Shrinking state budgets across the country are leading to prison closures that in turn have a negative impact on communities that depend on the facilities as a source of jobs and revenue. [See: PLN, June 2013, p.1; April 2009, p.1]. Small towns in Kentucky, Georgia and New York are among those facing recent adjustments to this new economic reality, but some local residents and lawmakers have fought back with campaigns to keep the prisons open.

The city of Wheelwright, Kentucky was hit hard by the closure of the 600-bed Otter Creek Correctional Center, a prison owned and operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Officials said over 170 jobs were lost, although CCA pledged to relocate as many employees as possible to other facilities. The company said the June 2012 closing of Otter Creek was necessary after Kentucky did not renew its contract to house state prisoners at the facility.

“A lot of them [the employees] live within the city and a lot of them live in the community, you know,” said Andy Akers, Wheelwright’s mayor. “We’re a tight knit community around here.” Just before the closure of the prison, Akers had predicted a devastating impact on …

Two Murders in Seven Months at CCA-run Prison in Tennessee

On May 23, 2014, the Medical Examiner’s Office in Nashville completed an autopsy report on Tennessee state prisoner Jeffery Sills, 43, who was murdered at the South Central Correctional Facility in Clifton, Wayne County on March 28. The facility is operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest for-profit prison company.

Sills’ death was classified as a homicide caused by “blunt and sharp force injuries.” He was allegedly beaten and stabbed to death by his cellmate, Travis Bess, who was later transferred to the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.

Jeffery Sills was at least the second prisoner murdered at the CCA-run prison since September 1, 2013, when Gerald Ewing, 28, was killed during a series of fights at the facility. Comparably, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction there were no homicides at state-run prisons in calendar year 2013 and to date this year.

Jeffery Sills’ death was particularly brutal, according to the autopsy report. He suffered lacerations, abrasions and contusions to his head and neck, fractured cheek and nasal bones, cutting and stab/puncture wounds, and hemorrhages in the “posterior cervical spinal muscles” and …

Seventh Circuit: Jail Social Worker Ignored Detainee’s Suicide Risk

On August 12, 2013, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that a jail social worker could be held liable for ignoring a detainee’s obvious risk of committing suicide.

Algerian citizen Hassiba Belbachir, 27, entered the United States as a visitor in November 2004. She overstayed her visa then flew from Chicago to England in February 2005, where she was detained by immigration authorities.

Belbachir was returned to Chicago a week later. On March 9, 2005, she was incarcerated at the McHenry County Jail in Illinois pending a deportation hearing.

A March 9, 2005 intake report did not reveal indications that Belbachir presented a significant suicide risk – in part because a “guard who filled out the intake report changed Belbachir’s answer ‘yes’ to the question ‘Are you currently extremely depressed or feeling suicidal?’ to ‘no,’” subsequently claiming he had made a mistake.

Five days later, Belbachir’s mental state had deteriorated significantly.

“Belbachir was suicidal and suffering from a ‘major depressive disorder’ – a warning sign for suicide,” according to the mental health progress notes of Vicki Frederick, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker employed …

CCA Guard Killed During Riot was on Prisoners’ “Hit List”

by Matt Clarke

A federal lawsuit filed by the family of a guard murdered during a riot at a Mississippi facility claims that prison officials knew the guard was on a “hit list” compiled by prisoners when he was called in to help quell the disturbance.

Catlin Hugh Carithers, 24, was beaten to death during a May 20, 2012 riot at the Adams County Correctional Center near Natchez. The facility is operated by the Nashville, Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest for-profit prison company. The 2,567-bed Adams County facility houses low-security adult male immigrants for the federal Bureau of Prisons, most of whom face deportation after finishing their prison sentences.

Adams County Sheriff Chuck Mayfield initially told reporters that the disturbance involved a power struggle between two different factions of prisoners, but an affidavit filed in federal court by an FBI agent in August 2012 stated the riot was a protest by prisoners against poor food, inadequate medical care and alleged mistreatment by staff at the facility.

In addition to Carithers’ death, half a dozen guards were held hostage and others …

Are We Really Witnessing the End of Mass Incarceration?

by James Kilgore

“This is the beginning of the end of mass incarceration.” – Natasha Frost, associate dean of Northeastern University’s school of criminology and criminal justice

After more than three decades of “tough on crime,” the New Jim Crow, truth in sentencing and three strikes, the law-and-order ship looks adrift with no one rushing to bring it back on course. The bubble of prison construction is about to burst, if it hasn’t already. Pretty soon it may be difficult to find anyone who admits they once advocated serial prison building and trying fourteen-year-olds as adults. Crime figures are down while other distress meters rise into the danger zone – unemployment, homelessness and deteriorating public education. No longer can Directors of Corrections masquerade as first responders and lay claim to unlimited funding streams. Budgetary and social justice alarm bells are ringing loud and clear.

On top of this, as Soros Justice Fellow Tracy Huling notes, a “newfound political will” from state governors of both parties “to close prisons and, in some cases, to reduce the overall size of their incarceration systems” has emerged.At a …

Florida Prisoner Awarded $1.2 Million for Burn Injuries

A Florida jury has awarded a prisoner $1.2 million in a negligence suit against the GEO Group, the nation’s second-largest for-profit prison company, following a trial that was delayed more than a year after a juror said he was afraid …

The Untold Story Of What Happened At An Overcrowded West Virginia Jail After The Chemical Spill

By Christie Thompson

When roughly 10,000 gallons of chemicals leaked into a West Virginia watershed this January, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency. Officials shut down schools, deployed the National Guard, and rallied volunteers to bring water and support to the 300,000 people without potable water.

But in the state’s emergency response, there was one group that many forgot: the 429 prisoners locked in Charleston’s overcrowded jail, who were entirely dependent on the state to provide them clean water.

The only article that looked at the spill’s impact on inmates was a small, glowing report published two months later in the Charleston Daily Mail. Jail officials trumpeted their success at “protecting” inmates by providing a “plentiful supply of bottled water.”

Joe DeLong, executive director of the West Virginia Regional Jail Authority, told the paper inmates were given eight bottles of water a day and that they had “essentially no access to the contaminated water.” Before the jail returned to using tap water on January 18, DeLong said the jail went through a “very extensive” flushing …

Seventh Circuit: Prisoner with Back Condition Stated Claim for Fall from Upper Bunk

by Michael Brodheim

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that a prisoner who suffers from scoliosis stated a claim for deliberate indifference when he alleged that he fell and injured himself trying to climb into an upper bunk bed after specifically complaining that, due to back pain, he wasn’t able to access the upper bunk.

In January 2009, Illinois state prisoner Dorcus Withers filed suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that various healthcare professionals had been deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants.

On appeal, the Seventh Circuit noted that although Withers suffered from scoliosis (i.e., curvature of the spine) and “frequent flare-ups” of back pain, the evidence was “overwhelming” that he was also a malingerer and had no medical need for a back brace, a medical mattress or orthopedic shoes – some of the items he repeatedly requested.

The Court of Appeals was troubled, however, by an encounter between Withers and prison …

Kansas: Prison Healthcare Officials Engaged in Continued Deliberate Indifference

by Robert Warlick

The Kansas Court of Appeals held that employees of Correct Care Solutions at the Lansing Correctional Facility (LCF) committed continuing Eighth Amendment violations by withholding a prisoner’s medical restrictions.

LCF prisoner Ernest Lee Thomas, Jr., 61, had broken his ankle prior to his incarceration in 1989, resulting in arthritis and a permanent deformity. Consequently, he was granted a number of medical restrictions by prison healthcare staff: He was not to climb stairs, had a lower bunk restriction and was allowed to wear tennis shoes rather than regular prison-issued footwear.

Those restrictions continued until January 27, 2011, when Lamont Lane, an LCF nurse, removed them after Thomas failed to attend a medical appointment. Thomas was subsequently moved to a different housing unit that required him to climb a steep hill to reach his cell.

Thomas filed a petition in Leavenworth District Court that alleged deliberate indifference to his “chronic and continuing medical conditions.” The court held his Eighth Amendment rights had been violated when Nurse Lane removed his restrictions without permission from a physician, and noted the punishment for …

G4S, which bills itself as “the world’s largest security company,” has encountered rough going in the carceral marketplace in recent weeks. The latest episode in the troubles of this British-Danish security giant came with its public admission on November 18 that the firm had overbilled the British government roughly $38 million dollars (£24 million) for electronic monitoring services in the criminal justice system. This admission came after authorities had begun an investigation of G4S and the UK’s other large scale monitoring provider, Serco, for alleged wrongdoing. The investigation was slated to come to a head this week with the release of a report by the National Auditing Office (NAO) as well as a public hearing before the powerful parliamentary public accounts committee.

Ultimately, G4S admitted to billing the government for monitors that didn’t exist. In some cases, the clients for whom the Ministry of Justice was charged included people who had returned to prison, those who had been taken off of the monitor, and even a few who had passed away. In one instance the justice ministry paid £3,000 ($4830) for 612 days monitoring of a man who had been sent to prison for two years 20 months earlier. …