Segment Reporting - Additional Information (Detail)	3 Months Ended
Mar. 31, 2021 Property Segment Facility
Segment Reporting Information [Line Items]
Number of Operating segments \| Segment	3
CoreCivic Safety
Segment Reporting Information [Line Items]
Number of facilities operated by the company	47
Number of facilities owned by the company	42
CoreCivic Community
Segment Reporting Information [Line Items]
Number of centers owned and operated by company	26
CoreCivic Properties
Segment Reporting Information [Line Items]
Number of properties for lease to third parties and used by government agencies \| Property	15

Number of operating segments. An operating segment is a component of an enterprise: (a) that engages in business activities from which it may earn revenues and incur expenses (including revenues and expenses relating to transactions with other components of the same enterprise), (b) whose operating results are regularly reviewed by the enterprise's chief operating decision maker to make decisions about resources to be allocated to the segment and assess its performance, and (c) for which discrete financial information is available. An operating segment may engage in business activities for which it has yet to earn revenues, for example, start-up operations may be operating segments before earning revenues.

Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2009/role/commonPracticeRef
-Publisher FASB
-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 280
-SubTopic 10
-Section 50
-Paragraph 18
-URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=120311839&loc=d3e8672-108599

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Namespace Prefix:	us-gaap_
Data Type:	xbrli:integerItemType
Balance Type:	na
Period Type:	duration