy statement. We make this information available on our website free of charge as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file the information with, or furnish it to, the SEC. In addition, we routinely post on the “Investors” page of our website news releases, announcements and other statements about our business and results of operations, some of which may contain information that may be deemed material to investors. Therefore, we encourage investors to monitor the “Investors” page of our website and review the information we post on that page. Information contained on our website is not incorporated by reference herein and is not part of this Quarterly Report. The SEC maintains a website that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC at the following address: www.sec.gov.

Upon his inauguration on January 20, 2025, President Trump issued nine executive actions intended to secure the borders of the United States and remove illegal immigrants, prioritizing those with criminal histories. These initial orders included the declaration of a national emergency at the United States southern border. Also included in these executive actions was the issuance of an executive order titled "Protecting the American People Against Invasion" which calls on the federal government to faithfully execute the immigration laws of the United States, including the removal of aliens, particularly those who threaten the safety of the American people. This executive order calls on the Secretary of Homeland Security to “take all appropriate action and allocate all legally available resources or establish contracts to construct, operate, control, or use facilities to detain removable aliens” and “take all appropriate actions to ensure the detention of aliens apprehended for violations of immigration law pending the outcome of their removal proceedings or their removal from the country, to the extent permitted by law.”

23

On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or OBBBA. OBBBA appropriates a total of $75 billion in mandatory funding to ICE for immigration enforcement activities and to increase detention capacity. Specifically, OBBBA appropriates $45 billion for single adult alien detention capacity and family residential center capacity. This funding is a significant increase in funding historically provided to ICE for border security and immigration detention. The funding will remain available through September 30, 2029, and is in addition to base annual appropriations during that time period. The additional funding is also being used by the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, to hire nearly 10,000 new ICE officers to implement the immigration enforcement initiatives. On June 10, 2026, President Trump signed into law an approximate $70 billion budget reconciliation bill, the "Secure America Act", which secures total funding to the DHS for ICE and Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, through September 30, 2029.

Given the legislative and executive actions mentioned above, among others, we believe the short-term growth opportunities of our business are particularly attractive as federal governmen

[Excerpt truncated for page length; source filing is linked above.]

ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS.

The following discussion should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes thereto appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, or this Annual Report. In this Annual Report, we use the term, the "Company," "CoreCivic," "we," "us," and "our" to refer to CoreCivic, Inc. and its subsidiaries unless context indicates otherwise. This discussion contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of certain factors, including, but not limited to, those described under "Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors" and included in other portions of this report.

OVERVIEW

We are a diversified government solutions company with the scale and experience needed to solve tough government challenges in flexible, cost-effective ways. Through three segments, CoreCivic Safety, CoreCivic Community, and CoreCivic Properties, we provide a broad range of solutions to government partners that serve the public good through corrections and detention management, a network of residential reentry centers to help address America's recidivism crisis, and government real estate solutions. We have been a flexible and dependable partner for government for over 40 years. Our employees are driven by a deep sense of service, high standards of professionalism and a responsibility to help government better the public good.

As of December 31, 2025, through our CoreCivic Safety segment, we operated 44 correctional and detention facilities, 40 of which we owned or controlled via a long-term lease, with a total design capacity of approximately 68,000 beds. Through our CoreCivic Community segment, we operated 20 residential reentry centers, which we owned or controlled via a long-term lease, with a total design capacity of approximately 4,000 beds. In addition, through our CoreCivic Properties segment, we owned five properties, with a total design capacity of approximately 8,000 beds. We are the nation's largest owner of partnership correctional, detention, and residential reentry facilities and one of the largest operators of such facilities in the United States. Our size and experience provide us with significant credibility with our current and prospective customers, and enable us to generate economies of scale in purchasing power for food services, health care and other supplies and services we offer to our government partners.

See "Part I, Item 1. Business – Overview" for a description of how we are organized.

Our Business

The solutions we provide to our federal customers continue to be a significant component of our business. We provide an essential governmental service, and believe our ability to provide flexible solutions and fulfill emergent needs of our federal customers would be very difficult and costly to replicate in the public sector.

Upon his inauguration on January 20, 2025, President Trump issued nine executive actions intended to secure the borders of the United States and remove illegal immigrants, prioritizing those with criminal histories. These initial orders included the declaration of a national emergency at the United States southern border. Also included in these executive actions was the issuance of an executive order titled "Protecting the American People Against Invasion" which calls on the federal government to faithfully execute the immigration laws of the United States, including the removal of aliens, particularly those who threaten the safety of the American people. This executive order calls on the Secretary of Homeland Security to “take all appropriate action and allocate all legally available resources or establish contracts to construct, operate, control, or use facilities to detain removable aliens” and “take all appropriate actions to ensure the detention of aliens apprehended for violations of immigration law pending the outcome of their removal proceedings or their removal from the country, to the extent permitted by law.” Effectively, this executive order requires an increase in interior enforcement by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and directs the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, to detain those arrested by ICE, pending their removal or adjudication.

63

In addition, on January 20, 2025, President Trump reversed an executive order issued on January 26, 2021 by then-President Biden that had directed the Attorney General to not renew United States Department of Justice, or DOJ, contracts with privately operated criminal detention facilities. Two agencies of the DOJ, the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons, or BOP, and the United States Marshals Service, or USMS, utilize our services. The BOP houses inmates who have been convicted, and the USMS is generally responsible for detainees who are awaiting trial. This executive order only applied to agencies that are part of the DOJ, which includes the BOP and USMS. ICE facilities were not covered by this executive order, as ICE is an agency of the DHS, not the DOJ. It is possible future administrations could issue executive orders restricting the use of private correctional and detention facilities by the federal government.

Further, on January 29, 2025, President Trump signed into law the Laken Riley Act, which had been passed by Congress with bipartisan support. The Laken Riley Act requires ICE to detain certain non-United States nationals who have been charged, arrested, or convicted of crimes including burglary, theft, assault of a law enforcement officer, as well as killing or injuring another person. We believe the Laken Riley Act has contributed to the increased demand for detention beds by ICE, as further described in this Annual Report.

On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or OBBBA. OBBBA appropriates a total of $75 billion in mandatory funding to ICE for immigration enforcement activities and to increase detention capacity. Specifically, OBBBA appropriates $45 billion for single adult alien detention capacity and family residential center capacity. This funding is a significant increase in funding historically provided to ICE for border security and immigration detention. The funding will remain available through September 30, 2029, and is in addition to base annual appropriations during that time period. The additional funding is also being used by DHS to hire nearly 10,000 new ICE officers to implement the immigration enforcement initiatives.

Given the recent legislative and executive actions mentioned above, we believe the short-term growth opportunities of our business are particularly attractive as federal government agencies consider their emergent needs. ICE has begun to utilize additional bed capacity in our portfolio at facilities with existing contracts, we have signed new contracts to activate five previously idled facilities, and we have been in discussion with ICE to activate additional idle facilities. The number of people we care for under contracts with ICE has increased by approximately 5,900 individuals, or 58.2%, from the beginning of the year through December 31, 2025. As of December 31, 2025, we had five idle correctional facilities containing approximately 7,000 beds that are operated with a core staffing complement to remain currently available and that are being actively marketed as solutions to the correctional or detention needs of potential customers.

During the first quarter of 2025, we entered into contract modifications at our 2,016-bed Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown, Ohio, our 1,072-bed Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump, Nevada, and our 1,600-bed Cimarron Correctional Facility in Cushing, Oklahoma to collectively add capacity for up to 784 ICE detainees. We subsequently entered into two additional modifications in the second half of 2025 to collectively add additional capacity at the Cimarron facility for up to nearly 300 ICE detainees.

On March 5, 2025, we announced that we had agreed under an amendment to an intergovernmental service agreement, or IGSA, to resume operations and care for up to 2,400 individuals at the 2,400-bed Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Dilley, Texas, or the Dilley Facility. The amended IGSA expires in March 2030 and may be further extended through bilateral modification. We began receiving residents at this facility during April 2025. Activation of the Dilley Facility was completed in September 2025. Previously, after nearly ten years of operation, we received notification from ICE on June 10, 2024 of its intent to terminate funding of the IGSA for services at the Dilley Facility effective August 9, 2024. We did not operate the Dilley Facility from August 9, 2024 until the resumption of operations at the facility on March 5, 2025.

Effective March 7, 2025, we entered into a letter agreement with ICE to begin activation efforts at our 1,033-bed Midwest Regional Reception Center in Leavenworth, Kansas. The letter agreement authorized initial funding up to $5.0 million with maximum funding up to $22.6 million for a six-month period while we worked to negotiate and execute a longer-term contract. On September 29, 2025, we announced that we entered into a new contract with ICE effective September 7, 2025. The City of Leavenworth has filed a lawsuit alleging that a Special Use Permit, or SUP, is required to activate the facility, which has resulted in a delay in the intake process. In December 2025, we filed an application for the SUP. However, we cannot provide assurance that the application will be approved and therefore

64

cannot predict if or when we will be able to accept detainee populations. The new agreement, which expires September 6, 2027, provides for a fixed monthly payment plus an incremental per diem payment based on detainee populations, both of which commence once the temporary injunction currently prohibiting the intake of detainees is no longer enforceable. See Note 14 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements contained in this Annual Report for further discussion of the pending litigation.

On April 1, 2025, we entered into a letter agreement with ICE to begin activation efforts at our 2,560-bed California City Immigration Processing Center, or the California City Facility, formerly known as the California City Correctional Center. The letter agreement authorized initial funding up to $10.0 million with maximum funding up to $31.2 million for a six-month period while we worked to negotiate and execute a long-term contract. We began receiving ICE detainees at our California City Facility during August 2025, under terms of the letter agreement. On September 29, 2025, we announced that we entered into a new two-year contract with ICE effective September 1, 2025. As of December 31, 2025, we cared for 1,436 individuals at the facility. We currently expect to reach stabilized occupancy at the facility in the first quarter of 2026. A non-governmental organization and a detainee have filed a lawsuit alleging that a business license must be obtained to operate the facility and seeks injunctive relief that would include operational interruption at the facility. The Company can provide no assurance that it will obtain a favorable ruling in this matter or predict when this matter will be resolved. See Note 14 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements contained in this Annual Report for further discussion of the pending litigation.

On August 14, 2025, we announced that we had been awarded a new contract through an IGSA with ICE to resume operations at our previously idled 600-bed West Tennessee Detention Facility in Mason, Tennessee. The West Tennessee facility had been idle since September 2021. The IGSA expires in August 2030 and may be further extended

[Excerpt truncated for page length; the complete text is on the linked full-MD&A page.]