Safety Issues
May 24, 2012
Riot turns attention to private prisons
Now that order has been restored at the Adams County Correctional Center after weekend rioting saw one prison guard killed and 16 other prison personnel and three inmates injured, perhaps it's time to ask how and why Mississippi got into the private prison business.
Politically, it's a long story.
When the smoke cleared, a prison spokesperson told Mississippi taxpayers that the 2,567-bed prison near Natchez houses adult male illegal immigrants who had come back into the U.S. after being deported...
LINK - HattiesburgAmerican.com
April 16, 2012
CA prisons system tries new method to stop contraband cell phones
State corrections officials say they have come up with a no-cost plan to stop the illegal use of cell phones inside prisons by inmates, a problem that has plagued the prison system for years.
Corrections officials announced today that Global Tel Link has been awarded a contract for inmates to use the company's service to make calls from each prison's authorized telephone system.
The company will receive revenues from those phone calls and will use the proceeds of that deal to install systems to block unauthorized cell signals at prisons, including phone calls, text messages, emails and attempts to access the Internet...
LINK - blogs.sacbee.com
March 29, 2012
Judge: GEO private prison operations “such horror as should be unrealized anywhere in the civilized
A federal judge has approved an agreement that would move juvenile offenders out of a privately run prison that has been hounded by allegations of physical and sexual abuse.
The settlement was reached between civil rights advocates and the state of Mississippi in a 2010 lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves approved the agreement in a March 26 order made public Thursday...
LINK - SunHerald.com
March 26, 2012
Brutality Alleged at Private Prison
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (CN) - Guards at a private prison instigated - and watched - a gang fight that left him brutally beaten and unconscious, says a man who claims that Corrections Corporation of America guards "foster" brutality between inmates, and conceal injuries in the prison's "in-house" medical center.
Jacob Clevenger sued Corrections Corporation of America, CCA Western Properties, and Philip Valdez, warden of the CCA's Idaho Correctional Center, in Federal Court.
Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America is the largest private corrections company in the country, managing 60 prisons with a total of 90,000 beds...
LINK - CourthouseNews.com
March 14, 2012
A private-prison disaster in Oklahoma reveals the dangers of California’s reliance on CCA
At 11:37 a.m. on a Tuesday in October, a fight between two inmates started in the dining hall in a prison in western Oklahoma. Guards broke it up using pepper spray, and the situation returned to normal.
Or so they thought.
Minutes later, the dining hall erupted in all-out war with fists, kicks and food trays flying. Within 15 minutes, the entire facility was thrust into chaos as 600 inmates, mostly African-Americans and Hispanics associated with the Surenos prison gang, bloodied each other. Suddenly, one of the largest prison riots in California’s recent history was going down in a corrections facility a thousand miles outside the state...
LINK - SDCityBeat.com
March 7, 2012
Local jails see more inmates than expected as a result of prison realignment
California's plan to reduce the inmate population at state prisons is putting pressure on local jails.
Jails in both San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara County have taken dozens of inmates since the start of the program in October.
As of last month, San Luis Obispo County has taken in 128 inmates who would have previously been sent to prison. That's double what the jail expected to receive by this time...
LINK - KSBY.com
March 1, 2012
State gets tougher on private prisons
New Mexico's corrections agency has slapped Florida-based GEO Group Inc. with nearly $300,000 in penalties on top of $1.1 million in fines assessed last year for the company's continued failure to adequately staff a prison in Hobbs.
In addition, $11,800 in fines were assessed this week against New Mexico's second-private prison operator, Corrections Corporation of America.
Tennessee-based CCA, which operates a women's prison in Grants for New Mexico, was penalized for inadequate staffing there and for its failure to release 15 female inmates on time. Some of the inmates were released more than 30 days past their release date, state documents show...
LINK - SantaFeNewMexican.com
February 19, 2012
Fresno County jail clashes blamed on realignment
Fresno County Jail inmate Jose Cuevas last week drove a pencil into the neck of cellmate Troy Phillips 22 times, according to Sheriff's Office reports.
While sheriff's officials still are searching for a motive in the attack, it's the latest in an uptick of jail violence that they say likely is tied to new responsibilities handed down by the state...
LINK - FresnoBee.com
January 17, 2012
Private Corrections Institute Opposes Prison Privatization Effort
The Private Corrections Institute, a Florida-based non-profit watchdog organization that actually opposes the privatization of correctional services, has -- as would be expected -- “sharply condemned” the latest state effort to privatize correctional facilities in 18 South Florida counties.
“While private prison companies will profit from expanded prison privatization contracts, should the legislature prevail in its mass prison privatization plan the loser will be Florida’s taxpayers, as public funds will be diverted from the state into the coffers of for-profit prison firms with no discernable (sic) benefit to the public,” Private Corrections Institute stated in a release...
LINK - SunshineStateNews.com
December 21, 2011
Crowley (private) prison riot: New details of unheeded warnings emerge in epic lawsuit
Seven years ago inmates at a private prison in southeastern Colorado went on an all-night rampage, chasing the shorthanded staff from the premises, attacking suspected snitches, setting fires and causing millions of dollars in damages. Now documents filed in a long-running legal battle confirm what many prisoners have been saying all along -- that prison officials received ample warning of impending trouble but failed to take action in time.
The 2004 riot at the Crowley County Correctional Facility, operated by the Corrections Corporation of America, has emerged as a kind of case study in the multiple ways things can go wrong in a for-profit prison...
LINK - Westword.com
September 16, 2011
Private prison issues in Arizona
Whether more private prison beds will be added in Arizona — including perhaps here in the Yuma area — remains uncertain in the wake of a court ruling earlier this week.
Awarding of bids for private companies to build prisons to house thousands of prisoners are pending by the Arizona Department of Corrections. Among the bidders are two companies proposing to build prisons in Yuma County.
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) asked a judge early this week to immediately halt awarding of bids pending completion of a study of the effectiveness of private prisons. The judge declined to do so, but did schedule a hearing next week on the issue...
LINK - YumaSun.com
September 9, 2011
Attica Prison Riot: Painful memories linger 40 years later
The village of Attica was hardly a spot on the map in 1971, until what all the locals simply call “the riot.”
The community nestled in the hills of rural Wyoming County became a household name across the country because of intense media coverage of the September 1971 uprising at Attica Correctional Facility.
The village was a company town and the company was the prison. Everybody worked there or knew someone who did...
LINK - TheDailyNewsOnline.com
September 1, 2011
Columnist: A cautionary tale about private prison shift
As Florida enters the uncharted territory of a huge expansion of private, for-profit prisons, this story serves as a cautionary tale.
A citizen walks into a prison and says, Hello, I'd like to look at the visitors' sign-in log, which is a public record under state law.
No, a prison official says...
LINK - TampaBay.com
March 28, 2011
Private Prison Promises Leave Texas Towns In Trouble
Second in a two-part series on private prisons (See Part 1 - Town Relies on Troubled Youth Prison for Profits)
The country with the highest incarceration rate in the world — the United States — is supporting a $3 billion private prison industry. In Texas, where free enterprise meets law and order, there are more for-profit prisons than any other state. But because of a growing inmate shortage, some private jails cannot fill empty cells, leaving some towns wishing they'd never gotten in the prison business.
It seemed like a good idea at the time when the west Texas farming town of Littlefield borrowed $10 million and built the Bill Clayton Detention Center in a cotton field south of town in 2000. The charmless steel-and-cement-block buildings ringed with razor wire would provide jobs to keep young people from moving to Lubbock or Dallas...
LINK - NPR.org
March 28, 2011
Town Relies On Troubled Youth Prison For Profits
Prisons are filled with stress and violence; without proper supervision they can revert to primitive places. That's what happened at Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in Mississippi, an NPR news investigation has determined.
As the nation's largest juvenile prison, Walnut Grove houses 1,200 boys and young men in a sprawling one-story complex ringed by security fences about an hour's drive east of Jackson. The State of Mississippi pays a private corrections company to run the prison.
NPR's investigation found that allegations swirling around the prison raise the fundamental question of whether profits have distorted the mission of rehabilitating young inmates...
LINK - NPR.org
March 10, 2011
Cell phones in prison - new technology for CDCR?
California's top prison official revealed Thursday that the state is testing new technology to block inmates' cell phone signals.
Earlier this month corrections officials installed at an undisclosed prison location devices that block all calls made from nonauthorized cell phone numbers.
"In our first 24 hours, we were able to identify 400 cell phones at one prison that were trying to utilize the cell phone towers," Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate told KCRA 3...
LINK - KCRA.com
April 8, 2010
CDCR: New MRSA Policy & Training Procedures
CDCR HQ has issued a memo (see attached) directing all institutions to develop local MRSA procedures. Therefore, if they have not already begun, local institutional management will shortly begin to develop the local MRSA IIPPs which will include site specific issues. The statewide MRSA settlement agreement allows for local discussion regarding the content of the local MRSA OPs.
We suggest you contact your Warden as soon as possible to set up meetings for discussion regarding MRSA issues. Some areas of consideration when reviewing the local MRSA policy may include...
February 25, 2010
California prison health care cuts—a closer look
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative Democrats are backing an $811 million cut to prison medical costs in 2010-11, contained in a bill the Legislature sent the governor Monday. Democrats have included that cut as part of their $5 billion budget solution.
The $811 million cut wasn't based on California's needs or sophisticated analysis. It comes from applying New York's per-inmate cost of $5,757 to California's prison population, which the governor considers more appropriate than California's current cost of about $11,000 per inmate.
But the cut is not as severe as it might first seem. Schwarzenegger in his budget also proposed increasing the prison medical budget by $519.1 million this fiscal year and adding $532.2 million in 2010-11, a total of $1.05 billion from now until June 2011...
LINK - SacBee.com
January 28, 2010
Ruling assailed allowing felons to have armor
A state appellate court decision allowing violent felons to possess body armor has touched off a firestorm in law enforcement, legal and legislative circles.
The ruling could set up a showdown before the state Supreme Court and puts once-overlooked legislation sponsored by the San Diego County District Attorney's Office in the spotlight.
Authorities and lawmakers argue that the armor gives convicts unnecessary protection during gun battles with police…
LINK - SignOnSanDiego. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
January 10, 2010
Governor’s budget would strip city, county cash
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has demanded more federal dollars to help balance the state's budget, but local officials say he also sent a clear message to cities and counties throughout California: The state is coming for your money, too.
Included in the governor's proposal to bridge a $20 billion budget gap are measures that could strip more than $1 billion in transit funds from local jurisdictions, put more inmates in already overcrowded county jails, and require counties to pay more for child welfare and care for blind, disabled and elderly people…
LINK - SFGate.com
January 5, 2010
GEO Group private prison guard gets year in jail for smuggling contraband
A former corrections officer at a privately run prison in South Bay was sentenced this morning to a year in jail following her convictions earlier this year for introducing contraband and conspiring to introduce contraband into the facility.
Michelle Terrien, 34, was the center of a bizarre triangle within the South Bay Correctional Facility run by the GEO Group. An inmate with a homemade bomb — honey bottles filled with gasoline and connected to batteries and wires — took Terrien hostage last year claiming she never delivered to him $4,000 that she had received from his sister…
LINK - PalmBeachPost.com
December 20, 2009
Court overturns California ban on violent felons owning body armor
A police advocacy group has criticized an appeals court judgment last week overturning a law that prevented violent felons from owning body armor, saying the ruling will put officers and the public in danger.
The decade-old ban was enacted after the 1997 North Hollywood shootout, a confrontation between police and two heavily armored bank robbers that injured officers and civilians. The state Legislature passed the ban in 1998 as a measure to protect police…
LINK - LATimes.com
December 14, 2009
Rampant OT fuels prison health cost
California's prison health-care employees work hard — or so it would seem by their schedules. Many average 12 hours a day; others routinely log 16- to 18-hour shifts for months on end, creating a costly overtime free-for-all in this budget-strapped state.
An abundance of forced and voluntary overtime has driven some nurses beyond human endurance. In the process, the long hours have opened the door for deadly lapses in a health-care system just beginning to recover from decades of neglect…
LINK - FresnoBee.com
December 10, 2009
Four months after fact, CDCR announces CIM riot was based on fight between gangs
A riot at a Southern California prison that left more than 200 injured and two buildings destroyed was triggered by an "ongoing racial street war" between black and Hispanic gangs, corrections officials say.
The Aug. 8 fight erupted in a section of the California Institution for Men in Chino that houses newly arriving inmates from Southern California and ex-convicts returning to prison for parole violations.
Unaffiliated inmates joined the brawl after gang members began fighting, Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said Wednesday…
LINK - Google.com AP News
December 10, 2009
Protesters at Geo Group’s private prison in Texas
Civil rights activists say they're taking their attack on conditions in a privately run West Texas prison to the prison operator's New Braunfels offices.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and other groups are demonstrating around midday Thursday outside the regional offices of the GEO Group.
They're trying to draw attention to what they say are poor conditions in the GEO-operated Reeves County Detention Center near Pecos…
LINK - Chron.com (The Houston Chronicle - AP)
December 10, 2009
Public meeting in Stockton to discuss prisons
State prison officials will present plans and take input on a 500-bed inmate re-entry facility southeast of Stockton in two public meetings to be held today.
The Northern California Reentry Facility is one of three new prisons the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation plans to open southeast of Stockton.
The re-entry facility would occupy the former Northern California Women's Facility on Arch Road east of Highway 99. State officials plan to open the re-entry facility in late 2012…
LINK - RecordNet.com
November 30, 2009
GEO private prison: hatchets, knives used in attack
Two inmates are recovering after a weekend attack at a private prison in Lawton.
Lawton police say the two inmates were attacked Saturday by two other inmates wielding homemade hatchets and knives at the Lawton Correctional Center. Both were transported by ambulance to a Lawton hospital, where one of the victims required surgery.
The prison is owned by Florida-based GEO Group, Inc., and a GEO spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment…
LINK - KFSM.com
November 28, 2009
Chino prison expansion may help economy, hinder services, officials say
Major expansion of adult prison operations in the Chino Valley may provide a slight boost to the economy and to city coffers, but it may also affect some municipal services, officials said.
Nearly 3,000 more beds and an influx of new correctional officers are part of the $110million conversion of a Chino youth prison into an adult facility - a plan that adds 400 to 500 more correctional officers to the new facility replacing the Heman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility.
About 1,800 adults will be housed there. A new reception center would house an additional 950 inmates. The new prison is expected to open in December 2013 if environmental reviews and construction run on schedule…
LINK - ContraCostaTimes.com
November 26, 2009
Warrant issued for CCA female guard for rape of private prison inmate
A former female correctional officer has been charged with three felony counts of second-degree rape after being accused of having sex with an inmate at a private prison in Holdenville.
A warrant for the arrest of ex-correctional officer Michelle Kalinich was issued Nov. 6, but she had not been taken into custody Wednesday, a Hughes County sheriff's employee said.
It is against state law and considered rape for a correctional officer or jailer to have sex with an inmate, even if both are willing participants…
LINK - NewsOK.com
November 13, 2009
Stockton: “We can do much to control city’s image if more prisons come”
Much of the angst over the huge prison projects planned here by the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation can be boiled to one word: reputation.
There are those who believe that bringing an additional 3,300 prison convicts into the county will be just one more image problem Stockton must face. Deserved or not, the city already has a reputation for poor schools. For a high crime rate. For a high rate of home foreclosures. For a high unemployment rate. For a low level of educational attainment. And for a high rate of those without health insurance.
Do we really need more prisons, something else outsiders can point to when the subject of Stockton comes up? Do we really want to take a chance of Stockton becoming to the Central Valley what Oakland is to the Bay Area?…
LINK - RecordNet.com Opinion Section
November 8, 2009
A closer look at California’s prison plans for San Joaquin County Inmate influx
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is about to take a dramatic step into San Joaquin County.
While the full impact remains unclear, numbers offer a glimpse into the community's future with three new state prison facilities proposed for land southeast of Stockton. Once the state's plans fully unfold:
» The California prison system will become the largest employer in the county with an estimated 8,200 workers. County government today employs the most people, with 6,500 workers…
LINK - RecordNet.com
September 9, 2009
Nevada realizes prison furloughs won’t solve budget problems
The head of Nevada's prison system Tuesday said his fears of requiring correctional staff to take furloughs were exacerbated by last month's prison riot in Southern California.
Howard Skolnik reiterated to the state Board of Examiners that he doesn't believe furloughs at state correctional institutions can be safely implemented.
In August, 175 inmates were injured during a riot at the California Institution for Men in Chino, where seven of eight housing units were left uninhabitable.
"On the day they had their incident, approximately 15 percent of their officers were on furlough," Skolnik said. "I personally don't believe that having those officers present would have stopped that incident from taking place, but I think 15 more staff could have significantly reduced the time and amount of damage that was done…"
LINK - MercuryNews.com
August 28, 2009
California to move offenders out of Chino, the largest, harshest youth prison
California's largest and most notoriously troubled youth prison will soon shut its doors to juvenile offenders, the latest move in a systemwide shift away from punitive, adult-style warehouses that has contributed to the most dramatic downsizing of its kind in American history.
Human rights activists and crime experts alike celebrated Thursday as juvenile justice chief Bernie Warner announced the pending removal of all young offenders from the Heman G. Stark Correctional Facility in Chino. The facility now houses 390 men, including 32 from Northern California, who committed serious and violent offenses as minors.
Stark is one of the state's two most violent institutions for men ages 18 to 25 doing time for crimes as serious as rape, armed robbery and murder. By law, the young inmates, known as wards, are entitled to treatment and rehabilitation before being released. But those at Stark say they are too scared even to go to school inside the facility due to constant gang and racially motivated attacks. Some spend up to 21 hours in their cells as punishment. Counselors wear stab-proof vests…
LINK - MercuryNews.com
August 18, 2009
Prison Contraband Goes Digital
The California State Prison Solano houses some of the state's toughest criminals.
They're locked behind bars, but that doesn't mean they can't communicate outside their cell on cell phones.
The Department of Corrections says inmates use smuggled cell phones to deal drugs, plan escapes and order hits on other inmates.
It's one of the biggest problems facing prison leaders: prisoners communicating with each other and the outside world via cell phones…
LINK - NBCBayArea.com
August 14, 2009
State briefs sheriffs after prison riot
Counties around the state were trying to determine how a weekend prison riot that damaged seven housing units and displaced more than 1,100 prisoners might impact local lockups in the weeks ahead.
Sheriffs from California's 58 counties were invited to participate in a conference call Thursday to discuss the effects of the riot at the California Institution for Men in Chino, Scott Kernan, undersecretary of adult operations for the state prison system, told The Associated Press.
Kernan said it was too early to tell if local jails would feel the impact from the lost beds at the prison's Reception Center West but warned a backlog could occur…
LINK - MercuryNews.com
August 13, 2009
Update on August 8 Riot at California Institution for Men
Following the August 8 riot at California Institution for Men (CIM), the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has completed the transfer of approximately 1,150 inmates who were displaced by the riot.
Inmates were transported to Calipatria State Prison in Imperial County, Correctional Training Facility in Monterey County, and California Rehabilitation Center in Riverside County.
More than 700 inmates from CIM were temporarily housed in a vacant facility at the nearby Heman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility in Chino…
LINK - CDCR.ca.gov
August 12, 2009
At Chino, mute evidence speaks of violent riot
Charred cotton mattress stuffing is heaped on a scruffy lawn outside Joshua Hall dormitory at the California Institution for Men, the interior ankle-deep in ash and evidence of inmate-on-inmate brutality that has destroyed precious space in one of the state's most volatile prisons.
In neighboring Otay Hall, dried blood stains a lower bunk mattress where a reclining inmate's chest would be, two deep gashes in the fabric suggesting a stab wound.
Between the two dorms — one destroyed by fire, the other smashed and debris-strewn — stands an empty carton marked "White Kittey," testifying to the racial divides that run deep among the facility's 5,900 prisoners…
LINK - LATimes.com
August 11, 2009
Prison officials had warning that a disturbance was likely in Chino
Corrections experts warned two years ago that overcrowding at the California Institution for Men at Chino created "a serious disturbance waiting to happen," foreshadowing the weekend riot that injured 175 prisoners, destroyed or damaged six dormitories and forced relocation of at least 1,000 men.
The Chino prison housing 5,900 inmates, nearly twice its designed capacity, remained on lockdown Monday, as did nine other state prisons from which officers were called to help quell the violence Saturday night and begin sorting through the wreckage.
California Institution for Men at Chino
Rampaging inmates set fire to one dormitory of the Reception Center-West and smashed bunks and lavatories in five others in a four-hour melee that corrections officials said was linked to racial tensions between Latinos and blacks…
LINK - LATimes.com
August 11, 2009
Expert warned officials of crowded Calif. prison
A weekend riot at an overcrowded California prison that injured 175 has come at a critical time for the state's prisons.
Next week, lawmakers begin deciding how to cut $1.2 billion from the corrections budget, and will also consider Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to trim the state inmate population by about 27,000 inmates to save money.
Inmates at the California Institution for Men in Chino tore doors from their hinges and broke off toilets and sinks in a four-hour riot Saturday, and many fear the crowding that may have helped escalate the brawl — which appeared to be racially motivated — will only get worse with budget cuts…
LINK - Google.com Associated Press
August 10, 2009
Lawmakers question origin of prison riot, future of inmates, prisons
As state prison officials investigated the cause of the weekend riot at the California Institution for Men in Chino, local leaders and lawmakers started using the riot - which hospitalized 55 inmates - to frame the debate over a federal order to reduce the state's overall prison population.
While some officials said the apparently race-motivated riot is evidence that prisoners are dangerous and should be kept behind bars, others said the riot shows how dangerous the state's overcrowded prisons have become."Without a doubt, given that racial tensions exist, they are only exacerbated by the fact of our overcrowded prisons," said Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, chairman of the state Senate Public Safety Committee. "This could happen at any moment at any one of our overcrowded facilities. It would not take much to spark it."
The Reception Center West at the Chino facility, where Saturday's riot took place, was housing 1,280 men at the end of July. It was designed to hold only about 615…
LINK - DailyBulletin.com
August 10, 2009
Riot at crowded California prison as budget cuts loom
Inmates at an overcrowded California prison tore doors from their hinges and broke off toilets and sinks in a four-hour riot that injured 175 people, and many fear the crowding that may have helped escalate the brawl will only get worse with $1.2 billion in budget cuts.
A national expert warned 20 months ago that the Chino prison, which held nearly twice as many men as it was designed for, was "a serious disturbance waiting to happen" because of crowding.
Budget cuts
The fight, which appeared to be racially motivated, comes at a critical time for California prisons…
LINK - MercuryNews.com
August 10, 2009
Chino prison still locked down
The California Institution for Men remained on lockdown Monday after a 4-hour riot over the weekend hospitalized 55 inmates and injured 175.
All 10 prisons in Southern California were placed on lockdown until further notice, said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Prison spokesman Lt. Mark Hargrove said 80 officers responded to the riot Saturday night, which involved some 1,300 inmates in eight barracks. The uprising lasted for about four hours. At least one housing unit caught fire…
LINK - SBSun.com (San Bernadino Sun)
May 29, 2009
States are expanding videoconferencing in prisons
Faced with the high costs of transporting and escorting sick inmates to the doctor, states are expanding their use of videoconferencing to provide health consultations to prisoners without resorting to costly — and sometimes dangerous — off-site trips. And the concept is growing beyond medical care.
Illinois is considering joining at least 26 other states that use telemedicine to help sick prisoners get advice from doctors, said Derek Schnapp, a spokesman with the state Department of Corrections. State prison officials recently met with their counterparts from Texas, which has been using telemedicine for years and is considered a national leader, to discuss whether it should be introduced in Illinois.
Elsewhere, videoconferencing in prisons and jails is replacing inmates' in-person trips to the courtroom or parole board, and even the way family members visit…
LINK - Richmond TimesDispatch.com
April 30, 2009
Senate to vote on outlawing prison cell phones
Cellular phones have become so popular in California's state prisons that inmates are using them to coordinate escapes and, authorities suspect, to orchestrate crimes outside the gates.
More than 2,800 cell phones were found on inmates or hidden around the facilities last year, prison officials say, double the number confiscated the year before.
In an attempt to curb the problem, the state Senate is expected to pass a law next week that will make it a crime for the nearly 172,000 state prison inmates to possess cell phones or for people to smuggle them into prisons…
LINK - SFGate.com
April 14, 2009
Prisons press fight against smuggled cell phones
Drugs were once the contraband of choice of prisoners. These days, corrections officials across the country are on the lookout for a more high-tech scourge - cell phones.
Cell phones have been used to help at least two inmates escape from minimum-security conservation camps. Prison investigators fear they also are being used by gang leaders to order assaults on other inmates and employees and to coordinate the timing of prison uprisings.
Richard Subia, California's associate director for adult prisons, called cell phone use in state prisons "one of the most severe security issues that we have right now…"
LINK - MercedSunStar.com
March 11, 2009
Green MP Warns Of Dangers Of Private Prisons
The rape and subsequent suicide of a woman at United States private prison was in Parliament today used as a warning about what could happen here.
The US prison was owned by a company that has operated in New Zealand, Green MP Metiria Turei told Parliament.
Ms Turei related the story of LeTisha Tapia, a 23-year-old imprisoned at a GEO Group-owned facility in Texas.
Ms Tapia told family she was put in a cell block with male inmates and was raped and beaten…
LINK - Guide2.co.nz (New Zealand)
February 23, 2009
Wash. activist fights immigrant detention center
If it wasn't for Timothy Smith's intense opposition to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, the state might never have noticed that the private company that owns the facility was violating environmental rules.
The detention center - the federal government's prison-like complex in Tacoma that holds suspected illegal immigrants, often for months - was built near the former site of a coal gasification plant that left behind heavy pollution in the soil.
According to the state Department of Ecology, Boca Raton, Fla.-based The GEO Group violated an "environmental covenant" by not informing the state before moving any of the soil, which may be contaminated…
LINK - Seattle PI - NWSource.com
December 29, 2008
Arsenic levels too high in Kern Valley State Prison’s drinking water
Beside a field of rolling tumbleweed in this remote Central Valley town, the state opened its newest prison in 2005 with a modern design, cutting-edge security features and a serious environmental problem.
The drinking water pumped from two wells at Kern Valley State Prison contained arsenic, a known cause of cancer, in amounts far higher than a federal safety standard soon to take effect.
Yet today, nearly three years after missing the government's deadline to reduce the arsenic levels, the state has no concrete plans or funding to do so. Officials spent $629,000 to design a filtration system and then decided not to build it, while neglecting to inform staff and inmates that they were consuming contaminated water…
LINK - LATimes.com (The Los Angeles Times)
December 18, 2008
Panel hears safety concerns of LGBT prisoners
At the meeting, Valerie Jenness, a professor of criminology, law, and society at the University of California, Irvine, provided information from studies that she's helped to conduct.
She said one study showed that sexual assault is 13 times more prevalent among transgender prisoners than adult male prisoners, with 59 percent of transgender inmates reporting being sexually assaulted while in a California correctional facility.
According to Jenness, transgender prisoners reported that officers were not aware of sexual assault or sexual misconduct incidents the majority of the time, and medical care was not provided when it was needed the majority of the time…
LINK - eBar.com (Bay Area Reporter)
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
October 30, 2008
Recon Scout Robot to Assist Guards in California Prisons
You can run from the robot invasion, but you can't hide—not even in prison. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) signed a deal this summer with Minneapolis-based ReconRobotics to help field-test the company's throwable robot, the Recon Scout.
The dumbbell-size device is already used by law enforcement agencies across the country and military personnel in Iraq—ReconRobotics won't specify how many it has sold outright, though CEO Alan Bignall told PM that "250 of them are in use around the world." The agreement with the CDCR marks the robot's first deployment behind bars—the bots arrived there at the end of September.
In what amounts to a complicated rental contract, the CDCR received 10 of the tiny, 1.2 pound robots. Correctional officers in various facilities will try them out for an unspecified length of time, and provide feedback to ReconRobotics. The robot's mission won't be to patrol cell blocks or spy on prisoners. (Although it's built to be stealthy, with a pair of electric motors that Bignall says produce less noise than a human whisper.) The Recon Scout is deployed more like a remote-controlled grenade: You pull a pin to turn the robot on—the lack of an on/off switch makes it easier to activate while wearing bulky gloves and respirators, and prevents it from being turned off by the impact of hitting the ground. The most likely use for the drone will be for confrontations, and particularly during standoffs…
LINK - PopularMechanics.com
October 9, 2008
State prison system reduces number of bad beds by 27 percent
The state prison system has reduced the number of nontraditional beds by 27 percent over the last year, though the overcrowded Chino men's prison was not among the prisons where reductions took place, according to a state department of corrections report.
Among the 12 facilities chosen by the prison system for bad-bed deactivation was the medium-security California Rehabilitation Center in Norco. One gym holding bad beds was deactivated at that prison.
A spokesman for CRC did not immediately respond for comment. The California Institution for Men still has 1,036 inmates sleeping in nontraditional beds in two gyms and several day rooms, said CIM spokesman Lt. Mark Hargrove…
LINK - ContraCostaTimes.com
August 13, 2008
Pennsylvania: State Representative Frets Over Pen’s Staff
A recent visit to the U.S. Federal Penitentiary at Lewisburg raised his concern for the well-being of prison workers, U.S. Rep. Chris Carney said, and reinforced his belief that the federal government needs to spend more to reduce the inmate-to-staff ratio.
"While state facilities like Texas, California, Florida and Michigan have staff inmate ratios at 3.33 to 1," Carney said in a statement, "the Federal Bureau of Prisons has a 4.92 to 1 ratio, the highest-ever during modern times and up from 3.57 to 1 a decade ago.
"The BoP would have to hire an additional 9,000 employees just to get back to the 3.57 level," said Carney, D-10 of Dimock. "Bureau facilities are currently 37 percent overcrowded, and at some facilities, that number is as high as 76 percent…"
LINK - DailyItem.com
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
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 20, 2008
Dogs learn a new trick — finding cell phones in prison
We could all use one from time to time: a dog that can find the darn cell phone. Maryland has three. Their job is to sniff out phones smuggled into prisons.
"Seek," Sgt. David Brosky told his dog Alba last week, offering a public demonstration at the former Maryland House of Correction in Jessup. Alba made her way through an unoccupied prison cell until she came upon a rolled-up pair of jeans on a bed. She sat, a signal she had found something.
"Good girrrrrrrrrrl," said Brosky, a corrections officer, handing the dog a ball, a reward for finding the black cell phone tucked in the pants…
LINK - Chron.com (The Houston Chronicle)
July 13, 2008
Central Valley prison death prompts call for knife-proof vests
A bill that would provide all federal correctional officers with stab-proof vests has been introduced in Congress by U.S. Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced.
The bill authorizes $20 million for the Bureau of Prisons to purchase the vests and mandates that officers wear them while on duty.
"This bill is a necessary step towards helping prevent another tragedy like the one that occurred at USP Atwater on June 20," says Mr. Cardoza…
LINK - CentralValleyBusinessTimes.com
July 12, 2008
Slain guard’s family goes national in push for reform
The stabbing death of a U.S. Penitentiary Atwater correctional officer has sparked a national campaign to overhaul safety policies in the federal prison system.
On Thursday, USA Today ran a full-page advertisement featuring a photo of the slain correctional officer, Jose Rivera, and an open letter from his family blaming overcrowding and inadequate protection inside the penitentiary for his death.
"Jose was taken from us because of the situation inside federal prisons today," stated the ad, which was paid for by the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents federal correctional officers…
LINK - ModBee.com (The Modesto Bee)
July 11, 2008
Prison agency probes breach
Officials at California's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said Friday the department has launched its own investigation into how a female state worker married to an incarcerated member of Mexican Mafia ended up with confidential state prison materials at her Sacramento home.
The Department's Office of Correctional Safety has opened a probe to determine how the woman obtained the materials and whether any member of the public or any of its own institutional staff has been put at risk because of the woman's marital relationship to a validated Mexican Mafia member, Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton said.
The office specializes in investigating prison gang activities, gathering intelligence and performing threat assessments, Thornton added…
LINK - SacBee.com (The Sacramento Bee)
July 10, 2008
Prisons enlist dogs to keep out phones
Dogs have long been used to find drugs in prisons, but the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services has found a new use for them: sniffing out cell phones.
Three canines were specially trained by Division of Correction K-9 Unit officers to detect cell phones as part of stepped-up efforts to stop contraband from getting into state prisons. In the past few years, Maryland inmates have increasingly been caught with cell phones, which in some cases have been used to arrange drug deals or even killings from behind bars.
The new unit is part of a larger plan to find contraband. Other efforts include increased intelligence staff and technology at prison gate entries…
LINK - BaltimoreSun.com
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 8, 2008
Michigan: Budget Cuts to Corrections Accelerate Path to Tragedy
Last week the State Legislature passed the Department of Corrections Budget with approximately $50M in cuts. These cuts will come in many forms however the one that sounds the greatest alarm — for officers, prisoners, and the community at large — is a reduction in staff to a prison system already strained by short-staffing and rife with violence.
"The Department's plans to eliminate two positions per facility statewide will put another hole in the 'wall' we form when we walk those blocks every day," states Michigan Corrections Organization President Tom Tylutki who represents the state's corrections and forensic security officers. There are almost 1,000 fewer corrections officers on the job today than 6 years ago with the same number of inmates. And during that time, the level of security threats, injuries and critical incidents has steadily climbed. "How can you continue to eat away at the single most important role in a prison in light of these trends and continue to believe it is safe?"…
LINK - SunHerald.com
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
July 3, 2008
Segregation of prisoners ends in California
In what is being described as a major advancement for civil rights, California is ending a long-standing policy of segregation and allowing prisoners of different races to live together.
Despite its liberal reputation, California was among the few states that still used race as the determining factor for some male prisoners' cell assignments. Prison officials initially defended the measure as necessary to control racial and gang violence, but some inmates and civil rights activists disagreed.
The unwritten policy wound up before the United States' highest court in 2005. Starting this month, prison officials will begin fully integrating its cells, beginning with low-level offenders at two facilities…
LINK - NationalPost.com
February 1, 2008
Arizona: New Rules Urged for Private Prisons
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano wants to tighten up rules for the state's growing private-prison industry, which is virtually unregulated by the state. A legislative proposal drafted by the Governor's Office and introduced by Republican Sen. Robert Blendu of Litchfield Park would bar private prisons from importing murderers, rapists and some other dangerous or seriously ill felons to Arizona. It would also require the companies to share security and inmate information with state officials. "It is a matter of public safety," said Dennis Burke, Napolitano's chief of staff. "(Other states) are exporting their worst criminals to Arizona, and we can't even know what they are doing and what steps they are taking to protect Arizonans…"
LINK - AZCentral.com
January 16, 2008
Prisoner Release Plan Has Yolo Law Enforcement Worried
The plan would place the released inmates under "summary" parole, which would mean they could only return to prison by committing a new felony and not for incidental probation violations. They would not be required to check in with probation officers nor would they be enrolled in the standard probation programs - job placement, counseling - under the proposal…
LINK - DailyDemocrat.com
January 14, 2008
State Plan Riles Locals: City Leaders Fear Glut of Parolees
SAN BERNARDINO - Members of the City Council were disturbed last week when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested the early release of at least 22,000 state prisoners. The proposal is part of a list of budget cuts the governor has planned to make up for a $14 billion deficit. The announcement wasn't music to the ears of city officials. "The first thing that comes to my mind," said Councilman Dennis Baxter, "is the governor's actions are very troubling." Mayor Pat Morris expects the proposal will be met with protest from law-enforcement officials across the state…
LINK - SBSun.com
