Cornell
April 24, 2012
Firm Leaves Miss. After Its Prison Is Called ‘Cesspool’ (Cornell/GEO)
One month after a federal court ordered sweeping changes at a troubled juvenile prison in rural Mississippi, the private company managing the prison has announced it is pulling out of the state. A report by the Justice Department describes "systemic, egregious and dangerous practices" at the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility.
As those words imply, the official report is scathing.
Federal Judge Carlton Reeves wrote that the youth prison "has allowed a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate, the sum of which places the offenders at substantial ongoing risk..."
LINK - NPR.org
September 9, 2011
Private prisons profitting from 9/11
On a conference call with investors less than two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Wall Street executive Steve Logan predicted a new era of unbridled growth for his industry: the for-profit prison business.
"It is clear that since Sept. 11, there's a heightened focus on detention, both on the borders and in the U.S.," Logan, the chief executive of publicly-traded prison corporation Cornell Companies, told analysts on a quarterly earnings call. "More people are gonna get caught. ... So I would say that's positive."
Logan's upbeat assessment of the post-9/11 world would prove true, as the federal government has embarked on an unprecedented campaign to round up, detain and eventually deport illegal immigrants under the guise of bolstering national security. Since Congress brought immigration enforcement under the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, the number of immigrants locked up each year has nearly doubled to more than 390,000, creating a lucrative opportunity for private corporations hired to build and supervise detention centers across the country...
LINK - HuffingtonPost.com
June 24, 2011
Private Prison Report: Gaming the System
Approximately 129,000 people were held in privately managed correctional facilities in the United States as of December 31, 2009; 16.4 percent of federal and 6.8 percent of state populations were held in private facilities. Since 2000, private prisons have increased their share of the‚ market substantially: the number of people held in private federal facilities increased approximately 120 percent, while the number held in private state facilities increased approximately 33 percent. During this same period, the total number of people in prison increased less than 16 percent. Meanwhile, spending on corrections has increased 72 percent since 1997, to $74 billion in 2007. The two largest private prison companies, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group, combined had over $2.9 billion in revenue in 2010...
August 16, 2010
Alaska inmate, 44, dies in private Colorado prison
An Alaska inmate being held at a private prison in Colorado died Sunday, Alaska corrections officials said today.
The death at Hudson Correctional Facility is being investigated by Colorado authorities.
The man's name is not being released until his family is notified. He was 44 years old.
The prison was built by Cornell Companies Inc., which recently merged with another private prison provider, The GEO Group Inc.
LINK - ADN.com
June 29, 2010
Colorado: State prison closes, public employee jobs lost to private prison
Most of the employees at High Plains Correctional Facility will lose their jobs after the state removes the last remaining inmates from the Brush women’s prison today.
“We have already notified our staffs that most of them unfortunately have to be laid off for now,” said Charles Seigel, spokesman for Houston, Texas-based Cornell Companies, Inc., which owns the Brush prison.
The local facility normally employs 83 people, Seigel said, but management has left about half of the positions vacant in anticipation of the closure...
LINK - Journal-Advocate.com
May 1, 2010
Guard error at private prison led to riot of alaska inmates in Colorado
The company that operates a Colorado prison for Alaska inmates said an error by a guard led to an uprising at the Hudson Correctional Facility.
A correctional officer in a central area electronically unlocked the cells of 41 inmates, Cornell Companies spokesman Charles Seigel told The Anchorage Daily News on Thursday. The mistake at 1:20 a.m. on April 14 allowed prisoners into corridors of the segregation unit, which holds problem inmates.
At least eight prisoners refused to go back into their cells and attempted to break into an office where two guards had barricaded themselves. A prison tactical team ended the disturbance six hours later. Some inmates suffered minor injuries...
LINK - NewsMiner.com
April 14, 2010
Colorado investigates disturbance at prison
HUDSON, COLO. — The Colorado Department of Corrections is investigating a disturbance at the Hudson Correctional Facility, a private prison that houses inmates from Alaska.
Corrections spokeswoman Katherine Sanguinetti says the disturbance happened late Tuesday or early Wednesday and is reportedly under control. Details of the disturbance were not immediately available.
Cornell Companies Inc. built the 1,250-bed, medium security prison last year and hoped to house up to 1,000 Alaskan inmates there. Company spokesman Charles Seigal did not immediately return a message...
LINK - SFExaminer.com
April 14, 2010
Inmates Take Over Part Of Private Colo. Prison
HUDSON, Colo. - A private prison in Hudson was locked down Wednesday morning after a handful of inmates took over part of the facility.
The Hudson Correctional Facility at 3001 N. Juniper St. houses about 100 inmates from Alaska, according to a spokesman for the facility.
Charles Siegel of the Cornell Companies in Houston said that 7 or 8 inmates took over one module of the 1,250-bed, medium security prison. No guards were injured and there were no hostages, Siegel said...
LINK - TheDenverChannel.com
August 6, 2008
Private prisons hold on in hard times
One more profit report for you to blame on the slowing economy: The Postal Service announced today it lost $1.1 billion dollars for the quarter that ended in June. Officials blamed higher fuel costs and less mail being sent in lean economic times — it's down 5.5 percent from last year.
Even though we usually do think of it as a government operation, the post office is a private company and the same can be said for some prisons in this country. Most of them are government-run, but about 7 percent of the incarcerated population is housed in prisons run by for-profit corporations.
The biggest of those companies, Corrections Corporation of America, reports profits tomorrow. Like any other company, rising prices have raised their cost of doing business and its customers — federal, state and local governments — are facing tight budgets…
LINK - PublicRadio.org
May 24, 2008
Ex-guard at Chesney gets jail for sex act
A Linda man convicted of having sex with a female inmate when he was a corrections officer in Live Oak was sentenced Friday to 120 days in jail. The lawyer for Mark Stephen Susoeff called the crime "stupid." Sutter County Judge Chris Chandler said it was "beyond stupid. It's disgusting."
Susoeff, 45, who worked at the Leo Chesney Community Correctional Facility, received oral sex in January 2007 from an inmate near her locker in the early morning at the facility, according to Susoeff's probation report…
Texas-based Cornell Companies contracts with the California Department of Corrections to house about female offenders in the minimum-security facility…
LINK - Appeal-Democrat.com
May 19, 2008
Privatization Update: May 19, 2008
Privatization Update
May 12-18, 2008
California Privatization
May 13 - California's prison medical care receiver is investigating the death of an inmate who was being housed in Mississippi. 'I'm told it was an asthma-related death,' said receiver's spokesman Rich Kirkland. Corrections officials identified the inmate as Robert Washington, 41, of San Joaquin County. Washington was serving seven years for vehicle theft.
Autopsy results on Washington's death are still pending. Washington died at the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility, owned and operated by CCA. Washington is the second inmate moved under California's out-of-state transfer plan to have died in custody since the program began two years ago. Anthony Keely, 48, died last May from an apparent heart attack while watching a fight involving other inmates. There are now 3,765 California inmates serving time out of state.
Overall Privatization
May 18 - The federal government is accepting bids for up to three new family detention centers that would house as many as 600 men, women and children fighting deportation cases. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a call for proposals and set June 16 as the deadline. New facilities are being considered on both coasts and on the Southwestern border. The agency calls for minimum-security residential facilities that would provide a 'least restrictive, non-secure setting' and provide schooling for children, recreational activities and access to religious services.
Aramark
May 12 - The company that feeds Florida prisoners has racked up nearly $250,00 in fines since the beginning of the year for violations including not having enough food and staffing shortages. That brings the total fines for Aramark to more than $864,000 since 2001 when the state hired private companies to take over feeding the more than 92,000 inmates in Florida prisons. More than $300,00 of Aramark fines have been rescinded by the Department of Corrections. The department let Aramark off the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines under Corrections Secretary Jimmy Crosby, now in prison for taking kickbacks from contractors. Corrections officials are questioning Aramark's ability to provide quality food in sufficient quantities. The officials also say they are concerned about the company's staffing levels.
CiviGenics
May 14 - A Texas man who smuggled marijuana into the Bowie County Correctional Center while working as a guard pleaded guilty and received a 10-year term of probation. Marquise Hunt, 21, had been working as a guard for CiviGenics for about two months when he was caught bringing three sandwich bags full of marijuana into the jail. A confidential informant
alerted jail officials to the marijuana in Hunt's possession.
May 15 - In Texas, the Grassroots Leadership organization has sent a letter to Fort Bend County Judge Robert Hebert to voice the groups concern about the plan to send Fort Bend County inmates 500 miles away to the privately run Dickens Correctional Center. 'My organization, Grassroots Leadership, is a 28 year-old southern-based organization that opposes the use of for-profit prisons, jails, and detention centers.
The Dickens County facility itself has been the site of many disturbing reports over the past year,' said Bob Libal, Texas Coordinator of Grassroots Leadership. Libal noted several serious incidents pertaining to the Dickens County Correctional facility, including: Moving prisoners hundreds of miles from family members is bad public policy. Studies show that isolation of prisoners from their family members increases recidivism and undermines public safety. Children of these inmates will suffer from lack of contact while parents and spouses have additional anxiety from not being able to see their loved ones. Conditions at the Dickens County Correctional Center are historically unsafe and unsanitary. DCC became the subject of national scrutiny last year after the suicide of Scot Noble Payne, an Idaho inmate held at the prison.
The Idaho Department of Corrections health director called the facility the worst prison he'd ever seen and 'beyond repair.' The current management of DCCC has had a string of management problems at other facilities. Management of the facility has changed ownership from the GEO Group to another private prison corporation, CiviGenics. CiviGenics has had its own record of poor jail operations in Texas. A guard at CiviGenics Texarkana facility was indicted on civil rights charges in 2005 for alleged sexual activity with a female inmate.
Similarly, at CiviGenics Waco unit, a guard was indicted for sexual contact with a female inmate. And just last month, an inmate took his own life at CiviGenics managed prison in Ector County, Texas. It is important to note that counties can retain liability for incidents which happen at private facilities.
Cornell
May 15 - Cornell has named Brantley, Georgia as one of three candidates for a 1,200 to 1,500-bed facility that would house illegal aliens awaiting deportation. Before further exploring Brandley County sites, Cornell asked for a unanimous resolution of approval and the commissioners gave it to Cornell. Chairman Terry Thomas expressed reservation, especially about Cornell's promise to house no violent offenders. 'I'm skeptical about the fact that it's to be used only for illegal aliens,' Thomas said. 'Plus, I'm cautious about it because it will be operated under contract and those are given on a competitive basis. What happens if Cornell losses the contract" The Brandley County Development Authority also endorsed the facility. 'We are contacting Cornell and saying we have met your first requirement and actually have gone a step further by having the Development Authority pass its own resolution,' County Manager Chuck Madray said. Cornell has requested that the county provide it with four possible sites. Madray said four privately owned tracts have been lined up. 'We have verbal agreements from all four of the landowners,' Madray said. 'All would be willing to sell.' The next move is up to Cornell. 'We're asking them to tell us what the next step is,' Madray said.
Corrections Corporation of America
May 13 - CCA has informed Bay County, Florida that it would be abandoning its local operations in 150 days, or Oct. 1. 'Where our path will take us, we don't know,' Bay County Commissioner Chairman Jerry Girvin said of the question left in CCA's wake. 'It's been a long-term relationship, but it's probably one that's run its course, and it's time to go separate
directions.' Girvin said the two most probable options would be to either run the jail as a county department or turn operations over to the Bay County Sheriff's Office. CCA, which has operated the area's jails for more than 20 years, citied financial concerns as the reason for pulling out of Bay County. Locally, CCA employs 290 people. Warden Joe Ponte said the average jail employee makes about $28,000. CCA entered into a new contract with Bay County in 2006 that stipulated a per-inmate rate of $46.18 per day. Last year, the company was paid $15.8 million. The six-year contract
also called for CCA to expand on the facility, which would serve as the area's only jail once the downtown location is closed. County officials said the work should be complete before CCA's October departure. At times, officials have indicated CCA's bang for the buck has not been sufficient.
Since first beginning work in Bay County in October 1985, the private correctional company has weathered a number of storms that caused local officials concern. Last November, CCA released nine inmates early by accident. In June 2007, an inmate fashioned a plastic utensil into a lock-pick and broke out of his cell. In 2005, a CCA nurse was fired after an inmate gave birth inside the jail annex four hours after complaining of labor pains. Another nurse, as well as a supervisor, was fired for having sex with an inmate. In 2004, a nurse was shot in a hostage standoff after inmates escaped from their cells. CCA said such instances were not a factor in the decision to leave town. Recently, county officials have made strong statements directed at CCA in regard to the company's mishaps.
'They're going to run it right, or we'll get somebody who will run it right,' said County Commissioner Mike Nelson, following the accidental inmate release.
May 14 - The Colorado Department of Corrections is returning 120 prisoners who have been housed in an Oklahoma prison to Colorado prisons. Many of the inmates had been housed at a private prison in Sayre, Oklahoma, since January of 2007 because of a shortage of bed space at Colorado prisons. The prisoners will be taken mostly to two private prisons run by CCA, which also runs the Oklahoma prison.
The GEO Group
May 15 - About 170 workers will be laid off at the South Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center in Florida. The center, which is a 100-bed forensic psychiatric hospital whose patients are admitted by court order, is managed by GEO Care under contract with the state Department of Children and Families. GEO spokesman Pablo Paez said the state Legislature decided to close the facility in its recently approved budget. The company hopes to accommodate 30 to 40 percent of the employees at other facilities. Because of the slowing economy, the Legislature cut $5 million from the state budget. GEO Care is a part of GEO Group.
May 16 - Guards are confirming sexual assaults claims at the South Texas Detention Complex run by the GEO Group. Guards say the sexual abuse of female immigrants there has been going on for years and that GEO is trying to cover it up. ICE is now sending a Detention Facilities Inspection Group team to review compliance with ICE detention standards and will make
recommendations based on the results of its review.
Prison Health Services
May 12 - A former nurse at the York County Prison in Pennsylvania filed a federal lawsuit alleging gender and race discrimination. Oral Marsh, who is black, alleges in the lawsuit that she was subject to a pattern of discrimination including racially themed comments and abuse. March claims that she was hired in October 2005 and fired almost a year later without warning or reason. Marsh was one of only four black nurses out of almost 70 working at the prison. She is seeking an unspecified amount of lost wages, health benefits and other compensation. The lawsuit names York County and Prison Health Services. The county contracted with PHS for medical care at the facility until 2006.
Wackenhut
May 14 - In New Hampshire, three nuclear power plant security officers were the triggermen during separate accidental shootings during the past nine months. The most recent incident involved an off-duty Seabrook Station security officer who accidentally shot a 9mm bullet through his hand and will face criminal charges after making some medical progress. The second incident occurred when a power plant officer trainer pulled the trigger of his Springfield Armory handgun and shot a .45 caliber bullet through the floor of his apartment and into the living space below. A third recent shooting occurred when a guard was holstering a 357 SigArms pistol and a round went off in the nuclear plant armory. Seabrook power plant officers are not employed by the plant, but by Wackenhut, a $3 billion global security provider.
May 16 - Metro Nashville is asking Wackenhut to reimburse the city more than $840,000 for expenses related to a break-in last year at the Davidson County Election Commission offices. Metro Law Director Sue Cain wrote a letter to Wackenhut lawyer Jim Vines, a former U.S. attorney for Middle Tennessee, requesting the reimbursement. Wackenhut was responsible for
security at the Metro Officer building in December, when thieves stole two laptop computers containing the Social Security numbers of 337,000 voters. Wackenhut subcontracted with a Mt. Juliet firm, Specialized Security Consultants, to secure the building. An audit found Wackenhut had billed Metro for some days when security guards actually didn't work at the facility. Cain asked Wackenhut to pay the city $48,387 for the audit by Kraft CPAs; $21,575 for security services that were not provided; $235,757.35 for two mailings to voters; and $534,391.75 for the cost of identity-theft protection for more than 56,000 voters who responded to the city's offer to pay for a year of protection.
May 12, 2008
Privatization Update: May 12th
Privatization Update
May 5-11, 2008
CiviGenics
May 7 - McLennan County commissioners authorized the hiring of 12 new jailers in response to an unfavorable order from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. Commissioners voted to hire the new jailer after a two-hour, closed-door meeting with the county's attorneys. The jail has been teetering on its maximum capacity for several years and has been operating with variances from the jail standards commission. Jail commission officials told county commissioners they would be required to transfer prisoners to other facilities if they remained out of compliance with the 48-to-1 prisoner-to-staff ratio as required by state law.
McLennan County judge Jim Lewis said the county has been using funds from what would have been their salaries to pay CiviGenics, a private detention company that operates the county-owned jail, to house 85 overflow inmates from the county's jail. Now the county will pay roughly $203,000 to hire the dozen new jailers plus continuing to pay CiviGenics for holding inmates.
Cornell
May 5 - Andy Rebar, tax collector for Luthersburg, Pennsylvania township spoke to a group of 126 local, county and state officials about the Cornell facility that he said has not kept their promises to the township. He said he was "wholeheartedly" in favor of the private prison, which promised annual funding of $57,000 to $62,00 to the township but instead only $15,290 was received. Rebar said the township has hired a legal team and will fight this. He asked for help from other officials by writing a letter of support.
Corrections Corporation of America
May 5 - In the Elizabeth Detention Center, an immigration jail in New Jersey, a detainee had fallen, injured his head and became incoherent. CCA guards had put him in solitary confinement, and later that night, an ambulance had taken him away more dead than alive. But outside, for five days, no official notified the family of the detainee, Boubacar Bah, a 52-year-old tailor from Guinea who had overstayed a tourist visa. When frantic relatives located him at University Hospital in Newark on Feb. 5, 2007, he was in coma after emergency surgery for a skull fracture and multiple brain hemorrhages. He died there four months later without ever waking up, leaving family members on two continents trying to find out why. Mr. Bah's name is one of 66 on a government list of deaths that occurred in immigration custody from January 2004 to November 2007. The list, complied by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after Congress demanded the information is the fullest accounting to date of deaths in immigration detention, a patchwork of federal centers, county jails and privately run prisons that has become the nation's fastest-growing form of incarceration. The list has few details, and they are often unreliable, but it serves as a rough road map to previously unreported cases like Mr. Bah's. And it reflects a reality that haunts grieving families like his: the difficulty of getting information about the fate of people taken into immigration custody, even when they die. No government body is required to keep track of deaths and publicly report them. No independent inquiry is mandated. And often relatives who try to investigate the treatment of those who died say they are stymied by fear of immigration authorities, lack of access to lawyers, or sheer distance. Critics say this piecemeal process leaves too much to the agency's discretion, allowing some deaths to be swept under the rug while potential witnesses are transferred or deported. They say it also obscures underlying complaints about medical care, abusive conditions or inadequate suicide prevention. In January, the House passed a bill that would require states that receive certain federal money to report deaths in custody to their attorney generals. But the bill is stalled in the Senate, and it does not cover federal facilities. The only tangible result of Congressional concern has been the list of 66 deaths, which names Mr. Bah and many other detainees for the first time, but raises as many questions as it answers.
May 11 - At the agency in Washington responsible for foreign detainees' medical care, internal documents reveal a tendency to conceal the truth by withholding complete medical records or be offering misleading public explanations. In March 2006, immigration officers took Francisco Castaneda into custody. Medical staff suspected that Castaneda, then 34, had penile cancer. A lesion on his penis was bleeding and oozing. The staff sought approval for a biopsy, but the Division of Immigration Health Services denied the procedure for 10 months. Along the way, as he fought deportation, Castaneda filed several grievances. "I am in a considerable amount of pain and I am in desperate need of medical attention," he in June. "I feel that I am entitled to a healthy life." In July, David Lusche, an CCA physician assistant at the Otay Mesa facility in California, where Castaneda was being held, realized that his grievances were still pending and that an audit of the compound's medical files was approaching. At 2:26 a.m. July 28, he e-mailed a colleague, asking him to retrieve a handwritten grievance from Castaneda that Lusche had left in a drawer in an examining room. "We need to write something different, or make some amendment, on the Grievance for Francisco Castaneda," Lusche wrote. "Your response starts, 'Grievance not resolved.' Those words are going to attract all kinds of attention during an ICE Jail Standards audit. Could you somehow 'patch up' that Grievance with an amendment then put it in my box. I just want to avoid problems when the Auditors show up." After pressure from the ACLU, a biopsy was finally scheduled for early February 2007. But immigration officials suddenly released Castaneda from custody days before the surgery. One week later after the review, UCLA doctors gave Castaneda a diagnosis of invasive squamous cell carcinoma. On February 14, surgeons amputated his penis. In October 2007, after rounds of chemotherapy, he testified before a congressional panel looking into detainee medical care. On February 16, 2008, Castaneda died. U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson denied a government request to dismiss the lawsuit brought on Castaneda's behalf. In his March 11 ruling, the judge said lawyers had "submitted powerful evidence that Defendants knew Castaneda needed a biopsy to rule out cancer, falsely stated that his doctors called the biopsy "elective," and let him suffer in extreme pain for almost one year while telling him to be "patient" and treating him with Ibuprofen, antihistamines, and extra pairs of boxer shorts." Pregerson added; "Defendants' own records bespeak of conduct that transcends negligence by miles. It bespeaks of conduct that, if true, should be taught to every law student as conduct for which the moniker "cruel" is inadequate.
The GEO Group
May 6 - Startling allegations of sexual assault are coming out about a facility that holds illegal immigrants. It's said to be happening in Pearsall, Texas, where some GEO guards may be victimizing the women they are supposed to be protecting. Many of the immigrants held here are women. Some have fled abuse in their home country, only to be reportedly abused again behind these bars. A former detainee told a Texas media outlet that sexual abuse came from the guards. She said while she was there she rejected advances by one of the guards, but said other girls were too scared to put up a fight. "Some of the GEO guards tried to force themselves on the girls and that they've told them that if they ever said anything about it, that they have the power with ICE to deport them," explains this former detainee. The former detainee said, "some of the girls ended up pregnant by some of the officers there." She added one of those who got pregnant was a girl from Guatemala, names Marley. Last May, a GEO guard reported being told by another guard that he'd had sex with Marley, who already has been deported back home. That guard accused of having sex with Marley was Joseph Canales. After the incident report, Canales was fired, but ICE will not say if they referred the case for prosecution. The US Attorneys Office has said there no case against Canales. Still, there are other sexual assaults that have been uncovered. An ICE officer sent an email to his supervisors notifying them that a detainee had told him about a GEO sergeant who was having sex with one of the female detainees. The ICE officer said that some GEO guards prey on the female detainees by lying to them and promising they can help them stay in the United States. "If they had the opportunity," he explained, "some of the guards were touching, groping, but if they had the opportunity they had sex with them. If ICE can keep it under wraps, they will keep it under wraps." To keep it under wraps, he said he was fired for reporting what was going on. And he is not alone. Another former GEO guard who said she, too, was fired after reporting sexual abuse. A spokesman for GEO says they didn't know of any sexual assault cases.
May 10 - A GEO prison guard has been charged with beating his live-in girlfriend's daughter while she slept because of her loud snoring. Charles Williamson struck the 14-year-old four or five times with the wooden handle of a claw hammer. Williamson, 46, is a guard at the New Castle Correctional Facility. He was charged with two counts of battery and faces one count of criminal confinement after the girl complained she had been handcuffed to her bed. The girl's mother, Bobbie Jo Davis, 42, was being held at the jail on neglect charges. After Williamson beat the girl, Davis told him he shouldn't have beaten the girl but did not seek medical attention for her. When the girl complained of a headache the next morning, Davis gave her an aspirin and sent her to school. Police were later called to the school when the girl told teachers she had been beaten.
Wackenhut
May 9 - Wackenhut over-billed Miami-Dade County as much as $6 million over three years for phantom security guards at county transit stations, according to a long-awaited audit. County Auditor Cathy Jackson found that Wackenhut routinely charged the county for empty guard posts at Metrorail stations and along bus routes, and relied on inaccurate and falsified records to try to cover up the over-billing. Mayor Carlos Alvarez has given Wackenhut 90 days to repay the county or rebut the audit findings or he will cancel the company's no-bid contract, along with a separate Wackenhut contract for guards at a juvenile detention center. Jackson said Wackenhut should also pay the county an additional $233,000 for violating the terms of its contract. Wackenhut's billing is also being examined by public-corruption detectives with the Miami-Dade Police Department. Wackenhut disputes the audit.
April 8, 2008
Privatization Update: April 8, 2008
Privatization Update
March 31-April 6, 2008
Correctional Medical Services
April 1 - New Jersey has canceled its $85 million annual contract with CMS that has provided medical, dental and pharmaceutical services to state prisoners since New Jersey privatized its inmate health care system in 1996. The state Treasury Department notified CMS that it planned to replace it with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. CMS, whose contract expired, had sought a 4.73% increase to cover costs associated with caring for the 27,600 inmates in state prisons and an additional 14,000 inmates being held in county facilities until a state cell is available. The move ends a contentious 11-year relationship with CMS that was launched during the-Gov. Whitman's push to privatize government services. It comes months after the state auditor and the state inspector general issued separate reports critical of the company. Treasury spokesman Tom Vinz said the state believes the new arrangement will "improve both the bottom line as well as services."
April 5 - Fifteen current and former inmates at Young Correctional Institution filed a federal lawsuit alleging their medical care while behind bars was not only negligent but amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. In at least one incident in 2006, a CMS nurse used the same needle on multiple inmates, perhaps all 15, to draw blood and inject medicine, exposing all to blood-borne diseases including hepatitis C and possibly HIV/AIDS. At least three allege they have contracted hepatitis and possibly other illnesses since that incident.
Corrections Corporation of America
March 31 - Hawaii lawmakers have tentatively approved a bill ordering an audit of two CCA facilities in the wake of national media accounts alleging that the huge private prison company misrepresented statistical data to make it appear that CCA facilities had fewer violent acts and other problems than was actually the case. Hawaii pays CCA more than $50 million a year to house more than 2,000 men and women convicts in CCA prisons in Arizona and Kentucky. Senate Bill 2342 calls for the State Auditor to conduct performance audits of two of the three Mainland prisons that house Hawaii inmates, including reviews of food, medical, drug treatment, vocational and other services provided to Hawaii inmates. The audit also would scrutinize the way the state Department of Public Safety oversees the private prisons and enforces the terms of the state's contract with CCA. According to the bill, there has never been an audit of the private Mainland prisons that Hawaii has contracted with to house the state's inmates, despite the fact that deaths and serious injuries have occurred at several of the contract prisons on the Mainland. Time Magazine interviewed former CCA senior quality assurance manager Ronald T. Jones, who said CCA General Counsel Gus Puryear IV ordered staff to classify violent incidents such as inmate disturbances, escapes and sexual assaults as if they were less serious events to make the company performance appear to be better than it was. Jones said more detailed reports about the prison incidents were prepared for internal CCA use, and were not released to clients. CCA denied the allegations, which Time published as Puryear is being considered for a post as a federal judge.
April 2 - Five inmates at the privately run Marion County Jail II in Indiana filed a class-action lawsuit based on claims of improper medical treatment and access to medication, unsafe and inhumane conditions, and a broken grievance process. The suit names Corrections Corporation of America and Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson, who oversees CCA's contract to run the jail. The medium-security jail, which houses 1,043 inmates, serves as an auxillary to the county-run Marion County Jail. Attorney Paul Ogden also filed a suit against CCA in January on claims of dangerous work conditions and racial discrimination against several black nurses. That suit also raised concerns about the handling of medications for inmates, with some given incorrect medication and some denied prescription drugs.
Cornell
March 31 - More than eight months after Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials removed 600 detainees from an Albuquerque, New Mexico jail, they say they won't house immigrants there again. The federal immigration agency says it has enough space elsewhere for detainees arrested. ICE was housing hundreds of detainees awaiting deportation at the Regional Correctional Center. That facility faced allegations by immigrant lawyers and criticism by a federal judge of sub-par conditions. Complaints included sweltering heat inside, frozen food and poor medical attention. After the agency yanked all of its inmates last summer, an ICE official said he had 'serious doubts' about the ability of Cornell to provide a safe environment for detainees. Cornell officials say they've worked hard to improve the facility and meet ICE's requirements. The company will continue looking for other customers for the 993-bed facility, which it leases from Bernalillo County. The U.S. Marshals Office currently houses detainees at the jail.
April 3 - Eight immigrant teenagers held at a facility for unaccompanied minors filed a federal lawsuit claiming they were abused and denied access to attorneys. The teens from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Cuba were being held at the San Antonio facility run by Cornell under a contract with the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. Undocumented minors caught by authorities in the U.S. fall under the care of ORR while their immigration cases are decided. Susan Watson, an attorney for Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, said the teens were beaten and subjected to other excessive force in violation of their constitutional rights. At least one teen was knocked unconscious, but complaints to facility administrators were ignored, according to the lawsuit. The allegations raised by the immigrant teens were not the first against Cornell. Arkansas fired Cornell from the operation of a juvenile facility in November 2006 after finding employees inappropriately injected youth with anti-psychotic medication to control behavior. An in September, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials removed 600 detainees from an Albuquerque, New Mexico facility (this incident is addressed in the March 31 Cornell entry), citing failure to maintain safety, health and well-being standards there.
The GEO Group
April 1 - Texas officials want to know how a convicted felon escaped from a GEO Group owned jail. No one noticed he was gone for a full day, even though an eyewitness to the escape immediately told two GEO guards. The women who witnessed the escape said she was taken aback by the guard's lack of urgency. "He never asked me if he was white, Hispanic, African American. I described the clothing," she said. "All he asked was, 'Was he wearing tennis shoes?'" The Lone Star Fugitive Task Force was notified the following day of the escape and launched a massive manhunt for Esequiel Pena. Pena was being held in an 8-story level room at the GEO Group Holding Jail when he escaped. It is believed Pena squeezed through a fence and then made his way to a fire escape and disappeared. A concerned citizen spotted Pena at an apartment complex and called the Boerne Police Department. Pena was arrested without incident at the apartment complex.
Prison Health Services
April 3 - A registered nurse with the city prison system has been charged in a hit-and-run accident that killed a 15-year-old girl. Michelle Johnson, 40, was charged with manslaughter, homicide by vehicle and related offenses. Johnson, who has worked for PHS since 2006, struck Mary Otto. Otto had been walking on a median when Johnson allegedly ran a red light, hit Otto and kept driving. The teen was transported to an area hospital, but she died shortly after arriving. The next day, witnesses led police to a 2006 Toyota Sequoia, with considerable front-end damage, parked in the prison parking lot. Police seized the vehicle and later tied it to Johnson, who is not the owner of the vehicle. Johnson was suspended from her job.
April 3, 2008
Detention facility for immigrant kids sued for abuse
Eight immigrant teenagers held at a facility for unaccompanied minors filed a federal lawsuit Thursday claiming they were abused and denied access to attorneys.
The teens from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Cuba were being held at the 122-bed facility run by Houston-based Cornell Companies Inc. under a contract with the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Undocumented minors caught by authorities in the United States fall under the care of ORR while their immigration cases are decided…
LINK - DallasNews.com
December 2, 2007
Privatization Updated (December 2, 2007)
An update on the true "cost" of private prisons in the United States.
CiviGenics
Nov. 27 - CiviGenics, who is due to take over a troubled privately run Texas prison in 2008 made a sales pitch to Idaho Department of Corrections officials, saying it hopes the management shake-up and $1.2 million in proposed renovations will overshadow past problems and persuade Idaho to ship more inmates to the lockup. CiviGenics will manage Dickens County Correctional Center starting Jan. 1 after winning a competitive bid. Until now, The GEO Group ran the facility. In March, Idaho prison officials called Dickens under GEO's oversight "the worst" prison they'd seen, citing what they called an abusive warden, the lack of treatment programs and squalid conditions they said may have contributed to the suicide of inmate Scot Noble Payne, who was held for months in a solitary cell. Idaho is nearly ready to move 54 prisoners who remain at Dickens at a new GEO-run facility near the Mexican border, after shifting 69 inmates elsewhere this summer. Dickens County and CiviGenics officials came to Boise, Idaho to offer assurances they'll remedy concerns over their 15-year-old prison as they aim to stay in the running to house some of the hundreds of prisoners that Idaho plans to ship elsewhere in coming months to ease overcrowding.
Cornell
Nov. 26 - The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency says it is reconsidering its July move to pull about 700 detainees from the Regional Correctional Center in New Mexico. The agency is considering moving "a limited number" of detainees back to the privately run jail early next year. ICE transferred all of its detainees from the RCC to other holding facilities around the U.S. after what it called "serous incidents," although the agency has declined to say what those incidents were. The agency also has said the center didn't meet several of its detention standards and that it has been reviewing conditions at the jail. At the time, a high-level Department of Homeland Security official said the agency had "serious doubts about their (Cornell's) ability to provide the safe and humane environment we want for out detainees." Cornell spokesman Charles Seigel said the company hadn't received word that ICE would be returning. Fewer than 200 inmates, all in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, remain at the jail, which has an official capacity of 993 prisoners. In the seven months surrounding ICE's decision to move inmates, 19 jail employees were fired. During that same period, inmates filed 218 grievances at the jail.
The GEO Group
Nov. 29 - The mother of an Idaho inmate who killed himself in a Texas prison earlier this year has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the private prison company, The GEO Group, that runs the lockup. In her claim, Shirley Noble says The GEO Group abused and neglected Scot Noble Payne before he slashed his throat on March 4th.
Wackenhut
Nov. 26 - SEIU wants the Exelon Corp. to terminate Wackenhut from all nuclear security detail in Exelon's 10 nuclear plants in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The union sent out advertisements in newspapers in Illinois and Pennsylvania. In September, Exelon announced the ending of their contract with Wackenhut at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in York County, PA, after it was confirmed that Wackenhut guards were sleeping on the job. Now SEIU is encouraging communities surrounding the remaining Wackenhut sites to contact their congressional representatives and insist that Exelon take the same action in Illinois and Pennsylvania. "Wackenhut overworks its guards, underpays them, skimps on, and sometimes fudges training, fake drills, and then, when problems come to light, they fire scapegoats and claim to be shocked, shocked, by sleepy guards," the ad says.
