AUTHORITY TO CONTRACT

(a) The board may contract with a private vendor or with the commissioners court of a county for the financing, construction, operation, maintenance, or management of a secure correctional facility. (b) A facility operated, maintained, and managed under this subchapter by a private vendor or county must: (1) hold not more than an average daily population of 1,150 inmates; (2) comply with federal constitutional standards and applicable court orders; and (3) receive and retain, as an individual facility, accreditation from the American Correctional Association. (c) A facility authorized by this subchapter may be located on private land or on land owned by the state or a political subdivision of the state. The board may accept land donated for that purpose. (d) The population requirements imposed by Subsection (b)(1) do not apply to a facility that is under construction or completed before April 14, 1987. (e) The board shall give priority to entering contracts under this subchapter that will provide the institutional division with secure regionally based correctional facilities designed to successfully reintegrate inmates into society through preparole, prerelease, work release, and prison industries programs. (f) Notwithstanding Subsection (b)(1), a facility that before December 1, 1991, was operated, maintained, and managed under this subchapter by a private vendor or county may not hold more than an average daily population of 500 inmates, unless the commissioners court of the county in which the facility is located expresses in a resolution on the subject that the limit on population imposed by this subsection should not apply to the facility.