by John E. Dannenberg

Prison Health Services (PHS), a subsidiary of America Service Group, Inc. (ASG), continues to face lawsuits and lose contracts for its deplorable record of prisoner health care gaffes in a dozen states. The old maxim Physician, heal thyself might be good advice for ASG, whose stock ...

Floridas Civil Commitment Center Under Funded and Out-of-Control

by David M. Reutter

When first created in 1999, Florida's Civil Commitment Center (FCCC) was hyped as a place to house sexually violent predators for protection of the public while providing sex offender treatment after completion of criminal sanctions.

Instead, FCCC has turned into a facility that treats less than one-third of its residents while releasing those who receive no treatment. To date, not one resident has completed the treatment regimen, but over 200 formerly-incarcerated sex offenders have been released from FCCC. A state audit found that FCCC failed to provide a therapeutic atmosphere; drug and alcohol use was routine, sex between staff and residents was not uncommon, pornography was available, and a racially-charged tension existed.

FCCC was created due to a 1998 law commonly referred to as the Jimmy Ryce Act, in memory of a 9-year-old Miami-Dade County boy who was kidnapped at gunpoint, sexually assaulted, murdered and buried inside several large planters by a handyman. The law allows for persons deemed sexually violent predators to be confined indefinitely beyond the expiration of their criminal sentence.

Initially, FCCC was located within a former drug treatment center adjacent to Martin Correctional Institution. ...

by John E. Dannenberg

Settling a long-simmering dispute in billing rates for medical treatment of jail prisoners, San Diego County has agreed to pay $1.5 million to multiple hospitals for bills dating back over three years. The health care providers had sued the county in 2004 to recover unpaid bills incurred by its Sheriff's Department. The agreement does not cover some emergency room doctors who have sued separately.

State law requires sheriffs to pay for medical care for their jail prisoners. To this end, the San Diego County Sheriff contracted to pay specified rates for prisoner care, but in 2003 unilaterally notified the hospitals that he would now only pay a lesser scale. The hospitals responded by submitting full-billed charges, which the sheriff proceeded to underpay. The full-billed charges came to $5 million. The settlement now calls for the county to pay $1,457,717 to the involved hospitals, on top of the $700,000 paid earlier.

The agreement permits the county to appeal one remaining question, namely whether the sheriff is responsible for medical costs of pre-arraignment detainees. The San Diego Superior Court ruled in October 2005 that the county is so obligated. [Note: Reversal of this holding would have the anomalous ...

by Matthew T. Clarke

On June 28, 2006, Colorado assessed $126,000 in fines against Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) for persistently understaffing two Colorado private prisons. The Colorado Department of Corrections (DOC) also awarded contracts for new private prisons and the expansion of current private prisons to CCA and other private prison companies.

The fines were prompted by a state auditor's report which blasted the private prison companies and recommended fines. [PLN, Apr. 2006, p. 18].
CCA's Kit Carson County Correctional Facility (KCCCF) in Burlington was fined $103,743 for short shifting 701 times during the ten-week period ending January 10, 2006. This meant that the prison was short about ten employees per day every day spread out among three shifts. The supervisor was missing for five shifts while the assistant supervisor was absent for 44 shifts. In October 2005, the DOC waived $46,000 in fines for KCCCF because it said it was unfair to strictly enforce a contract that was only a month old at the time.

CCA's Crowley County Correctional Facility (CCCF) in Olney Springs was fined close to $23,000 for short shifting 157 times during the ten weeks. CCCF had been previously granted a waiver for $18,000 in ...

by Matthew T. Clarke

Recently, the Newton County Correctional Center (NCCC), a private prison in Newton, Texas run by the Boca Raton, Florida-based Geo Group, has experienced several incidents involving the out-of-state Idaho prisoners housed there. These incidents included a non-violent protest involving 85 prisoners, an escape, and the resignation of a deputy warden. Additionally, allegations of prisoner abuse were substantiated; Idaho prisoners have since been removed from the facility.

Idaho incarcerates 449 of its prisoners in out-of-state private prisons. Of those, 30 are incarcerated at a CCA prison in Minnesota and 419 are held at NCCC, one of 53 prisons nationwide operated by Geo Group, formerly known as Wackenhut.

Initially, Idahos out-of-state transfers were voluntary and had few problems. In October 2005, Idaho transferred 302 prisoner volunteers to Minnesota. However, overcrowding led Minnesotas prison system to exercise its primacy option on the bunk space in that states private prisons. Thus, 270 of the 302 Idaho prisoners were transferred hundreds of miles away to NCCC in Texas, something they neither volunteered for nor desired.

When they arrived at NCCC, Idaho prisoners discovered hotter temperatures and an austere prison life without many of the luxuries and privileges they were accustomed to. ...

On April 21, 2006, the Arkansas Board of Corrections approved a new policy designed to keep mentally ill prisoners out of sensory-deprived environments like the Varner Supermax Unit in Lincoln County. The Board also renewed the prison systems contract with Correctional Medical Services (CMS).

The new supermax policy was implemented about two months after an investigation by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette revealed that mentally ill prisoners were housed at Varner in 7-foot by 11-foot cells nearly around the clock because the prison system lacked suitable beds elsewhere. In March about eight prisoners were removed from the supermax on the advice of a prison psychiatrist.

The new policy is certainly a step in the right direction, though the idea that these environments can cause a mentally ill prisoners condition to deteriorate is not exactly groundbreaking. Mental health experts around the country have been saying this for years. Whats more, federal courts have ruled consistently that housing mentally ill prisoners in supermaxes may constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

Under the new policy, housing assignments and other actions that could worsen a mentally ill prisoners condition are prohibited, said Wendy Kelley, the Arkansas Department of Corrections (ADOC) top mental health official. Before it had ...

by John E. Dannenberg

After three jail deaths between May 2003 and October 2004, the Leon County Board of Commissioners met to consider the Sheriff's reports on the three deaths and any implications regarding the jail's healthcare provider, PHS. Two of the deaths were in litigation. In spite of highly suspicious circumstances in the overmedication death of one prisoner, the Board approved the report clearing PHS.

PHS was hired in 2002 for approximately $3.5 million/yr. to provide medical, mental health, and dental services for the 1,250 prisoners in the Leon County Jail. Approximately 90-100 prisoners visit the jails clinic daily, including those receiving medication. Medications are shipped daily from Secure Pharmacy Plus, PHSs subsidiary.

Leon County maintains oversight of PHS through Alliance Medical Management Corp. Leon County Jail is one of 21 county lockups in Florida accredited by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. Accreditation must be renewed annually, although site evaluation only occurs every three years. In addition, a medical review committee is convened whenever three prisoner complaints surface on the same subject. In 2002, the Board approved mental health peer review oversight of the jail's mentally ill, hiring both a Mental Health Coordinator and Florida Partners in ...

Broward County, Florida, and EMSA Correctional Care, Inc., must pay $500,000 to a county prisoner who suffered permanent injury and weeks of unnecessary pain because jail medical personnel failed to diagnose or treat her ectopic pregnancy, a federal jury decided on January 8, 2004.

Charleen Foree, 38, was imprisoned in ...

According to the latest report from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, as of June 2005 approximately 2.2 million people were incarcerated in prisons and jails nationwide not including immigration detention centers and juvenile facilities. This enormous imprisoned population is not static; prisoners are moved both intrastate and interstate on a regular basis for a variety of reasons, including court appearances, medical visits, detainer extraditions, Interstate Compact transfers and bail bond remands. A mobile, constantly-shifting prison on wheels is an apt analogy.

While there are no firm statistics for the total number of prisoners transferred and extradited annually, the U.S. Marshals Service, which is responsible for the transportation of prisoners and immigration detainees in federal custody, receives around 1,000 transport requests per day and moves nearly 300,000 prisoners each year through its Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System (JPATS).

On the state and local level, individual jurisdictions are responsible for their own prisoner transportation needs. Although almost all sheriff''s offices and state Departments of Correction maintain their own prisoner transport services, they also rely heavily on privately-operated companies, especially for interstate trips. The reasons for using such for-profit transport services boil down to cost and convenience, both ...

The Tennessee State Court of Appeals upheld a $500,000 compensatory damage award against Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), to a woman who was taken hostage by an escaped CCA prisoner.

Mike Settle was a prisoner at Hardeman County Correctional Facility (HCCF), a CCA prison in Whiteville, Tennessee. On August 14, ...