Inmate Lawsuit
January 17, 2012
Judge to end Calif. prison receiver
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered California officials to prepare for the end of a six-year, court-ordered oversight of the prison system that has cost taxpayers billions of dollars and helped force a shift of lower-level criminals from state prisons to county jails.
U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson cited improving conditions in the prison system in a three-page order that says "the end of the Receivership appears to be in sight."
The ruling marks an important milestone in a process that began nearly six years ago when the judge appointed a receiver to run California's prison medical system after finding that an average of one inmate a week was dying of neglect or malpractice. He cited inmate overcrowding as the leading cause, but said in Tuesday's order that conditions have improved...
LINK - SacBee.com
January 16, 2012
Calif. inmate should get kosher meals, appeals court rules
The California prison system is violating a Messianic Jewish prisoner's constitutional rights by denying him kosher food, a state appeals court ruled.
A three-justice panel of the California 3rd District Court of Appeals ruled Jan. 11 that Margarito Jesus Garcia, who is serving 15 years to life for a conviction on second degree murder, should receive kosher meals from the state's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, reversing a lower court ruling...
LINK - JewishinStLouis.org
January 14, 2012
Disabled inmates denied crucial access, judge says
California prison officials have failed to monitor and protect hundreds of disabled parolees in county jails, some of whom have been denied such basic aids as canes and wheelchairs and aren't allowed to file grievances, a federal judge ruled Friday.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken of Oakland said she first pointed out the state's failure to meet the needs of parolees with disabilities in a ruling more than a decade ago. But officials have done little to comply and are now trying to duck responsibility, she said.
There is "overwhelming and disturbing evidence" that disabled inmates are being "denied access to housing, programs and services" because of the state's violations of disability laws, Wilken said...
LINK - SFGate.com
January 10, 2012
U.S. Supreme Court won’t allow private prison employees lawsuit
The Supreme Court won't allow employees at a privately run federal prison to be sued by an inmate in federal court, despite his complaint that their neglect left him with two permanently damaged arms.
The high court ruled 8-1 to throw out the federal lawsuit by inmate Richard Lee Pollard against employees of the GEO Group, formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections Corp. Pollard wanted to sue for his treatment after he fell and fractured both of his elbows at the privately run Taft Correctional Institution in Taft, Calif...
LINK - MercuryNews.com
December 14, 2011
Inmates file class-action suit against Fresno due to jail overcrowding
Four Fresno County Jail inmates filed a class-action lawsuit Tuesday, claiming Sheriff Margaret Mims maintains an unsafe jail and fails to provide basic health care.
According to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Fresno, inmates are regularly denied treatment for life-threatening illnesses, severe mental health symptoms and serious dental conditions.
There are not enough medical personnel -- doctors, nurses, therapists and social workers -- to provide adequate care for more than 2,300 inmates, the lawsuit says. As a result of the understaffing, inmates can wait weeks to months before being examined by clinicians...
LINK - FresnoBee.com
November 26, 2011
Nashville prisoner sues CCA for millions after having miscarriage
Metro’s treatment of pregnant prisoners is being called into question again by a Nashville woman who claims that prison staff denied her requests to take a pregnancy test, assigned her a strenuous work schedule and then destroyed her fetus after she suffered a miscarriage.
Lisa Marie Allison has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit in Davidson County Circuit Court alleging constitutional violations, negligence, medical malpractice, wrongful death and other claims.
Allison was sent to Metro’s Correctional Development Center on Harding Place in November 2010 for a probation violation and was given a pregnancy test at intake. Although Allison suspected she was pregnant, the test came back negative...
LINK - Tennessean.com
October 31, 2011
U.S. Supreme Court to decide private prison worker liability for constitutional violations
The U.S. Supreme Court this week will examine a prisoner's treatment at a privately run facility in Taft. The outcome could either shield or render more vulnerable the fast-growing private prison industry.
On Tuesday, University of Richmond law professor John Preis, pro bono attorney for Richard Lee Pollard, will have 30 minutes to convince justices that inmates held in privately run prisons enjoy the same constitutional right to sue employees over cruel and unusual punishment as do inmates in facilities run directly by the government...
LINK - FresnoBee.com
October 18, 2011
Private prison industry grows despite critics
The biggest prison in the state of Idaho is also the toughest.
The Idaho Correctional Center—the ICC — was so violent that employees and inmates had a name for the place: Gladiator School.
“That was because of the assaults,” said Todd Goertzen, a former corrections counselor at the prison. “That's why they called it Gladiator School, because of that reason. If you're going to ICC, it's going to be fight or die, basically.”
This is the story of a dangerous business: the billions of dollars that flow into the American prison industry and the companies that profit from it...
LINK - Today.MSNBC.com
October 5, 2011
Idaho: AP asks judge to open CCA secret settlement
The Associated Press is asking a federal judge to unseal the settlement agreement between an Idaho inmate and private prison company Corrections Corp. of America.
The confidential settlement between Marlin Riggs and CCA was reached last month in a widely publicized lawsuit that alleged rampant violence at a CCA-run prison near Boise. Riggs originally asked for $55 million in damages, saying the prison was nicknamed "Gladiator School" and that guards knew he was about to be attacked but failed to protect him. Riggs said he suffered serious injuries in the attack, and required facial surgery to allow him to breathe normally...
LINK - TheRepublic.com
September 20, 2011
CCA agrees to follow state regs in suit over violent prison conditions?
A potential class-action lawsuit against the nation’s largest private prison company over allegations of violence at the Idaho Correctional Center has been settled in federal court.
The agreement between the inmates and Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Boise.
In it, CCA doesn’t acknowledge the allegations but agrees to increase staffing, investigate all assaults and make other sweeping changes at the lockup south of Boise. If the company fails to make the changes, the inmates can ask the courts to force CCA to comply...
LINK - WashingtonPost.com
September 14, 2011
CCA pays off brutalized inmate in multi-million-dollar lawsuit
An inmate who sued a privately run Idaho prison over allegations of extreme violence and medical neglect has reached a settlement with the private prison company Corrections Corp. of America.
Meanwhile, dozens of other inmates who also sued the Nashville, Tenn.-based CCA in federal court are in settlement talks with the company that could end the potentially class-action case by the close of the week...
LINK - TheRepublic.com
July 27, 2011
Private Prison Beatings Continue, Men Say
Guards for Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's biggest private prison company, continue to abuse prisoners who sought a protective injunction after CCA guards stripped, beat, kicked and threatened to kill them, and "the warden himself" threatened their families, according to a new complaint in Federal Court.
Five Hawaiian inmates serving their sentences on the mainland say the co-defendant Hawaii Department of Public Safety is failing to protect Hawaiian prisoners from brutal private prison guards.
The five inmates at CCA's Saguaro prison in Eloy, Ariz., say they have suffered continuing retaliation and physical abuse from CCA guards, after the July 2010 prison fight that led to the original lawsuit...
LINK - CourthouseNews.com
June 17, 2011
CMC, County Grand Jury report in the news
Overcrowding at the San Luis Obispo County women’s jail and an antiquated health facility at the California Men’s Colony were two concerns raised in a report released Wednesday by the county’s civil grand jury.
Fortunately, as grand jurors put it, both agencies are working on projects to upgrade and improve their facilities over the next three years.
The report was the culmination of visits by the grand jury to all seven of the police departments in the county, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department, CMC and county Juvenile Services Center...
LINK - SanLuisObispo.com
May 25, 2011
Lawsuit Puts Private Prisons in Spotlight
The cost savings from for-profit incarceration are debatable, and an Idaho suit claims that profitability can come at the price of prisoner safety.
Antoney Jones, a gay African-American man imprisoned in Idaho, needed protection from other inmates who thrived on assaulting vulnerable prisoners, especially those who were black and gay, his lawyers said.
He especially needed protection after testifying against a criminal defendant for California prosecutors in an undisclosed case. Not only was he black and gay, but he was also considered to be a rat within the prison population. He was housed in 2007 at the Idaho Correctional Center in Kuna, just outside of Boise, which is a privately run prison considered so violent that it is dubbed "gladiator school" because of its kill-or-be-killed mentality among guards and prisoners, says Monica Hopkins, director of the ACLU of Idaho...
LINK - TheRoot.com
April 27, 2011
CDCR lockdowns in the news and the courts
California's use of race as a basis for locking prisoners in their cells after fights amounts to illegal discrimination and should be banned, attorneys representing inmates said in a class-action lawsuit filed Wednesday.
The policy unfairly punishes innocent inmates simply because they have the same color skin as those involved in the violence, the nonprofit Prison Law Office said in its suit, filed in federal court in Sacramento.
Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said lockdowns are sometimes necessary to protect safety and security. It is not the department's policy to base lockdowns and other restrictions solely on race or ethnicity, she said...
LINK - MercuryNews.com
March 2, 2011
Private Prison Expose: Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) problems nationwide
Back in July, 2000, the Idaho Correctional Center opened as the state's first privately run prison.
Recently, I.C.C, run by Corrections Corporation of America, has come under fire after a lawsuit filed by the America Civil Liberties Union, alleging misconduct, mismanagement and more.
For the past two months, KBOI 2News has combed through more than 1,000 pages of documents, including the state's contract with C.C.A. We have also spoken with more than a dozen people trying to learn exactly what's happening inside Idaho's private prison which many believe has become a public problem...
LINK - KBOI2.com
January 19, 2011
More Abuse Reported at Private Prison
"Gov. Neil Abercrombie has promised to bring back all Hawaii inmates serving prison sentences on the mainland because of previous allegations of mistreatment by guards at Saguaro,"according to the Jan. 14 newspaper report.
Eighteen Hawaiian inmates sued CCA in December 2010, claiming that guards stripped, beat, kicked and threatened to kill them, banged their heads on tables while they were handcuffed, and that "the warden himself" threatened their families. Those inmates claim that CCA "deliberately destroyed and failed to preserve evidence of their wrongdoing, including videotapes," and "deliberately falsified reports."
Hawaii's governor also cited a December 2010 "riot" at another CCA prison in Arizona, Red Rock Correctional Center, which holds about 50 Hawaiian prisoners. The Saguaro prison holds about 1,800 Hawaiians...
LINK - CourthouseNews.com
January 12, 2011
California prisoners challenge parole changes
Kara Severson and Laura Doyle were each 17 when they suspected their friend Michelle "Missy" Avila was sleeping with their boyfriends. So they drowned her in a Los Angeles County canyon in 1985.
Now, the women who were sentenced to 15 years to life for second-degree murder say they are victims themselves.
They are among thousands of prisoners with life sentences who have joined a class action lawsuit claiming a law approved by voters in 2008 illegally extends their prison terms...
LINK - PE.com
January 11, 2011
(Another) private prison firm with CA ties under federal DOJ investigation for abusing inmates
A former inmate testified today at a House Juvenile Justice Committee hearing that he was beaten at the state's youth prison.
"The Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility was hell," recalled Ross Walton, a 25-year-old former inmate.
The private prison is the target of a federal investigation.
The U.S. Department of Justice informed Gov. Haley Barbour late last year that it had begun an investigation into the treatment of juveniles at the prison...
LINK - ClarionLedger.com
December 8, 2010
Lawsuit filed in prison death of illegal immigrant
Family members of an illegal immigrant found dead in a federal prison filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Texas facility, where inmates took hostages and set fires during a riot after the man's body was carried out.
The 96-page federal lawsuit revives attention on the Reeves County Detention Center in Pecos, about 175 miles east of El Paso. The prison came under scrutiny in 2008, following the death of Jesus Manuel Galindo and two riots just six weeks apart that caused an estimated $1 million in damage.
Galindo died in December 2008 after the 32-year-old had an epileptic seizure while placed in solitary confinement, his family's attorneys said. The lawsuit accuses the facility of being indifferent to prisoners' medical needs and using solitary confinement to punish inmates who complained of being sick...
LINK - KHQ.com
December 8, 2010
Lawsuit filed in prison death of illegal immigrant
Family members of an illegal immigrant found dead in a federal prison filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Texas facility, where inmates took hostages and set fires during a riot after the man's body was carried out.
The 96-page federal lawsuit revives attention on the Reeves County Detention Center in Pecos, about 175 miles east of El Paso. The prison came under scrutiny in 2008, following the death of Jesus Manuel Galindo and two riots just six weeks apart that caused an estimated $1 million in damage.
Galindo died in December 2008 after the 32-year-old had an epileptic seizure while placed in solitary confinement, his family's attorneys said. The lawsuit accuses the facility of being indifferent to prisoners' medical needs and using solitary confinement to punish inmates who complained of being sick...
LINK - KHQ.com
October 18, 2010
State-Funded, For-Profit Juvenile Prison Sued For Assault
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) took aim at a Florida state-funded, for-profit juvenile prison after allegations of horrific conditions surfaced. According to a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of children held at Thompson Academy in Broward County, Florida, the staff at Thompson Academy routinely brutalized, chocked and slammed the children into walls. At least one was sexually assaulted and after the abuse was reported administrations continued to allow the staff member to have contact with the child, resulting in a second sexual assault...
LINK - Care2.com
June 8, 2010
Inmate Can Sue Agents of Private Prison Operator
Employees of a private company hired to run a federal prison can be sued for allegedly violating an inmate's constitutional rights, the 9th Circuit ruled on an issue that has yet to be "squarely addressed" by the Supreme Court.
Richard Lee Pollard, an inmate at a federal prison run by the private company GEO Group, slipped on a cart left in a doorway and injured both elbows.
As GEO employees were preparing to transport him to an outside orthopedic clinic, he said they made him wear a jumpsuit and a "black box" wrist restraint, despite his claim that both would cause him excruciating pain...
LINK - CourthouseNews.com
April 27, 2010
Prison privateer CCA gets sued again over inmate beating
A former Idaho inmate is suing a private prison company, saying guards watched as he was beaten by a fellow inmate in an attack that went on for so long that his assailant had time to stop and drink some water before continuing.
Attorneys for Hanni Elabed filed the lawsuit against the Correction Corporation of America in U.S. District Court last week, saying their client was left brain-damaged and may never fully recover from the assault at the Idaho Correctional Center near Boise.
Steven Owens, the public affairs director for CCA, says the Tennessee-based company doesn't comment on lawsuits other than through court filings...
LINK - WashingtonPost.com
February 24, 2010
Women Call Private Prison Guards Predators
Two former inmates of a Corrections Corporation of America prison say CCA employees preyed on them sexually and banished them to solitary lockdown when they complained. One woman claims a CCA guard paid her "sugar daddy" on the outside, then demanded, and received, sex in prison.
Jessica Rubio and Serbennia Chase filed separate, $20 million federal lawsuits against the private prison contractor, alleging civil rights violations at the company's Correctional Treatment Facility (CTF) at the District of Columbia Jail.
Rubio, who was arrested and sentenced in 2008 for sexual solicitation, says CTF employee "Sgt. Powell" paid her for sex four times when he should have been helping her "turn her life around..."
LINK - CourtHouseNews.com
January 13, 2010
U.S. court revives California inmate’s lawsuit over lockdowns
An appeals panel on Tuesday reinstated a federal civil rights lawsuit in Sacramento, ruling that a series of lockdowns primarily targeting African American inmates at a Susanville prison amounted to racial discrimination.
The lockdowns in 2002 and 2003 at High Desert State Prison followed assaults on prison staff carried out or planned by one or two black inmates.
Correctional officials at the prison "apparently believe that, without showing any linkage between the perpetrators and the prisoners subjected to the lockdown, it was enough to assume that race alone tied (them) together. … An assumption of this kind is grounded on race," a three-judge panel of the 9th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a sharply worded opinion…
LINK - SacBee.com
January 11, 2010
How much is a prison beating worth?
If you're Sherman Schuett, the answer to the question posed by the headline above, at least for lawsuit-filing purposes, is in excess of $100,000. The 61-year-old state inmate and his Evergreen attorney, Ron Beeks, are suing the operators of a controversial private prison in Colorado Springs that's supposed to help prepare prisoners for the difficult journey back to society.
The Cheyenne Mountain Re-Entry Center encourages its clients to take responsibility for their actions and confront misbehavior by others. That's what Schuett thought he was doing in 2008 when he reported another resident for punching holes in the wal l– an act that might be considered snitching in a more traditional correctional facility. An employee left Schuett's report where the other prisoner could see it, and Schuett was attacked in a unit that he claims lacked any supervision. He suffered various facial injuries, including a contact smashed in one eye, and spent three months in segregation after the attack for his own protection…
LINK - WestWord.com
January 8, 2010
Kentucky Gov Orders Female Inmates Removed from CCA Private Prison
Kentucky's governor has ordered some 400 female inmates removed from a corporate-run prison after allegations of sexual misconduct by male guards.
Gov. Steve Beshear ordered the women moved from Otter Creek Correctional Complex to a state-run prison starting by July 1.
The move comes four months after the Kentucky Department of Corrections called for security improvements at the prison in a report on 18 alleged cases of sexual misconduct by guards there.
The prison is operated by Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America…
LINK - ABCNews.GO.com
January 5, 2010
Private prison operator GEO Group get sued (again) for wrongful death
The family of the man, who's death started the first Reeves County Detention Center (RCDC) riot, is planning to file a wrongful death lawsuit.
Attorney's representing the family of Jesus Manuel Galindo say they're close to filing a wrongful death civil suit against GEO Group, the company that runs the detention center, along with the Physicians Network Association who provides medical care for the inmates.
You'll remember Galindo died in December 2008 after not receiving medicine for his epilepsy and being placed in an isolation cell…
LINK - NewsWest9.com
December 14, 2009
Another CCA private prison employee charged with raping inmate
A former education director at the New Mexico Women's Correctional Facility has been indicted on a second degree felony count of criminal sexual penetration of an inmate.
Charles Buccigrossi, 65, former education director at the Correctional Corporations of America facility, made sexual contact with an inmate, according to a Grants Police Department report. Officers were dispatched to the prison on Aug. 10 in response to investigate the allegation…
LINK - CibolaBeacon.com
December 8, 2009
Inmate lawyers side with Schwarzenegger’s early release plan in federal court
Lawyers for California's sick inmates said Monday they like the Schwarzenegger administration's plan for reducing the prison population and urged a three-judge federal panel to let state officials decide what methods to use.
The plan calls for a reduction in the population of 33 adult prisons to 137.5 percent of design capacity within two years, thus meeting the requirement of the panel's Aug. 4 order.
"Rather than ordering the state to utilize particular population reduction methods, the court should leave to the state the discretion and flexibility to choose which methods it uses to accomplish the reduction," the inmates' attorneys said in their response to the plan…
LINK - SacBee.com
October 1, 2009
Prison privateer CCA abuse/neglect case from San Diego heads to U.S. Supreme Court
A lawsuit filed by a now-deceased man over inappropriate medical care while he was in the custody of U.S. immigration officials in San Diego is set to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Francisco Castañeda, an immigrant from El Salvador, died in February 2008 after a battle with penile cancer. Castañeda had sought medical care for symptoms while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a contract detention facility in San Diego, and later at an agency facility in the Los Angeles area.
Castañeda, who had been in the United States since age 10, had landed in detention after a short drug-related sentence in state prison triggered deportation proceedings…
LINK - SignonSanDiego.com (San Diego Union-Tribune)
September 14, 2009
State, inmate’s parents settle federal lawsuit
The Idaho Department of Correction and the parents of an inmate who killed himself in a private prison have reached a settlement ending a federal lawsuit over the son's death.
The agreement, approved Sunday by U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill, also marks the end of lawsuits the parties had filed against each other in state court after previous settlement talks fell apart earlier this year.
The case arose after the 2007 death of Scot Noble Payne, who had been sent to a private Texas prison with hundreds of other inmates to alleviate overcrowding in Idaho. Payne slashed his own throat, and Idaho officials who investigated the Dickens County Correctional Facility said the deplorable conditions at the prison and the physical environment of Noble's solitary cell could have contributed to his suicide…
LINK - TheOlympian.com
August 16, 2009
Private prison plagued by problems, reports show
A private women's prison in Eastern Kentucky that has been plagued by allegations of sexual assaults by corrections officers is chronically understaffed, leading to poor employee morale and security concerns, according to a state monitor's reports.
AdvertisementThe monthly reports provide a glimpse into life inside the Otter Creek Correctional Center, where at least five workers have been charged with having sex with inmates in the past three years. Kentucky State Police are expected to present another case to a Floyd County grand jury this month…
LINK - Courier-Journal.com
August 7, 2009
CCA tries to keep court settlement payments secret
On July 27, 2009, The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and Western Missouri arbitrated on behalf of Prison Legal News, a monthly publication that reports on criminal justice-related issues, in a class-action lawsuit against Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), a private prison company based in Nashville.
ACLU moved to intervene in the suit for the sole purpose of unsealing the settlement agreement. As a matter of public policy, documents filed in federal court should be open to inspection by the public. "It is important to ensure the availability of court records for public accountability. It serves the interests of the 1st Amendment", said Doug Bonney, Chief Counsel for the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri.
The class action suit was settled on February 12, 2009; however, the settlement was sealed by the court upon motion by the parties. Thus, the exact terms of the settlement are unknown, including the maximum monetary amount that CCA will have to pay…
LINK - KCTribune.com
August 5, 2009
Private lawyers cost state millions
California taxpayers are routinely covering the more generous fees of private lawyers, who are hired by the state largely because the Attorney General's Office doesn't have the staff to handle all of the cases internally.
At times, the state has employed outside counsel at hourly rates that reach $450 even while most of its in-house lawyers earn less than half that, counting benefits. In rare circumstances, private attorneys command even higher fees for litigation requiring a particular expertise. Much of the demand on state lawyer time originates from the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, where class-action civil rights complaints and other grievances are a staple on court dockets.
Since January 2008, the corrections department has signed about $24 million in contracts with private lawyers hired because the Attorney General's Office says it's too shorthanded to take the jobs. The corrections department is seeking the additional help despite having about 80 lawyers of its own to handle a gamut of cases, with about a dozen of those assigned to prisoner-filed litigation…
LINK - SignonSanDiego.com (San Diego Union-Tribune)
July 13, 2009
Hawaii to investigate private prison rapes in KY
State officials are on the mainland to investigate accusations that female prisoners from Hawaii have been sexually assaulted by guards at a privately run prison in Kentucky.
"It's a very serious issue, a serious charge," Gov. Linda Lingle said yesterday. "We have a very large contract with this company, and we're going to have to sit with them when we get the report."
The Community Alliance on Prisons, which pushes for humane treatment of Hawaii prisoners, held a protest at the state Capitol on Friday, demanding that the state bring back female inmates held in mainland prisons. They cited the alleged sexual assaults of five women at the Otter Creek Correctional Facility in Wheelwright, Ky…
LINK - StarBulletin.com
June 18, 2009
Dead inmate’s family sues GEO private prison in Texas after riots, other problems
The death of a 32-year-old epileptic inmate in solitary confinement at Reeves County Detention Center last Dec. 12 touched off the first of two riots that saw fires set and hostages taken, said an attorney who represents the inmate's family.
Some of the privately-run federal lockup's 2,400 inmates, many of them illegal immigrants, had complained of woeful health care after the riots west of Pecos on Dec. 12-13 and Jan. 31-Feb. 1.
But the story now centers on 32-year-old Jesus Manuel Galindo of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, who El Paso lawyer Miguel "Mike" Torres" claims was improperly treated…
LINK - MyWestTexas.com
May 21, 2009
Female guards OKd to strip-search male inmates
A male prisoner can be strip-searched by a female guard even if male officers are available, a federal appeals court has ruled.
In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco dismissed an Arizona inmate's claims that jail officials had violated his rights by having a female guard trainee search inside his shorts and pat down his genitals.
The inmate, Charles Byrd, was in Maricopa County's minimum-security Durango Jail awaiting trial in October 2004 when officials ordered searches of everyone in his unit after a series of fights…
LINK - SFGate.com
April 24, 2009
Private prison guard (CCA) indicted for sex with inmate
A correctional officer at the Hamilton County Workhouse has been indicted by the Hamilton County Grand Jury for having sex with a female prisoner.
Kenon Dontae Arnold, an employee of the Corrections Corporation of America, is charged with having sexual contact with an inmate…
LINK - Cattanoogan.com
April 2, 2009
LGBT prisoner bill clears first hurdle
A bill by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) that seeks to create a safer environment in state prisons for transgender inmates cleared its first hurdle Tuesday, March 31 when it passed out of the public safety committee on a bipartisan vote of 7-0.
Committee Chair Assemblyman Jose Solorio (D-Anaheim) called the testimony of Shelly Resnick, a transgender woman who served time in state prison, "compelling."
Resnick, 38, a legal advocate for the TGI Justice Project, spoke of her experience as a 19-year-old transgender woman incarcerated at California's Tehachapi and later Kern Valley state maximum security prisons for men…
LINK - ebar.com (Bay Area Reporter)
March 25, 2009
Judge threatens Calif. officials with contempt
A federal judge is threatening to hold Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration in contempt if they don't quickly come up with a plan to take care of thousands of mentally ill inmates.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton in Sacramento says he is appalled by evidence the state is not capable of doing its duty.
He called it "mind-boggling" that the state still doesn't have a mental health treatment plan 14 years after a class-action lawsuit was first filed on behalf of inmates…
LINK - SFGate.com
March 3, 2009
Despite a Crashing Economy, Private Prison Firm Turns a Handsome Profit
While the nation's economy flounders, business is booming for The GEO Group Inc., a private prison firm that is paid millions by the U.S. government to detain undocumented immigrants and other federal inmates. In the last year and a half, GEO announced plans to add a total of at least 3,925 new beds to immigration lockups in five locations. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and the U.S. Marshals Service, which hire the company, will fill the beds with inmates awaiting court and deportation proceedings.
GEO reported impressive quarterly earnings of $20 million on February 12, 2009, along with an annual income of $61 million for 2008 – up from $38 million the year before. But the company's share value is not the only thing that's growing. Behind the financial success and expansion of the for-profit prison firm, there are increasing charges of negligence, civil rights violations, abuse and even death…
LINK - CorpWatch.org
February 12, 2009
Supreme Court: Inmate raped by cellmates can sue prison guards
The state Supreme Court allowed a transgender former prison inmate on Wednesday to proceed with a lawsuit accusing prison guards of failing to protect her from being raped and beaten by her cellmates.
In her suit, Alexis Giraldo said she was being held at Folsom State Prison for shoplifting and a parole violation in January 2006 when a cellmate began assaulting and raping her on a daily basis. She said prison staff ignored her complaints until March 2006, when she was transferred to segregated housing after a second cellmate attacked her with a box-cutter. She was paroled in July 2007.
Prison officials denied failing to protect Giraldo, who was housed at the all-male prison because she had not undergone surgery. A San Francisco jury rejected her emotional-distress claim against six prison employees in August 2007 after the trial judge dismissed her claim of negligence, ruling that guards have no legal duty to protect inmates from harm…
LINK - SFGate.com
January 27, 2009
Former inmate sues San Joaquin County over sack lunch
A former inmate at San Joaquin County Jail has claimed in a lawsuit that jail officials denied him his rights as a Muslim to practice his religion, U.S. District Court records show.
Kifa Muhammad claimed in his case that Muslims were not allowed to keep a sack lunch in their cell during the holy Ramadan holiday. Muslims fast during daylight hours during Ramadan. He apparently wanted to keep the sack lunch to eat after sunset, in keeping with traditional practices.
Jail personnel gave them breakfast before dawn and dinner after sunset, according to Kristen Hegge, the county's chief deputy county counsel. The Board of Supervisors is expected today to settle the case for $500…
LINK - LodiNews.com
November 26, 2008
Prison Food Temperature A Decision Of Jail Officials, Rules California Court
The First District of Appeal in San Francisco ruled that it is the prerogative of prison officials to determine the food temperature of inmates.
The decision overturned a ruling by the Pelican Bay State Prison in Del Norte County mandating jail officials to ensure inmates receive hot meals.
Two prisoners locked in the security housing of the facility filed a lawsuit over the food service because their breakfast and dinner were just lukewarm even if there is a Corrections Department regulation that stated all prisoners must receive three meals daily, of which two must be served hot…
LINK - AllHeadlineNews.com
November 22, 2008
Atheist sues prison officials
An atheist sued top California corrections officials last month, claiming that his constitutional rights were violated when he was returned to prison after objecting to participation in a program with religious overtones as a condition of parole.
Barry A. Hazle Jr., 40, was released from prison in February 2007 after doing a year for drug possession. He was required to complete a 90-day drug treatment program and was assigned to one in Shasta County.
The Redding computer technician says he objected several times to "coerced participation" in a program based on the 12-step recovery method originally developed by Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, according to the lawsuit filed in Sacramento federal court…
LINK - GoSanAngelo.com
November 12, 2008
Prison tries to integrate housing again
Lance Corcoran, a California Correctional Peace Officers Association spokesman, said inmates didn't like the ban on tobacco a few years ago either, but they adjusted. It takes a few troublemakers to disrupt the change to integrated housing, he said.
Corcoran said the inmates need to learn to live among different races. When they step out of prison, this is the reality of life, he said.
"We have guys who get out of administrative segregation, we give them $200 and put them on a bus where there's all kinds of people," he said. "You have to be able to live with each other and behave…"
LINK - RecordNet.com
September 30, 2008
Redding man sues state over religious drug treatment program
A Redding man filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday, claiming his rights as an atheist were violated when he was ordered to take part in a 12-step drug treatment program that taught reliance on a higher power.
Barry A. Hazle, Jr., 40, was found to have violated terms of his parole and sent to prison for 125 days after he formally complained about the program, according to his attorneys. His legal problems began with a 2004 felony conviction on methamphetamine possession.
He was placed on parole in February 2007 and ordered to complete a 90-day live-in drug treatment program at Empire Recovery Center in Redding. Hazle said he requested a non-religious program…
LINK - Redding.com
September 25, 2008
Illinois: Inmates sue over prison shakedown
Six inmates at the Southwestern Illinois Correctional Center in East St. Louis filed suit against five Illinois Department of Corrections employees in federal court alleging their Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated.
Larry E. Starks, Jr., James Brown, Craig L. Spencer, David Coleman, Kevin D. Drysdale and Anwar S. Randle are each seeking at least $500,000 in damages, alleging they were denied due process, subjected to cruel and unusual punishment and for violations of the equal protection clause.
The inmates allege on May 13, prison officials authorized a "shakedown" of housing unit one which consists of 24 male dorms even though at the time there was no disorderly conduct or need to restore order. The prison's tactical unit conducted the operation…
LINK - StClairRecord.com
September 4, 2008
CCA: Depositions begin in inmate lawsuit
Attorneys for a mentally ill inmate who went months without showering have begun taking depositions in their suit against Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, which alleged the company denied him adequate mental health care and access to mail.
Mary Braswell, who filed the suit on behalf of her grandson, Frank Horton, is seeking punitive damages on the grounds that Horton's civil rights were violated during his incarceration at the Metro-Davidson County detention facility.
AdvertisementJohn Clemmons, one of Braswell's lawyers, said he couldn't speak about the case because it's ongoing…
LINK - Tennessean.com
August 13, 2008
CCA: Fla. prison accused in inmate’s staph death
The family of an inmate who died from a drug-resistant staph infection claims she contracted it because she had been deprived of water for bathing and toilet use at a privately operated state prison.
A lawyer representing the estate of Emma Nobles, who died of MRSA Dec. 15, 2005, at a Tallahassee hospital, made that allegation in letters to two state agencies. The letters are a preliminary step for a possible wrongful death lawsuit.
Water was turned off for days at a time at the prison for women in nearby Gretna, apparently as a cost-cutting measure, the attorney, Patrick R. Frank, said in an interview Wednesday…
LINK - FortMillTimes.com
July 30, 2008
Groups Sue State Over Prison Transfers
Three advocacy groups sued the state in San Francisco Superior Court on Tuesday to challenge the transfer of prison inmates to out-of-state institutions.
The lawsuit claims the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation violated a state administrative procedures law by failing to give public notice and an opportunity for public comment on rules for implementing the program.
The suit asks the court to suspend the transfers until the notice and comment procedures are followed…
LINK - KRCA.com Sacramento
July 28, 2008
Opinion: “It’s like screwing around with the ecosystem”
In California, the prison system is going to start integrating its prison cells — for years, inmate housing has been segregated along racial lines. An inmate sued, though, getting all the way to the Supreme Court. As part of a settlement, Cali agreed to start throwing cons into the melting pot, the Washington Post reports.
(Slowly, though — it's only in a few prisons at first.)
I'm curious how this is going to go down. Everything I've ever read says that most prisoners self-segregate because, well, they just plain don't like people from other races. And they tend to get all stabby when pushed together…
LINK - KansasCity.com Crime Scene Blog
July 27, 2008
California to Begin Integrating Prisons for Men
Male prisoners in the nation's largest corrections system, long kept segregated by race in an effort to temper violence, will soon be sharing cells with inmates of other ethnicities.
A program aimed at integrating California's prisons for men will begin in coming weeks at two facilities and will be extended to the state's 28 other penitentiaries over the next year or so, officials said.
Segregating prison housing has long been the system's unwritten policy. But after an inmate's civil rights lawsuit went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, a mediated settlement led the state to reverse course despite many inmates' opposition…
LINK - WashingtonPost.com
July 27, 2008
Opinion: “Inmates and Segregation”
To be honest, it didn't look like racial segregation. I was standing among long rows of metal bunk beds in a room where 36 men of different races — black, white, Latino — live together more or less peaceably. But the setting was a dormitory for minimum-security inmates at the Sierra Conservation Center, a prison in Tuolumne County near Yosemite, and in such places, unwritten rules apply.
One of the rules is that each bunk must be shared by two men of the same race. The bunks are close together. A white inmate could probably shake hands with a black inmate in a neighboring bunk without either man having to get out of bed. But that's a horizontal matter. Vertically, prison politics require that each bunk be occupied by two men of one race. Beside someone of another race, yes. Above or beneath, no. I didn't ask about diagonal.
Well-meaning Americans have long debated how best to encourage racial integration. Should government be aggressive in bringing it about quickly? Or should we rely on social evolution to achieve it more slowly and organically?…
LINK - LATimes.com (The Los Angeles Times)
July 10, 2008
Prisoners with hepatitis C sue California prisons
State prisoners with hepatitis C aren't getting the health care they need, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday that adds to complaints about the medical treatment of California inmates.
The filing in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles estimates that as many as 40 percent of the state's inmates are infected. About 30,000 are expected to report difficulty getting adequate care, which is why the suit seeks class-action status, said Shawn Khorrami, the prisoners' lawyer.
"This is a nasty, nasty disease," Khorrami said. "We don't allow this kind of punishment in America, where someone has a disease and we have them suffer from it and have all kinds of problems going forward in their lives just because they've committed a crime."…
LINK - AP.Google.com (The Associated Press)
July 8, 2008
Prison Cell Integration Prompts Debate: Male Inmates Will Start Integrating Prison Cells In July
Lawmakers at the Capitol discussed Monday the state's unwritten policy of segregating prison cells based on race, a practice set to end this month.
With prisons continuing to be overcrowded, California finally agreed to inmates, becoming the last state in the U.S. to do so after facing a lawsuit.
"Most other states have not had a practice of segregating from the beginning," state Sen. Gloria Romero said. "They have not had to undo essentially 30 years without a civil rights movement in a prison system…"
LINK - KCRA.com News Sacramento
July 7, 2008
California To Start Integrating Prison Cells
California has just launched a new policy to integrate inmates in housing units, wherever possible. Previously prisons used race as the primary factor in determining where inmates sleep, but not anymore, NBC11's Mike Luery reported.
The Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation has agreed to begin integrating inmates' cells, following the settlement of a lawsuit. On Monday hearings were scheduled to begin in the Senate on integrating California prisons.
California's prison chief, correctional officers and others were expected to comment on the contentious issue…
LINK - NBCSanDiego.com
June 21, 2008
Judge limits secrecy bid in Calif. prison lawsuits
A federal magistrate has rejected an attempt by the state to keep certain documents secret as courts decide whether to cap California's overcrowded prison population.
A special panel of three federal judges had already set a June 27 hearing to decide whether to go ahead with a November trial on a set of lawsuits that have been consolidated.
In pretrial motions, the state sought to prohibit public disclosure of certain documents classified as sensitive communications or part of internal deliberations…
LINK - AP.Google.com
June 16, 2008
Private Prisons: Guards accused of using inmate food as toilet
An Inverness attorney plans to sue the company the runs Citrus county's jail, claiming employees are treating inmates like human toilets.
Attorney Greg Jones has called a news conference today to announce his suit against "Corrections Corporation of America and their employees regarding the urination and defecation in the food of a former inmate…"
LINK - ABCActionNews.com
June 15, 2008
Colorado: Appeals court rules inmates may sue CCA in prison riot
Some inmates at the Crowley County Correctional Facility won a new trial last week.
The 234 inmates had sued the owners of the private prison, Corrections Corporation of America, following the 2004 riot at the Olney Springs lockup, charging that they were punished unfairly for that event even though they said they were not involved.
The inmates sued the prison in two cases filed in Crowley County district court in 2005 and 2006, but saw both cases dismissed by District Judge Michael Schiferl on grounds that they hadn't fully exhausted all their administrative appeals through the Colorado Department of Corrections…
LINK - Chieftain.com (The Pueblo Chieftain)
June 5, 2008
State OKs changes for juvenile parole violators
The state has agreed to provide attorneys and timely hearings for juveniles accused of violating parole, in a settlement of a federal class-action lawsuit by youths who said prison officials infringed on their constitutional rights.
The lawsuit, filed nearly two years ago by former wards of the state's Division of Juvenile Justice, alleged that the state was violating youths' rights to due process by detaining them for months without legal counsel or a hearing on the charges and by failing to offer assistance for those who were disabled, as required by federal law.
In some cases, youths would be held for so-called technical violations of the terms of their release, such as consuming alcohol or traffic offenses…
LINK - LATimes.com
June 1, 2008
A lethal limbo for migrants
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has repeatedly told Congress that it spends millions of dollars on medical care for detained immigrants facing deportation. But many of the immigrants are already sick when detained, and the public health nurses and doctors at the detention centers are too overwhelmed to treat them adequately.
Daniel Javier Solando, a Honduran immigrant turned over to ICE after serving time in a California state prison for bankruptcy fraud, witnessed Arellano's final days. He is appealing a deportation order and faces months, even years, in detention while his case makes its way through a court system burdened by a backlog of similar cases. As a result, Solando fears that he too might die because he won't get the medicine he needs to control his high blood pressure. Currently held at a detention center in Florence, Ariz., he has twice been rushed to an emergency room in the city. His medical records, provided to me by his pro bono attorney, indicate at least one of those visits might have been because he had a seizure…
LINK - LATimes.com (The Los Angeles Times)
May 25, 2008
Indiana: Dead inmate’s family sues sheriff and jail
A Marion County Jail II inmate was denied blood-pressure medication before he collapsed and later died of hypertension, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in Marion Superior Court.
The lawsuit was filed by attorneys who have filed other complaints challenging medical care at the privately run jail. It says the jail's medical staff failed to give Brian Keith Allen, 33, regular doses of his medication, despite at least one high blood pressure reading.
He collapsed Nov. 25, 2006, and died five days later in a hospital. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of his estate and his mother, Ella Mae Allen, names Corrections Corporation of America, two medical staff members and Sheriff Frank Anderson…
LINK - IndyStar.com
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 22, 2008
Overcrowding in California prisons could be reduced without early release of criminals
SACRAMENTO - A proposed legal settlement in a high-profile federal court case on California prison overcrowding would vastly reduce the number of state inmates without releasing criminals early, by diverting low-risk offenders to community-based rehabilitation programs and county jails.
The draft agreement emerged after six months of negotiations among state officials, advocates for inmates, local law enforcement leaders and two mediators appointed by a panel of three federal judges. The judges are scheduled to meet in 10 days, and are expected to proceed to trial if a settlement has not been reached by then…
LINK - LATimes.com
May 20, 2008
Prison overcrowding case draws settlement offer
Two court-appointed referees proposed a settlement today in the state prison inmate overcrowding lawsuit that would avoid the early release of inmates.
The proposal anticipates that the prison system will add enough new beds to lower the inmate overcrowding rate. The settlement also wants the state to put more offenders into alternative sanction programs rather than sending them back to prison by the tens of thousands on minor parole violations.
Neither the inmate rights attorneys who filed the motion for the prison population cap nor attorneys for the state have signed off on the settlement…
LINK - SacBee.com (The Sacramento Bee)
May 2, 2008
Delco Prison: “Too many deaths”
Too many inmates are dying at Delaware County's jail.
Since 2005, at least eight inmates have died at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Thornton, the only privately run jail in Pennsylvania. The latest fatality is Kenneth Kallenbach, 39, who died April 24 after contracting pneumonia at the lockup. He had been held there awaiting trial since mid-March. Last year, a woman died at the jail after being held there for six weeks. She suffered from a thyroid condition; her family said she was not receiving her medication. In 2005, five inmates died in five months. Two were apparent suicides; one was a heroin overdose.
GEO Group, which operates the facility, has faced lawsuits over these deaths. It has problems elsewhere. In Texas, where GEO runs more than a dozen prisons, it has come under criticism for alleged mismanagement and foul conditions. One inspector called an adult facility in Texas operated by GEO the worst he'd ever seen…
LINK - Philly.com (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
May 1, 2008
Immigrants Challenge U.S. System of Detention
Immigrants who spent time in detention while fighting deportation filed a federal suit on Wednesday against Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, demanding that the agency issue legally enforceable regulations for its detention centers.
No enforceable standards now exist for the immigrant detention system, a rapidly growing conglomeration of county jails, federal centers and privately run prisons across the country.
The lawsuit, filed by the immigrants and their advocates in United States District Court in Manhattan, contends that the lack of such regulations puts hundreds of thousands of people a year in substandard and inconsistent conditions while the government decides whether to deport them, leaving them subject to inadequate medical care and abuse…
LINK - NYTimes.com (The New York Times)
April 11, 2008
Authorities investigate reports of missing property at privately run immigration detention center
Authorities are investigating allegations of missing property from illegal immigrants held at the country's largest immigrant detention center here, officials said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials refused to comment on those allegations nor would they comment on a report that a government-issued gun also was missing at the detention center.
[…]
Carl Stuart, a spokesman for Management and Training Corp., the Utah-based company that runs the 3,000-bed detention center for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, acknowledged that there's an "ongoing investigation." But ICE would not comment on whether anything or anyone is being investigated at the detention center.
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
April 3, 2008
Inmates suing CCA private prison in Indiana
A civil rights complaint and a lawsuit filed Wednesday by inmates raise questions about medical care, safety and the grievance system at a privately run Marion County jail.
The allegations about Jail II have come less than a year after the county closed more than 30 years of court oversight because of crowding at the main lockup. Jail II — touted by officials as one of the best jails in Indiana — opened in 1997 to relieve pressure on the Marion County Jail…
LINK - IndyStar.com
March 14, 2008
Suit alleges San Quentin inmate died due to poor medical care
The mother of a San Quentin State Prison inmate has filed suit alleging that her son died in 2006 because he received inadequate care for his diabetes. "I can't get over the feeling that my son was essentially murdered by the prison system," said Christine Goodwin of Modesto.
Her son, Scott Fitzgerald, who was in custody at San Quentin due to a parole violation following a battery conviction, died Sept. 12, 2006, after being taken by ambulance to Marin General Hospital. Fitzgerald was 34 when he died.
The suit pending in U.S. District Court in San Francisco names San Quentin Warden Robert Ayers, other prison personnel and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation as defendants.
LINK - MarinIJ.com (Marin Independent Journal)
