The nation’s largest private prison firm, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), has once again upset county officials by repeatedly failing to control vital jail operations. The company responded by discontinuing its contract to operate the facility.

On November 1, 2007, a CCA worker prematurely released nine prisoners from the Bay County, Florida jail’s substance abuse program before their sentences had expired. Upon CCA’s discovery of the mistake, the prisoners were notified and each agreed to return to finish their jail terms.

The Bay County Commissioners fined the company $140,000 for the mistaken early releases, an amount equivalent to 1 percent of the monthly $1.4 million paid to the company for operating the facility.

“This is a jail and it needs to be run like one,” said Commissioner Mike Nelson. A report by the county contract monitor found the incident resulted from poor judgment by CCA staff, broad booking procedures and inadequate staffing. CCA was also cited for allowing several hours to pass before informing the contract monitor that the incident had occurred. “It shouldn’t have happened ...” explained Nelson. “What I am really upset about is that there was a 7-hour delay before anyone at our place was ever notified.” ...

The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of a negligence claim against Prison Health Services, Inc. (PHS) stemming from a 17-year-old detainee’s suicide. The Court also concluded individual defendants were not entitled to official immunity, because they performed ministerial, rather than discretionary functions.

On November 10, 1996, 17-year-old Ronald Smith stole a car in South Carolina and drove it to Georgia, where he was arrested in Catham County. PHS contracted with the county to provide medical services, including medical screenings of new detainees, at the jail.

PHS Nurse Cornelius Jones performed Smith’s screening, including a mental health assessment. Jones concluded Smith needed to see a mental health counselor because he had been hospitalized for violent behavior within the last year, and had suicidal thoughts in the last three days. Jones completed a mental health referral form, but the booking sergeant, whom policy dictated was to receive the form, denied received the form or any other information about Smith’s mental state.

On November 11, 1996, Classification Officer Henry Mallory interviewed Smith and completed a classification profile, which did not reflect any mental health concerns. Mallory assigned Smith to general population but changed that to cell restriction or “lockdown”––continuous isolation––based upon ...

Late last year, a prisoner at the CCA-operated Hardeman County Correctional Facility (HCCF) in Tennessee notified PLN that the prison’s warden, assistant warden and internal affairs officer had either resigned or been fired or transferred. The staff changes reportedly resulted from an excessive use of force incident and unrelated criminal charges.

A public records request submitted to the Tennessee Dept. of Correction (TDOC) pursuant to T.C.A. § 10-7-503 resulted in a number of documents that shed light on what happened at HCCF.

On May 16, 2007, a violent altercation occurred in the chapel between Muslim prisoners and CCA guards. HCCF warden Glen Turner personally participated in the interrogation of several prisoners after the fight.
While questioning prisoner James Ingram, who insisted he had not been involved in the incident, Warden Turner threw him to the ground and punched him several times, causing an injury above his eye. Ingram was restrained at the time.

According to Jerry Lester, the TDOC’s acting Internal Affairs Director, state officials were not informed about Warden Turner’s excessive use of force “as it was never reported at the facility. It was not until July 19, when the TDOC received notification from prisoner Ingram’s attorney of his ...

A Jena, Louisiana private prison with a troubled past will experience rebirth as an immigrant detention center. The facility, built by the failed N-Group Securities company as part of a scam run by Patrick and Michael Graham, once held 280 juveniles. The Grahams were prosecuted – along with former Houston mayor Fred Hofheinz, former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards, former Texas prison chief Andy Collins and VitaPro CEO Yank Barry – for various prison-procurement and private prison construction scams.

The Jena facility has been closed for almost eight years. PLN previously reported on problems at the prison when it held juveniles under the management of GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut), including a March 2000 lawsuit filed against the company by the U.S. Dept. of Justice related to violence and abuse. [See: PLN, Aug. 2000, p.8].

Now GEO Group has announced plans to expand and remodel the detention center at a cost of $30 million, and convert it into a 1,160-bed immigration prison called the LaSalle Detention Facility (LDF). GEO has already entered into an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to house detainees at the facility; the expansion is expected to be complete by mid-2008.

The LDF will include a federal ...

The plaintiffs were nurses employed by Prison Health Services, Inc., and were attacked and beaten by a prisoner. The Supreme Court's decision in Collins v. Harker Heights overrules prior authority suggesting that there might be a special relationship supporting liability in these circumstances, and even if there were such a relationship, there is no evidence of culpable conduct here. See: White v. Lemacks, 24 F.Supp.2d 1373 (N.D.Ga. 1998).

By Matthew T. Clarke


States, strapped by tight budgets and pressed by swelling prison populations, are faced with the Hobson's choice of releasing prisoners early to ease overcrowding or building prisons they can ill afford to construct and staff. Private prison corporations seem to offer a third choice: They claim to be able to house excess prisoners without the substantial outlay of capital required to build prisons, and at a lower cost of incarceration than the government can manage.[1]

How do private prison corporations achieve this miracle of modern capitalism? By running a much more efficient operation than is possible with moribund state bureaucracies, say private prison proponents.[2] Opponents of private prisons reply that the savings are achieved by locating prisons in distant states with distressed labor markets and cutting the number of employees, slashing employee salaries and benefits, discouraging unionization, and reducing the quality and/or quantity of food, medical care and programs offered to prisoners, as well as by plain, old-fashioned cooking the books.[3]

Regardless of the quality of programs and services offered, relocating prisoners to distant states traumatizes both them and their families, making communication and visitation difficult and expensive, if not impossible, and reducing one of the ...

The plaintiff said he dislocated his previously injured shoulder in his sleep.

At 511: "For purposes of this case, it is undisputed that a shoulder dislocation causes great pain and is a serious medical need."

The defendants were not deliberately indifferent. Although the plaintiff said his shoulder had popped out of joint and had to be reset, he refused to let staff examine him (allegedly because of the pain), he didn't appear to be in extreme pain, so they didn't think his shoulder was actually dislocated. The next night he fell asleep and woke up without any shoulder pain.

On these facts, the court can't conclude that the defendants were deliberately indifferent or that they knew that the plaintiff had a serious medical need. (The dissenting judge has a rather different view of the facts: the plaintiff had obvious symptoms of a dislocated shoulder, and he was offered "Tylenol and a visit to a psychologist.")

The plaintiff alleged that the private medical provider had a practice of saving money by denying care and that its policy of having nurses seek approval before sending inmates to the hospital was a cost-saving measure. However, if the individual defendants didn't violate the plaintiff's ...

The plaintiff sought an injunction against his transfer to a private prison in Texas or Tennessee. His commitment to the "Wisconsin State Prisons" as opposed to the "Wisconsin Department of Corrections" does not mean he has a state law right to avoid transfer, and anyway state law is not enforceable in federal court. The failure to give notice that he may be incarcerated out of state did not deny due process; it is the conduct prohibited, not the potential sanctions, of which a criminal defendant must receive adequate notice.

The fact that the plaintiff may be forced to work at the prison to which he is transferred does not violate the Constitution, and the same rule applies to private prisons.

The Constitution does not prevent transfers out of state or to private prisons. Richardson v. Knight buttresses the prior conclusion by expressing no concern about private incarceration while recounting its history. See: Lambert v. Sullivan, 35 F.Supp.2d 1131 (E.D.Wis. 1999).

The hearing-impaired plaintiff complained of his treatment in a Wackenhut facility while awaiting deportation. Since he has now been deported, his claim about conditions is moot, and the court lacks jurisdiction to overturn his deportation even though he says he elected not to contest it because of the "torturous" treatment at the facility.

Although state prisons are within the scope of the Americans with Disabilities Act under Yeskey, federal detention centers are not, since the ADA addresses state or local government. See: Hurtado v. Reno, 34 F.Supp.2d 1261 (D.Colo. 1999).

by David M. Reutter

Whenever prisoners complain about inept healthcare, prison officials accuse them of being manipulating whiners, or assert they are being administered the ?community standard of care? by competent medical professionals. A review by The Capital Times has revealed that the community standard of care rendered to Wisconsin prisoners is often provided by doctors who have been disciplined by the Wisconsin Medical Examining Board (MEB).

Of the current 23 doctors employed by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (WDOC), four physicians, or 17 percent, have been disciplined by the MEB for incidents that occurred prior to their employment with the state prison system.

Since 2002, WDOC has had 37 different doctors in its employ. Of those, eight (22 percent) have been disciplined for incidents that occurred prior to or during their tenure with the department. In comparison, of the 23,000 licensed physicians in Wisconsin, only 1.5 to 2 percent have been disciplined by the MEB.

In its report, The Capital Times identified one WDOC doctor with a standard of care so disturbing that it unsettled his professional colleagues. Dr. Thomas Williams joined the WDOC in July 2004; the following year he was in charge of the infirmary at Dodge ...