Fair Labor Standards Acts Minimum Wage Provision Not Applicable to Private Prisons

The Seventh Circuit Appeals Court affirmed a lower courts decision that held prisoners are not entitled to the minimum wage provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 201 (FLSA).

Jay R. Bennett and James W. Knipfer are prisoners at Whiteville Correctional Facility (WCF), a private prison in Tennessee owned by Corrections Corporation of America which is under contract to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. The prisoners filed suit claiming they were entitled, as employees, to the minimum wage provision of the FLSA.
The lower court held that they were not entitled to any of the benefits of the FLSA. Consequently, the prisoners appealed.

The Appeals Court held the FLSA is intended for the protection of employees, and the prisoners are not classified as employees of their prison, whether the prison is a public or private one.

The Act unhelpfully defines employee as any individual employed by an employer and defines employer as any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee and includes a public agency. The Court held, however, the prisoners are not a part of ...

On May 11, 2005, Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (now known as Geo Group) agreed to settle for $125,000 a lawsuit arising from the suicide death of a prisoner in the Wackenhut-operated George W. Hill Correctional Facility, also known as the Delaware County prison.

John William Focht, Jr. was arrested in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on February 3, 2002, and charged with possession of cocaine with intent to deliver. Upon intake at the county prison, Focht, a 43-year-old father of four, indicated that he had a history of depression and had attempted suicide; that he had been drinking at least 20 beers per day and using cocaine; and that he had been taking the antidepressant drug Paxil.

Focht was subsequently interviewed by Doctor Victoria Gessner, who started him on 100 milligrams of lithium per day. Because Gessner also placed Focht in a detoxification program, he was housed in isolation where guards were supposed to check on him every 15 minutes.

Two days after he was admitted to the prison, Focht was dead. Guards found him hanging in his cell on February 5, 2002 at approximately 7:30 p.m. He had fashioned a noose from his boot laces, which he attached to a wall grating. ...

On August 27, 2005, a riot involving hundreds of prisoners broke out in a private prison run by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) in Mineral Wells, Texas, injuring a dozen prisoners and two guards. The sixteen-year-old, 2,100-bed facility holds prisoners with less than a year to serve before their expected parole date.

Around 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, August 27, 2005, fights broke out among two dozen of the over 500 prisoners on the prison's recreation yard. Guards quelled the fights and returned the prisoners to their housing units.
At approximately 9:30 p.m., prisoners from one building began to battle those from another building. The fights spilled out onto the recreation yard and involved around 200 prisoners, some of whom had armed themselves with broom handles, sticks and boards. About 10:15 p.m., the Parker County Sheriff's Department, Palo Pinto County Sheriff's Department, Mineral Wells Police Department, Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas Rangers were notified of the riot and sent officers to secure the prison's perimeter. DPS also sent a searchlight-equipped helicopter.

A special operations team was deployed to quell the riot. They used tear gas, which quickly brought an end to the fighting. Two guards received scratches. Twelve prisoners ...

by Matthew T. Clarke

Arkansas paid Cornell Corporations of Houston, Texas, $9.5 million a year to manage the Alexander Youth Services Center in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. What they got for their money was a prison that killed by medical neglect a juvenile prisoner with a blood clot in her lungs whose requests for medical attention had been ignored for weeks. The prison also hired a guard the Arkansas Department of Corrections (DOC) had fired for having sex with a prisoner. What Cornell's mismanagement earned them was a recommendation for extension of their contract from the state legislature.

John Berry, 40, was a 16-year veteran of the Arkansas Department of Correction and a sergeant when he was accused of having sex with a prisoner. An internal affairs investigation concluded that Berry had sex with a prisoner at the Tucker maximum security prison. This finding, bolstered by his failing a lie detector test, led to his firing in October 2002.

No criminal charges were filed against Berry. Therefore, he passed a criminal history background check conducted by Cornell when they hired him. Berry also filed a federal civil rights suit against the DOC alleging the DOC violated his due process rights when ...

On February 3, 2005, Avalon Correctional Services, Inc., announced that it had filed Form 15 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to terminate the company's common stock pursuant to the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 (SEA). This allows Avalon to cease filing SEC-required reports, including forms 8-K, 10-K and 10-Q.

Avalon complained that the costs of complying with Section 404 of the SEA, as required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, was making the business unprofitable. By terminating common stock, it will eliminate legal, auditing, accounting and printing expenses associated with compliance. These costs might otherwise cause Avalon to default on its loan obligations and prevent it from accessing sufficient funds to continue daily operations.

Avalon will no longer be listed on the NASDAQ. It may be traded over the counter on the Pink Sheets, a centralized stock quotation service that operates through a web site. Avalon will still be required to report to its stockholders under Nevada state law. Avalon also announced its intention to post its press releases, quarterly reports and annual financial results on its website.

Source: Avalon Company Press Released.

by Michael Rigby

Tennessee isn't known for its huge prison system, like Texas or California. Nor is the state's capital city, Nashville, recognized for massively overcrowded jails such as the ones in Los Angeles or New York City. But one thing is clear: Tennessee lockups are just as dangerous, the guards equally brutal and incompetent, and supervisory officials just as scandal-prone as those in more populous states.

At a prison in Nashville, a state prisoner was brutally murdered and set on fire after guards abandoned their post, leaving him with two other maximum-security prisoners; one of the guards was fired for violating prison policy and the other resigned. A national headline-making escape of a state prisoner from a courthouse parking lot resulted in the shooting death of a prison guard. Another guard smuggled a gun into a state facility for her imprisoned lover. And at the administrative level, the Commissioner of the Tennessee Dept. of Correction (TDOC) resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment and questions about his relationship with a subordinate.
The situation is no better in the state's county jails. At one Nashville facility a diabetic prisoner died after private contract medical personnel failed to dispense his insulin. At ...

by David M. Reutter

Florida's Correctional Privatization Commission (CPC) consistently failed to safeguard the State's interests in its role as steward of privately operated correctional facilities," causing Florida's taxpayers to pay $12.7 million in questionable and excessive of cost. That conclusion was arrived at in a scathing report of the CPC by Florida's Inspector General.
The audit, issued on June 30, 2005, comes a year after the Florida Legislature abolished the CPC and turned its operation and management of private prison contracts over to the Department of Management Services (DMS).

Florida contracts with two vendors to operate five prisons in the state. Gadsden, Bay, and Lake City prisons are operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) while GEO Group, formerly Wackenhut Corrections, operates Moore Haven and South Bay prisons. Combined, these prisons warehouse 5,290 male prisoners.

The audit said that CPC records and contract documentation showed CPC consistently made questionable contract concessions to the vendors." That statement comes as no surprise to those familiar with the cronyism and infestation of the CPC by those who are in the vendors' pockets. That story as told in Private Capitol Punishment: The Florida Model, by Ken Kopczynski, reviewed in PLN, December 2004, pg. ...

Private Prison Contractor Who Allegedly Diverted $1.6 Million in Telephone
Revenues Sues California DOC

A Bakersfield, California businessman, who lost a contract for his private prison housing California Department of Corrections (CDC) prisoners due to allegations that he misappropriated $1.6 million from prisoner collect telephone call revenues, has filed suit in Kern County Superior Court against CDC for libel, defamation and breach of contract. He claims his reputation and his ability to do business were harmed.

Terry Moreland, affiliated with Marantha Corrections LLC, once operated a CDC Community Corrections Facility in Adelanto, but that contract was constructively terminated when he sold the 550 bed minimum security facility to San Bernardino County while CDC was demanding he return the disputed revenues. (See: PLN, Feb. 2005, p.39.) Moreland has resisted CDC's refund demand for years, arguing that his contract did not require it.

Source: Bakersfield Californian.

by Michael Rigby

A Maryland prison is no place to get sick. Virtually every facet of prisoner health care, which has been provided by Tennessee-based Prison Health Services (PHS) since 2000, is in disarray. Prisoners sometimes receive the wrong medicine or none at all; records are poorly kept; physical exams are often cursory; sick call requests are ignored; and short-staffing is ubiquitous.

To address the problems, the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS), which operates Maryland prisons and Baltimore jails has implemented a new health care system and changed providers. The department also promised to spend more money for health services. Some critics doubt the new system and additional money will make a difference since the quality of care--or lack thereof--will still be influenced by profit motives.

Medication mix-ups, and delays are common in Maryland prisons, according to independent audits, internal documents, and prisoner complaints. In a December 2004 letter to a concerned community organization, DPSCS Secretary Mary Ann Saar acknowledged the problem when she wrote, We have repeatedly heard complaints relating to the failure of inmates to receive medications ... in a timely manner." The situation can be deadly for prisoners with life-threatening illnesses such as asthma, ...

by Michael Rigby

Nearly two years after the Prison Rape Elimination Act, (PREA) passed unopposed in the U.S. House and Senate, an attitude of indifference and skepticism surrounding prison sexual assaults still permeates the Arkansas Department of Corrections (ADC).

Signed into law on, September 4, 2003, as Public Law 108-79, the PREA authorizes the Bureau of Justice Statistics to collect statistical data and calls for a federal commission to devise standards aimed at combating prison rape. The law also requires states to track prison sexual assaults and encourages prison officials and lawmakers to attack the problem at the state level.

Because Arkansas stands to lose money if it doesn't comply--federal funding to states failing to meet the standards will be reduced by 5% a year--the Arkansas Board of Corrections met on June 9, 2005, to vote on the state's planned compliance. For Arkansas, which augments its annual $231 million prison budget with $840,000 in federal grant money, the reduction equates to a loss of $42,000.

According to the text of the law, an estimated 13% of the nation's 2.1 million prisoners have been sexually assaulted in prison. Experts note the consequences are far reaching--especially since an estimated 95% of prisoners ...