State Representative Aftyn Behn’s latest newsletter details the rather unpleasant reality of the death penalty in Tennessee. It also highlights how the head of private prison company CoreCivic may soon be Tennessee’s U.S. Senator (unless Jerri Green becomes Governor).
And in the Lord’s year of 2026, House GOP leadership proposed a similar “three-strikes" rule, despite Tennessee’s own expensive and deeply unpopular history with its track record. I’m writing about this because those incarcerated at Tennessee prisons are still enduring abuse, or worse, like at CoreCivic’s Trousdale Turner facility, dying from neglect and battery despite the ongoing Department of Justice investigation; because the Tennessee legislature passed laws to ban books inside prisons; because TDOC is still botching executions and now preventing media from observing; because our loved ones are still wearing shackles seeing only 40 minutes of outdoor time in the yard PER MONTH (as indicated in a letter I received just this week from an individual at the Robertson County Jail); because, as we speak, the CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger is slow-walking his run to take Marsha Blackburn’s place in the US Senate; and, because CoreCivic, which owns and operates at least ten ICE detention facilities, reported $2.2 billion in total revenue in 2025 despite being responsible the deaths of 22 Tennesseeans in their custody.
