Could the Fall of Lehman Brothers Signal Trouble for Private Prison Corporations?

by Bob Libal and Nick Hudson

While recent business news has been dominated by the bailout of some of the nation’s largest investment firms, the fall of financial giant Lehman Brothers may have unintended consequences for one of the nation’s most controversial industries – the business of incarceration for profit. Articles about Lehman Brothers’ history have largely ignored the fact that the company has been one of the largest, most consistent financial backers of the private prison industry. 

Over the past decade, Lehman Brothers supplied billions of dollars in capital and credit to for-profit private prison firms such as Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut) and Cornell Corrections, while at the same time provided those companies with a safety net in times of financial difficulty.

An Industry Criticized

Private prison scandals often go unreported, but occasionally a situation is so egregious that the media takes notice. Such was the case with Scot Noble Payne, an Idaho inmate who committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor blade in 2007 at the GEO Group’s Dickens County Correctional Center in Spur, Texas. [See: PLN, Dec, ...

So much human feces covered the floors of a GEO Group-run juvenile prison in Coke County, Texas that departing inspectors stopped outside to wipe their shoes in the grass. The Coke County Juvenile Justice Center was in such bad shape that Texas Youth Commission (TYC) executive director Dimitria Pope ordered all juvenile offenders removed from the facility following the inspection, then canceled the state’s contract with GEO. [See: PLN, July 2008, p.18].

What was even more alarming was the fact that such abysmal conditions had existed for years while the prison received high marks from inspectors and literally no oversight by state officials. Then again, four of the TYC’s monitoring staff overseeing the GEO-run center were former GEO employees.

The Coke County facility was the state’s only privatized secure juvenile facility. However, around 9 percent of Texas’ adult prisoners are housed in privately-run prisons or state jails. For two decades, Texas has been on a binge to build prisons, fill them and keep them full. This is what lured so many private prison contractors to the Lone Star state. Texas has about 120 lockups and over 160,000 prisoners; 17 are privately-operated facilities that house more than 14,000 men and women. ...

by David M. Reutter

A report submitted to Mississippi’s legislature found serious deficiencies in the delivery of medical care to prisoners in the Mississippi Dept. of Corrections (MDOC). The December 11, 2007 report was issued by the Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER). It found that MDOC and its for-profit healthcare contractor, Wexford Health Services, failed to assure that prisoners received timely access to quality medical care.

PEER stated this shortcoming may not only have an adverse effect on prisoner health, but may cost MDOC more in specialty medical expenses. Increased specialty care costs was an issue of concern due to MDOC’s use of a new model for providing prison medical services.

Prior to July 1998, MDOC used the traditional services model, which entailed employing physicians and other medical service providers. From July 1998 to June 30, 2003, MDOC contracted with the University of Mississippi Medical Center to provide prisoner healthcare. On July 1, 2003, Correctional Medical Services took over MDOC’s healthcare contract, but the company decided in July 2005 that it did not want to be reconsidered for renewal once the contract expired on July 30, 2006.

Wexford won the new contract. Rather than accept ...

That Delaware prisoners have been subject to dreadful health care by the state’s medical contractor, Correctional Medical Services (CMS), is not a new revelation for readers of PLN. We previously published an exposé on the deaths, injuries and deliberate indifference suffered by Delaware prisoners as a result of CMS’s medical services, or lack thereof. [See: PLN, December 2005, pg 1].

Those with knowledge of the situation would think it could get no worse. Never say never. A lawsuit filed in federal court on April 3, 2008, on behalf of 15 Delaware prisoners, brings to mind prison medical experiments. Of course, whether CMS “Nurse Beth” was experimenting, made a mistake, was trying to save money because the prison infirmary was short on supplies, or was just being sadistic is unknown.

What is known is that she used the same needle on 15 prisoners to draw blood and inject medicine. In the end, her motivation and reasoning are irrelevant. “Legally, it doesn’t matter,” said attorney Joseph M. Bernstein, who along with attorney Bruce Hudson are representing the prisoners. “They were still entitled to a minimum level of care.”

The 15 prisoners allege that Nurse Beth used a syringe to test their blood, ...

Trifecta for Michigan DOC: Three Reports Find Deficient Prison Medical Care

by David M. Reutter

From the advent of federal oversight of medical services for Michigan prisoners, the focus has been on three Michigan Dept. of Corrections (MDOC) facilities that house the state’s sickest prisoners in close proximity to Duane Waters Hospital in the Jackson area. Health care at those prisons – the Southern Michigan Correctional Facility, the Charles Egeler Reception & Guidance Center and the Parnall Correctional Facility – is provided by a private contractor, Correctional Medical Services (CMS).

Despite federal court monitoring of MDOC health care, which has been ongoing since the mid-1980s, little progress has been made to improve the quality of the care provided. To the contrary things seem to have worsened, which has resulted in egregious examples of medical neglect. Last year PLN reported several preventable deaths and injuries among Michigan prisoners caused by substandard medical care, as well as a court order holding the MDOC in contempt. [See: PLN, May 2007, pp.1, 7].

In an effort to hasten the end of federal court oversight, which is part of a long-standing class-action lawsuit known as the Hadix litigation, the MDOC proposed closing the Southern Michigan ...

Prison Legal News Prevails in Tennessee Public Records Suit Against CCA

In 2002, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that a private company which performed services that were “functionally equivalent” to those provided by a public agency had to comply with the state’s Public Records Act, T.C.A. § 10-7-501, et seq. See: Memphis Publishing Company v. Cherokee Children & Family Services, Inc., 87 S.W.3d 67 (Tenn. 2002).

This ruling was not tested against the nation’s largest private prison company, Nashville-based Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), until CCA officials refused to produce public records requested by PLN associate editor Alex Friedmann in April 2007.

PLN had asked for records related to successful litigation against CCA, including verdicts, settlements and judgments, as well as “reports, audits, investigations or other similar documents which found ... that CCA did not comply with one or more terms of its contracts” with government agencies.

After CCA declined to produce the requested records, PLN filed suit in Davidson County Chancery Court on May 19, 2008, seeking to force CCA to comply with the state’s Public Records Act pursuant to the ruling in Cherokee. “Public agencies cannot contract away the public’s ability to review records that otherwise would be ...

TASER International’s Stock Shocked By $6.2 Million Damages Award

by John E. Dannenberg

The stock of TASER International, Inc. tanked by 11% to $6.13 per share on June 9, 2008 when three days earlier a federal jury in San Jose, California awarded $6.2 million in a wrongful death suit to the family of a fatally shocked prisoner. TASER spokesman Steve Tuttle said it plans to appeal the verdict.

Scottsdale, Arizona based TASER manufactures 50,000 volt stun guns for sale to police departments to use in lieu of bullets as “less lethal” weapons. But the irony of the concept “less lethal” is on a par with that of “partially pregnant.” It makes precious little difference to the deceased victim if he is slain by a police bullet or a Taser. While TASER touts its stun guns as safe, the statistics tell otherwise. Over 160 deaths involving Taser shocks by police have left civil rights advocates protesting and aggrieved families suing.
TASER has proudly touted its record of having survived 70 wrongful death lawsuits without a verdict against the company. But many of those cases were “settled,” meaning payment was made without admitting liability.

The instant case involved the family of Robert ...

Harris County, Texas Sends 600 Jail Prisoners to Private Pen in Louisiana

In December 2007, Harris County, Texas officials announced they were sending an additional 200 jail prisoners – 180 of them women – to a privately-run prison in northeast Louisiana. This brings the total number of Harris County prisoners incarcerated at the West Carroll Detention Center (WCDC) in Epps, Louisiana to 600. WCDC is owned and operated by Emerald Correctional Management.

Harris County, which includes the City of Houston, has a history of failing inspections by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) due to overcrowding and staffing issues. The Harris County Jail has failed every inspection since 2004, but finally passed an inspection in May 2007, shortly before shipping 400 prisoners to WCDC.

The county is also concerned about intervention from the U.S. Dept. of Justice (DOJ). It was reported in March 2008 that the DOJ had notified county officials that the jail was under investigation, with a focus on “protection of inmates from harm, environmental conditions, and inmate medical and mental health care.”

The Harris County jail system houses around 11,000 prisoners – 1,600 over capacity – and has received permission from the TCJS to use 2,000 ...

PHS Wins Quadriplegic Prisoner’s Negligence Suit, Jail Settles for $100,000

On February 14, 2008, a Florida jury found that Prison Health Services (PHS) was not negligent in misdiagnosing a jail prisoner’s broken neck, which left him a permanent quadriplegic. The series of events that led to this tragic result for ...

“The house always wins,” Warden Don Cabana proclaimed to the Sun Herald, a Mississippi newspaper, in July 2007. However, Harrison County, home of the Harrison County Adult Detention Center (ADC), has agreed to pay $3.5 million to the family of Jessie Lee Williams, Jr., who was brutally murdered at the ...