After a sex scandal at a privately run prison in rural Kentucky, the state cut off the institution's funding and now it's shutting down _ and that worries town officials in an impoverished Appalachian community where incarceration meant jobs and economic survival.

With Otter Creek Correctional Center set to close in the coming months, Mike Goeing, who runs Family Drugs of Wheelwright, sees pain ahead for his store and the other few remaining businesses in the town of about 1,200.

"It's definitely going to hurt," he said...

The town of Wheelwright is about to lose 170 jobs. That's because the Otter Creek Correctional Center will close at the end of June.

WYMT-TV (http://bit.ly/HI34ez) reports that added capacity at other Kentucky prisons has made the Otter Creek facility unnecessary. That's why the state did not renew its contract with Nashville, Tenn., -based private prison contractor Corrections Corporation of America.

CCA spokesman Steve Owen said the company will try to help any willing employees to relocate to other CCA facilities around the country...

Members of the Kentucky Jailers Association are pushing the state to cancel contracts with a pair of private prisons next summer and transfer some of the inmates to county jails, a move that would also redirect millions of state dollars to the jails.

The jailers say that since the state Department of Corrections pays local jails to house state inmates, the move could help jails across Kentucky reduce budget deficits...

A Hawai'i prison inmate who alleges she was sexually assaulted by two guards at a Mainland prison has sued the state and the private operator of the prison.

The suit, filed Monday, alleges that the plaintiff was attacked June 16, 2008, by male corrections officers at the Otter Creek Correctional Center in Kentucky.

The woman is serving a life prison sentence for murder and kidnapping convictions...

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…

Private prison operator Corrections Corporation of America is denying responsibility in the shooting of a Nashville police officer, allegedly by an escaped inmate.

Sgt. Mark Chesnut claims in a lawsuit filed in October that the Nashville-based company was negligent in Joseph Jackson Jr.'s escape from an offsite doctor's office while he was an inmate of CCA's Delta Correctional Facility in Greenwood, Miss.

Chesnut stopped a rental car carrying Jackson and his cousin - Courtney Logan of Louisville, Ky. - on June 25, just hours after the escape…

A Hawaii woman imprisoned in Kentucky says she was sexually abused by a prison guard and claims the jail tried to cover it up. Monday afternoon, Totie Tauala's attorney formally filed seven counts against the corporation that runs the facility.

Tauala is the first to formally come forward of about 19 Hawaii and Kentucky women who make similar sexual abuse allegations. They were all serving sentences at the Otter Creek Correctional Facility in Wheelwright, Kentucky.

A warning: some of the details in this case are disturbing…

A privately run prison in Eastern Kentucky plagued with allegations of sexual improprieties involving guards and inmates did not report all sexual abuse incidents to the state.

A Herald-Leader review of sexual-incident reports dating to 2006 showed that at least one alleged assault involving Otter Creek Correctional Center staff and a Kentucky inmate was not reported to the state by Corrections Corporation of America. Also, state correction officials said, Otter Creek hasn't followed the same reporting standards for sexual assaults as the state's 13 state-run prisons.

State prison officials confirmed that they never received a report from CCA about Randy Hagans, the prison's former chaplain. Hagans was charged with third-degree sexual abuse for alleged contact with an Kentucky inmate. He has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go to trial Sept. 21, court records show…

All but one of the remaining Hawai'i inmates housed at the embattled Otter Creek Women's Prison in Kentucky are back in Hawai'i and are likely to remain close to home.

The state decided to remove the prisoners from the facility following allegations that 23 Otter Creek inmates, including seven from Hawai'i, were sexually assaulted by prison personnel.

State Department of Public Safety director Clayton Frank said 128 prisoners arrived back in Hawai'i on Monday. Fifty-nine are being housed at the Federal Detention Center near Honolulu International Airport; 69 are at the Women's Community Correctional Center in Kailua…

State corrections officials have long claimed that housing Hawaii convicts at privately operated prisons on the mainland is much cheaper than incarcerating them on the islands. Problems at a private prison housing Hawaii women in Kentucky indicate that it is operating on the cheap, in comparison not only with Hawaii prisons but with public facilities in Kentucky.

More than half of the 128 female inmates from Hawaii will return to the islands for incarceration here following allegations of sexual assaults by corrections officers. Hawaii officials should have known from monthly monitoring reports over the past 19 months that the Otter Creek Correctional Center in eastern Kentucky was plagued by understaffing, poor employee morale and security concerns…

Women inmates from Hawai'i will be removed from a Kentucky prison for safety reasons after allegations that some were sexually abused by prison guards, the state Department of Public Safety announced yesterday.

Clayton Frank, the department's director, said 40 women inmates were transferred back to the Islands on Monday and most of the 128 women remaining at Otter Creek Correctional Center in Wheelwright will return within a month. Several women serving lengthy sentences will be moved to other Mainland prisons, according to the department.

Frank said many inmates wanted to stay at Otter Creek because they believe they are benefiting from its prison services…

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.
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The 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…

An investigation into sex assaults involving Hawai'i and other female inmates at a private Kentucky prison has widened and now includes 19 alleged attacks over the past three years.

Honolulu attorney Myles Breiner is representing three Hawai'i women who allege they were sexually assaulted at Otter Creek Correctional Center within the past 12 to 18 months. The most recent sex assault was reported June 23 and allegedly involved a male corrections officer.

Meanwhile, Kentucky officials say they have launched an investigation into 16 alleged sex assaults at Otter Creek involving Kentucky women. Some of the allegations date back to 2006…

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…

Red ink-smeared budgets are pushing an array of states — Virginia, Kentucky, California, Alabama, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina among them — to consider early release of hundreds, possibly thousands of convicted criminals. Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter even wants to close down two prisons.

As Josh Goodman writes in Governing magazine, "Budget crises have a way of making the politically impossible suddenly possible." Even more significant, though, may be a wave of reassessment, from localities to state governments to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, about the effectiveness of America's vast criminal justice enterprise…

A new report says that about 150 low-risk Hawaii inmates held in mainland prisons could be returned to the islands.

Hawaii pays more than 50 million (M) dollars a year to house more than 2,000 state prison inmates in privately run correctional facilities in Arizona and Kentucky. The prisons are run by Corrections Corporation of America…

A secretary at a privately run Kentucky prison where Hawai'i women inmates are housed apparently smuggled a handgun into the facility Tuesday and shot herself in the warden's office, according to the investigator handling the case. The apparent suicide of Carla J. Meade, 43, represents a major security breach at the Otter Creek Correctional Center, and Kentucky state police detective Mike Goble said prison owner Corrections Corp. of America is investigating how Meade got the .22-caliber pistol through the facility's security screening system…