Releasing The Disease: Is Overcrowded Cook County Jail Responsible For The Rise Of MRSA On The Outside?

by Kelly Virella

The sudden death of a 17-month-old boy in Hyde Park brought Dr. Robert Daum to the Cook County Jail. Out of town the April morning in 2004 when Simon Sparrow woke up screaming in his crib, Daum, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Chicago’s Comer Children’s Hospital, followed the case by telephone. Simon’s blood pressure dropped, his major organs began to fail, his skin turned purple and scabby, and his body bloated as if he were drowning. A day and a half later he was dead.

The attending doctors didn’t know why. But Daum had a hunch. Just a year earlier, a nine-month-old girl had died with similar symptoms. Her autopsy showed that she had a virulent and once rare form of staph infection known as community-associated methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or CA-MRSA (pronounced “mersa”). Since 2000, dozens of children had been admitted to the hospital with the infection, often manifested by lesions, abscesses, and pus-filled boils, but most had been cured with antibiotics.

Daum had seen a spike in CA-MRSA cases before. The prevalence of the disease ...

by David M. Reutter

Before the Michigan Department of Corrections closed the Southern Michigan Correctional Facility (SMCF) in late 2007 to avoid further litigation in the long-running class action known as Hadix, the federal judge overseeing the case and lawyers representing prisoners argued that closing SMCF would not only transfer the problem to another prison, it would worsen the situation of inadequate medical care for chronically ill prisoners.

In our May 2007 cover story and two other articles that followed that article, PLN reported on the horrid care provided to Michigan prisoners by the private medical vendor, Correctional Medical Services (CMS). Those articles detailed the circumstances surrounding the needless deaths of several prisoners. Now, the callous attitude of prison officials has resulted in the needless death of another prisoner.

After U.S. District Court Judge Richard A. Enslen entered an order preventing the closure of SMCF, Michigan prison officials appealed that and several other orders. While the matter was on appeal, Judge Enslen suddenly requested the matter to be transferred to another judge. Based upon that and other unresolved factual matters, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals remanded for reconsideration of the orders.

The new judge allowed SMCF to close, but ...

by Matt Clarke

Since 2007, Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), the largest religious network in the world, has been quietly spreading a faith-based rehabilitative TV program for prisoners.
Following a successful pilot program in South Dakota’s prison system, TBN’s Second Chance program is poised to expand nationwide. South Dakota, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Texas, Florida and Corrections Corp. of America (CCA) have already signed up for the free in-house television shows, and Ohio, Mississippi and South Carolina plan to start pilot programs.

TBN pays for all costs associated with the programming. Second Chance consists of up to four faith-based TV channels: TBN, the most popular faith-based channel in the nation; The Church Channel, which broadcasts teaching programs and church services from various denominations; TBN Enlace USA, a Spanish language channel airing faith-based programming from the U.S. and Latin American countries; and JCTV, a faith-based entertainment channel targeting 13- to 29-year-old prisoners.

The channels are broadcast on the Ku satellite band by Glorystar Satellite Systems, a free Christian satellite network, and TBN pays to have satellite dishes and receivers installed and maintained. Buford Satellite Systems and Correctional Cable TV, the two largest providers of cable TV services to prisons and jails, have agreed to ...

Colorado: When Suing Private Prison under Common Law Tort, Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies Not Required

The Colorado Court of Appeals held that prisoners in a private for-profit prison could sue the prison company, in a common law tort action, for nefarious acts of its employees during a 2004 riot without having first exhausted administrative remedies, because the remedies they sought were not available under the prison’s administrative regulations or required by state law.

Eighty-five injured prisoners sued Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), owner and operator of the Crowley County Correctional Facility in Olney Springs, Colorado under contract with the Colorado Dept. of Corrections. The prisoners filed suit under Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-17.5-102.3(1) (2007) in 2005 and 2006 in Crowley County District Court, seeking compensatory and punitive damages. Their common law tort claims included negligence, assault and battery, outrageous conduct and civil conspiracy.

The district court dismissed the complaints for failure to exhaust administrative remedies and dismissed the punitive damages demand as premature. On appeal, the plaintiffs argued that while exhaustion would normally be required, it was unnecessary in this case because the only claims brought were common law tort claims, for which there was no administrative remedy.

State law ...

Cornell Defrauded of $13 Million in Prison Construction Scam

On August 26, 2008, indictments were filed against three men accused of defrauding private prison operator Cornell Corrections of California, Inc. out of $13 million in a prison construction scam.

A federal grand jury handed down indictments that included 20 counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy against Edgar J. Beaudreault, Jr., 60, of Alpharetta, Georgia; Howard A. Sperling, 44, of San Diego, California; and Robert B. Surles, 62, of Canon City, Colorado. The indictments allege the men contracted with Cornell in June 2003 to build a private prison in Canon City. Cornell placed $13 million in an escrow account to be held until construction was complete.

In August 2003 the trio convinced Cornell to transfer the funds to an Atlanta account, which they claimed was a bank escrow account but was actually controlled by Beaudreault. They then moved the money to their own accounts and withdrew it. Some of the cash was spent at casinos, and one of the defendants bought a $60,000 Mercedes Benz.
Beaudreault and Sperling entered guilty pleas on December 17, 2008 and February 2, 2009, respectively, each to one count of conspiracy. They have ...

by Paul Wright, et al.

On June 13, 2007, former President Bush nominated Gustavus A. Puryear IV, 40, for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.
While you’ve likely never heard of Gustavus Puryear, you may be familiar with the company he works for: Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest for-profit prison firm. CCA is conveniently located in the Middle District of Tennessee, and Puryear serves as the company’s general counsel – its top attorney.

Puryear’s judicial nomination did not go unnoticed; it drew the attention of a former CCA prisoner turned criminal justice advocate who opposes private prisons. By conducting extensive research, securing widespread media attention, contacting members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and recruiting organizational allies, he coordinated an opposition campaign that managed to stall – and ultimately stop – Puryear’s nomination.

Further, the ex-CCA prisoner who took down CCA’s general counsel, denying him a federal judgeship in a humiliating defeat, happens to be employed by Prison Legal News.

The Man Who Would Be Judge

So who exactly is Gustavus “Gus” Puryear? Born into a wealthy family in Atlanta, Georgia, Puryear graduated with a B.A. from Emory University in ...

The Pennsylvania based Citizens Advisory Committee on Private Prisons, Inc. (CACOPP), filed a complaint against the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for bypassing environmental and administrative policies in the contracting of a private prison's construction. The construction was halted pending the requisite procedural compliance.

The BOP contracted the building of ...

GEO Cancels Contract at Pennsylvania Jail, Looks Elsewhere for Business

by David M. Reutter

GEO Group, Inc. (formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections), the second-largest private prison company in the nation, has operated the jail in Delaware County, Pennsylvania since 1995. GEO reportedly saved the county $30 million when it built the 1,883-bed George W. Hill Correctional Facility (GHCF); in December 2007, GEO and the county agreed on an $80 million two-year contract renewal.

From all appearances it seemed the privatization of GHCF, which is the only privately-operated county jail in Pennsylvania, would result in a permanent relationship between GEO and Delaware County. However, citing “underperformance and frequent litigation,” GEO gave notice that it planned to terminate the contract on December 31, 2008. Today the jail is under another company’s management.

While GEO’s premature pullout was unexpected, it was hardly surprising. PLN’s December 2007 cover story detailed numerous problems at GHCF, which have resulted in several six-figure settlements brought by families of prisoners who died at the facility. Many of those cases involved deficient medical care, mental health care or supervision by jail staff.

GEO’s cancellation of its contract to operate the Delaware County facility came only four months after another ...

by Derek S. Limburg

Privately-operated halfway houses across the nation have become embroiled in scandals and mismanagement. The wrongdoing stretches from the top to the bottom, from former politicians and corrections commissioners to staff and prisoners.

Reports surfaced in June 2008 about operational problems at The Villa, a halfway house in Greeley, Colorado run by Avalon Correctional Services. A Colorado Public Safety Report on The Villa, also known as The Restitution Center, detailed numerous violations – including insufficient security, unqualified staff, falsified drug tests, and sexual relations between staff and prisoners. The sex reportedly took place in an area called the “Boom-Boom Room,” and weapons and drugs were found in a tunnel at the facility.

Following the report, the state canceled its contract with Avalon. The residents of The Villa were moved to a community corrections program at the Weld County Jail, and management of the program was assumed by another company, Intervention, Inc.
Reports concerning two other Colorado halfway houses operated by Avalon, the Phoenix Center and the Loft House, also found problems – including poor training, inadequate record-keeping and high employee turnover.

“It makes you question whether [the company] should still be in business in Colorado,” said state ...

Prisoners Can Sue Virginia DOC’s Contract Medical Provider for Breach of Contract

Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) prisoners who receive inadequate medical care may sue the VDOC’s contract medical provider for breach of contract, the Supreme Court of Virginia decided on June 8, 2007.

Prison Health Services (PHS) is a contract medical provider for certain VDOC facilities. PHS’s contract requires that it “provide cost effective, quality inmate health care services for up to approximately 6,000 inmates (initially) housed at four correctional facilities.” The scope of health care services required by the contract includes all “medical, dental, and mental health services.”

In 2005, Oludare Ogunde, a prisoner at the Greensville Correctional Center, filed suit against PHS and several of its employees. Ogunde’s complaint alleged that he suffered from “severe acne cysts and acne keloidalis,” and that this condition was aggravated by shaving.

According to Ogunde, PHS and its employees denied Ogunde treatment for his skin condition and failed to provide him with an exemption from the VDOC’s grooming policy, VDOC grooming regulations prohibit male prisoners from wearing goatees or beards.

Ogunde argued that PHS’s failure to treat him and provide an exemption to the grooming policy amounted to breach of PHS’s ...