Gov. Bill Lee is responding to a new federal investigation into a Tennessee prison that has proven troublesome during its last three audit reports produced by the state.

Gov. Bill Lee is responding to a new federal investigation into a Tennessee prison that has proven troublesome during its last three audit reports produced by the state.

The U.S. Department of Justice said they opened the investigation into Trousdale Turner Correctional Center after many issues in eight years. Those include stabbings, 196 assaults, two murders, 15 deaths classified as accidental and 90 incidents of sexual misconduct.

Trousdale Turner Correctional Center is a private prison owned by CoreCivic, headquartered in Brentwood. The state contracts the company to run the prison, and its current contract with Tennessee runs until June 2026. The facility opened in 2016 on the campus of a nuclear reactor that never opened in Hartsville. More than 2,000 men who are inmates live there.