Skip navigation

News Articles

This site contains over 2,000 news articles, legal briefs and publications related to for-profit companies that provide correctional services. Most of the content under the "Articles" tab below is from our Prison Legal News site. PLN, a monthly print publication, has been reporting on criminal justice-related issues, including prison privatization, since 1990. If you are seeking pleadings or court rulings in lawsuits and other legal proceedings involving private prison companies, search under the "Legal Briefs" tab. For reports, audits and other publications related to the private prison industry, search using the "Publications" tab.

For any type of search, click on the magnifying glass icon to enter one or more keywords, and you can refine your search criteria using "More search options." Note that searches for "CCA" and "Corrections Corporation of America" will return different results. 


 

Articles about Private Prisons

Judge Reduces Damage Award Against PHS In New York Jail Heart Attack Suit

by John E. Dannenberg

In July 2005, a New York federal jury awarded $150,000 in compensatory damages and $632,988 in punitive damages to a jail prisoner who suffered permanent disabilities when treatment for his heart attack was delayed for three critical days by indifferent guards and medical staff.

Byron Lake, ...

Privatized Medical Services in Delaware Kill and Maim

by David M. Reutter

Anthony Pierce was serving a 14 month sentence for parole violation of a burglary charge at Delaware's Sussex Correctional Institution when he discovered a marble-sized lump growing on the back of his head. A prison doctor employed by the Delaware Department of Corrections' (DDOC) medical contractor, Correctional Medical Services (CMS), said the lump was most likely a cyst or an ingrown hair.

Seven months later, the lump had become ten inches in diameter, or like a second head. The growth caused Pierce to be known by cellmates as the "brother with two heads." In August 2001, CMS' medical director, Dr. Keith Ivens, stabbed the bulging tumor five times with an 18-gauge needle, withdrawing a bloody fluid, which he emptied into a trash can rather than send to a lab for analysis.

"Despite the size and rapid growth of Pierce's lump," CMS medical staff ordered no tests or treatment. They just allowed it to grow unhampered. An autopsy report after the 21-year-old Pierce's death determined his lump was cancerous and he died from a brain tumor due to osteoscarcoma of the skull.

"That boy was growing another head," said Michell Thomas, a former CMS substance abuse counselor. ...

Louisiana's 2002 Exhaustion Requirement (Act 89) Not Retroactive

The Louisiana Supreme Court held that retroactive application of a 2002 law, requiring exhaustion of administrative remedies by prisoners before bringing a state tort action, would unconstitutionally deprive prisoners of a vested right. Therefore, the court held that the law has prospective application only when the prisoner was not required to comply with the unconstitutional procedure that existed before 2002.

In 1985, Louisiana enacted the Corrections Administrative Remedies Procedure (CARP), La.R.S. 15:1171--- 1179. Following CARP, the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (the Department) adopted an administrative remedy procedure... La.R.S. 15:1171(B). As originally enacted, no state court could entertain an offender's grievance or complaint that fell under the purview of the administrative remedy procedure unless and until the offender had exhausted the remedies provided by the procedure. La.R.S. 15:1172(B)." Initially, Section 1171 of the CARP provisions" made no reference to tort actions. However, in 1989, the Legislature amended Section 1171 to expressly include personal injury in medical malpractice within the type of claims encompassed by CARP[.]
In 1997, Louisiana enacted the Louisiana Prison Litigation Reform Act (LPLRA), which, operating in conjunction with CARP, sought to curtail baseless or nuisance suits by prisoners." The LPLRA also provides that [n]o prisoner's ...

PLN Sues The Geo Group for Public Records

On Dec. 2, 2005, Prison Legal News filed a civil suit against The Geo Group, Inc. (formerly Wackenhut Corrections) in the Circuit Court for Palm Beach, Florida, demanding access to public records held by the company.
The Geo Group is a for-profit company that operates privatized prisons, including two Florida prisons, and its contract-based fees are paid with public (taxpayer) funds. Pursuant to Florida's public records law, The Geo Group is required to produce requested public records pursuant to Public Records Law, F.S. 119.01(1).

Prison Legal News's editor, Paul Wright, submitted written public record requests to The Geo Group in April, 2005, requesting information related to lawsuits that resulted in settlements or verdicts against the company, as well as contract audits, violations and court-ordered injunctions. While The Geo Group provided a limited amount of information related to one category of the requested records, it ignored the other requests and never responded to a second record request submitted in September.

In its lawsuit, Prison Legal News alleges The Geo Group's failure to provide the requested public records is illegal, malicious and willful, and is designed to delay Prison Legal News from obtaining the records because they are critical of The Geo ...

Florida Awards Contracts Putting Sex Offenders on GPS Supervision; Other States to Follow

The Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) has awarded three contracts for Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite monitoring of sex offenders. The contracts come on the heels on legislation that allocated $3.9 million over a three-year period to put certain sex offenders on lifetime GPS supervision, even if their sentences or parole terms have expired.
Two of the contracts will keep constant watch over child sexual predators as part of the Jessica Lunsford Act, which was named for a 9-year-old girl who was kidnapped and killed by a registered sex offender in February 2005. The Lundsford Act was passed unanimously by the Florida legislature and signed into law by Gov. Jeb Bush on May 2, 2005. It requires a minimum 25-year sentence for offenders convicted of sexually assaulting a child 12 or younger plus lifetime electronic monitoring upon release, and expanded monitoring of sex offenders who commit crimes against older children. The act only applies prospectively; i.e., to crimes committed from the date of the legislation forward, but could apply to released sex offenders currently under state supervision.

The GPS monitoring contracts were initially awarded to Satellite Tracking of People (STOP) for northern Florida, and G4S Justice Services, a division of ...

Controversial Ex-Prison Official Lane McCotter Appointed Utah J.P.

Lane McCotter, once the director of the Utah Department of Corrections, has been appointed to a justice of the peace bench in Utah. The McCotter era remains a high-point of prison violence in Utah's history cumulating in the death of a prisoner who had spent 16 hours strapped naked to a restraining chair in 1997. Forced out of office two months after the restraining chair incident, McCotter became a prison consultant and an executive for Management Training Corporation, a Utah-based private prison company. Meanwhile, Utah ceased using restraint chairs in its prisons and settled the civil rights lawsuits against McCotter and the prison system for $200,000.

McCotter started his first job as prison system director in the Texas prison system in 1985. By 1987, he was forced out of that position by allegations that he intentionally erased portions of a videotape showing the beating of a handcuffed, shackled prisoner. McCotter claimed the erasure was an accident. From there, McCotter went to work as director of the New Mexico prison system, where he stayed until 1991. In 1992, he took over as head of the Utah prison system.

McCotter was hired by the federal government in 2003. He and three other ...

Dismissal of §1983 Complaint Against Ohio CCA Prison Reversed

by Bob Williams

The United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has reversed the dismissal of a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 prisoner complaint against the CCA facility at Youngstown, Ohio, finding the complaint did state a claim of municipal liability against the District of Columbia who contracted with the Ohio-based private prison.

Morris J. Warren was a District of Columbia (the District) prisoner incarcerated at the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) prison in Youngstown, Ohio, pursuant to a contract between the CCA and the District. While there, Warren alleges he was subject to inhumane treatment including being forced to lie on a cold floor naked between 15 to 20 hours" every day; denied cell running water or toilet water [for] over 72 hours, weeks at a time;" tear gas sprayed in cells and pods daily; deprived of medication for a month; forced to endure a blood draw with others in his pod using common needles; and destruction of property. As a result, Warren claims he caught pneumonia, suffered a stroke, and was infected by yellow jaundice.

Warren claimed the District knew or should have known" about his treatment and did nothing to stop it. In support of this, ...

Oklahoma Prisons Suffer Crisis of Violence and Mismanagement

by Matthew T. Clarke

2005 has turned out to be a violent year in Oklahoma prisons. Between January and July, 2005, the prisons in Oklahoma suffered multiple riots, multiple murders of prisoners, and extensive probes of drug running.
The stage for 2005 was set in 2004. In 2002 and 2003, 274 state prisoners were given disciplinary write ups for possession of a weapon. In 2004 alone, 351 prisoners were given disciplinary writ ups for weapons possession. This prevalence of armed prisoners, combined with an acute shortage of guards in Oklahoma's state prisons, set the stage for an increase in prison violence. Thus, it was no surprise when in 2005 violence exploded in Oklahoma prisons with three state prisoners murdered by mid-July and several riots having occurred in that same time period.
Sometime in the night of January 29th to 30th, 2005, Ronald Stiles, 48, a prisoner at the Lawton Correctional Facility (LCF) was strangled to death. LCF is a private prison run by GEO Group, Inc. Stiles was serving 10 years for possession of contraband. His cell partner, Robert M. Cooper, 32, who is serving life without parole for a first-degree murder, is the main suspect.

On March 22, 2005, ...

Federal Prison Problematic For Texas Officials

A 500-bed federal detention center may have caused more problems than it solved for cash-strapped Willacy County, Texas. Three county commissioners have already been convicted of accepting kickbacks from companies involved with the prison, and a state senator's ties to three contractors has raised ethical questions. The detention center is now the focus of a federal bribery investigation and a lawsuit filed by the county.
Between June 2000 and March 2003, Willacy County commissioners Israel Tamez, 58, and Jose Jiminez, 67, accepted a series of bribes totaling more than $10,000 in exchange for their votes in awarding lucrative prison contracts. Both men pled guilty to bribery charges on January 4, 2004.
Also charged and convicted was David Cortez, 70, a former Webb County commissioner. Cortez plead guilty in May 2005 for conspiring to obstruct, delay and affect commerce" for helping secure a contract for the detention facility. He admitted funneling at least $39,000 to county commissioners to help an unnamed consulting firm get part of the prison contract.
Sentencing for Tamez and Jiminez was postponed until January 2006 pending the outcome of the continuing federal investigation; Cortez's sentencing also was postponed by the federal district court in a sealed order. ...

Higher Property Tax Collections Permit 25% Growth Of Los Angeles County Jail Capacity

by John E. Dannenberg

A six percent increase in property tax collections due to soaring real estate prices will add an estimated $150 million to Los Angeles County coffers in the coming year. County supervisors have allotted $68.5 million of that to reverse the cutbacks in the County Sheriff's budget for jails in the past three years that have resulted in 200,000 prisoners being let out early, the vast majority after serving only 10% of their sentences.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca plans to hire 500 new deputies and add 4,474 new beds to the jail system, a 25% increase in capacity. High-risk offenders will be moved into the Twin Towers downtown jail in an effort to counter the pattern of five detainee murders in the past two years at the hands of under-supervised fellow prisoners. An additional 63 deputies will be hired to perform safety checks" on prisoners. This was in response to the infamous security breach wherein a high-risk prisoner was able to freely roam the Central Jail to seek out and murder the witness who planned to testify against him. [See: PLN, April, 2005]
Beginning in 2002, Sheriff Baca was forced by budget cutbacks to reduce ...