A groundswell of prisoner litigation is taking aim at states to force them to comprehensively and meaningfully address HCV in prison. These suits, often brought as class actions, seek to mandate a protocol for HCV detection and treatment that satisfies Eighth Amendment guarantees against cruel and unusual punishment.


New Jersey and Michigan contract their state prison medical program to for-profit Correctional Medical Services, Inc. (CMS), based in St. Louis, Missouri. The tension of this arrangement is obvious: states seek to fix costs of prisoner healthcare by making it a per-body commodity like food, thereby distancing themselves from day-to-day responsibility of providing constitutionally adequate medical care, while CMS hopes to maximize its profits by providing the least healthcare it can get away with. The result is that unless prisoners sue CMS, they and the community they return to with their untreated diseases become powerless victims.


Accordingly, two suits were filed in New Jersey and Michigan, sounding in 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131 et seq., seeking injunctive relief to provide constitutionally responsible care and damages where it has been denied. Walter Bennett and three other named New Jersey prisoner plaintiffs sued CMS ...

Capitalist Punishment: Prison Privatization & Human Rights

Edited by Andrew Coyle, Allison Campbell, & Rodney Neufeld,Clarity Press, Inc;

Zed Books (2003) 234 pp. Softback

Review by Mark Wilson


Proponents of prison privatization argue that for-profit prisons make good sense, "promis[ing] reduced costs to governments, better and more cost-effective services to prisoners and increased security for people living in communities where prisons are located." Capitalist Punishment, however, paints a starkly different picture, providing overwhelming evidence that "[p]rison corporations have not lived up to their promises. They have not saved governments substantial amounts of money, nor have they proven to be more secure. Instead, they have contributed to an unacceptable level of neglect and violence against [prisoners] and detainees, diminished rights for the guards and other employees, a risk to the community, and are set to be a heavy burden for the public purse over many years in those countries which have experimented with them."


Capitalist Punishment's diverse and impressive array of contributors leave no stone unturned in their exploration of the flaws and failures of for-profit prisons and jails. They address the history, politics, and economics of massive prison expansion and private sector involvement in America and abroad, discussing privatization experiments ...

Prisons Nationwide Fail To Treat HCV Epidemic

by John E. Dannenberg


The JeopardyTM answer is: "The national average treatment rate for HCV-infected prisoners." The winning question is: "What is approximately 1%?"


With HCV [Hepatitis-C] infection rates in state prisons nationwide estimated at between 16 and 41%, state prisoners account for almost one-third of the 4.5 million total people in the United States infected with this often fatal disease. But because the annual treatment cost per prisoner runs $25-$35,000, and states are loathe to pump money into prison health care, HCV is transformed from a dirty little secret inside the walls into a national epidemic, as 1.3 million contagious and untreated prisoners are unceremoniously dumped back into the communities each year. Worse yet, because HCV testing is not mandatory, many carry the virus outside unknowingly only to infect others from blood contamination during injuries, body piercing, tattooing, sharing needles and unprotected sex.


HCV, a blood borne virus that often runs its fatal course in 10-20 years, can infect a person without showing outward symptoms for much of this period. It is frequently only detected during routine blood tests when liver enzymes appear abnormal. Yet throughout the entire time of infection, one ...

Florida Work Release Prisoners Ripped Off
by Private Transport Company

by David M. Reutter


In response to a new law, effective Oc-tober 1, 2003, that prohibited state prisoners from driving state vehicles, the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) hurriedly entered into a no bid contract with Sunshine Transportation to transport its work release prisoners to and from their employment.


FDOC's work release programs allow prisoners to work up to twelve months in the community before they are released. While in the program, prisoners live in minimum security dormitories in the community. In turn, they contribute 45% of their income to pay the FDOC for their housing costs and ten percent goes to a personal savings account to be given to them upon their release. The transportation costs charged by Sunshine Transportation were automatically deducted from whatever wages were left.


Sunshine Transportation refused to take the contract unless it was guaranteed a minimum number of prisoner passengers. The company was chosen because it was the only company that agreed to provide van service statewide. To facilitate the contract, FDOC officials sent letters to all local work release programs "encouraging" them to sign the agreement with Sunshine Transportation. Local officials then told ...

The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the U.S. District Court (New Jersey) on its dismissal of a pretrial detainee's state law medical malpractice claims and summary judgment for jail defendants of the detainee's claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and 1983.


Daniel Natale was arrested by Gloucester Township police on November 23, 1997. Natale, an insulin-dependent diabetic, was taken to an area hospital for medical evaluation. A hospital physician gave Natale insulin and noted that he "must have insulin" while incarcerated.


During booking at the Camden County Correctional Facility (CCCF), Natale was seen by employees of Prison Health Services (PHS), a private company providing health care services at CCCF. Natale informed PHS employees that he was insulin-dependant. A PHS nurse noted this on Natale's chart, but no one investigated how much insulin Natale needed or at what frequency.


Natale received no more insulin until twenty-one hours later, on November 25, 2003. He was released from CCCF later that day. Two days later he suffered a stroke. Natale and his wife sued PHS and CCCF in state court under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and 1983, and under New Jersey state medical malpractice law. The defendants removed the case to ...

Dismissal Sanction for Prisoner's Refusal to be Deposed Without Court Order Reversed


The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals held that considering a prisoner's refusal to be deposed absent a court order, as a factor to enter a sanction of dismissal is improper. The Court further held the failure to enter a default judgment for the prisoner was not an abuse of discretion.


Michael Ashby, a Colorado prisoner confined at the Crowley County Correctional Facility (CCCF), alleged in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaint that food he ate at CCCF was contaminated with glass, causing him internal injuries. Ashby sued two officials at CCCF and other "shell" companies owned by Correctional Services Corporation (CSC).


CSC has set up a complex web of shell companies to avoid liability and, in this case, service. The progress of this litigation was delayed because of a dispute over the existence/designation of defendant Crowley Correctional Services Limited Liability Company (Crowley LLC). Crowley LLC did not file an answer for nineteen months, and Ashby moved for default judgment. The Tenth Circuit held the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying that motion due to a pending motion to dismiss Crowley LLC as a defendant.


The ...

Three Virginia retailers who made their money from prisoner earnings now find themselves in financial trouble. In August 2003, when the Virginia Department of Corrections (DOC) relinquished management of prison commissaries to St. Louis-based Keefe Supply Co., three Virginia vendors filed suit against the prisons in Richmond Circuit Court.


Virginia Smacks Inc., Highland Beef Farms and Lee Hartman & Sons have literally lost millions of dollars under the privatization package.


Based on their common misery the three companies brought suit against the DOC alleging that the privatization deal with Keefe is illegal in that the St. Louis Company is allowed to benefit from cheap prison labor. "You can't provide inmate labor to a private enterprise as a subsidy," said Ian Wilson, attorney for the plaintiffs.


Keefe first took over five Virginia prisons in 2002, under former Corrections Director Ron J. Angelone. Department spokesman Larry Traylor says that privatization centralizes the process, is more efficient and saves the state money. Keefe went from management of five commissaries in 2002 to thirty-seven in 2003.


Wilson points to contract documents that show that the privatization package always intended to provide Keefe with "inmate labor, at a very low cost." He argues that this ...

Conditions at the McPherson and Grimes Correctional Units in Newport, Arkansas are unconstitutional, the U.S. Department of Justice concluded after an 18-month investigation. According to the investigation report, dated November 25, 2003, investigators found that prisoners at both units experienced deliberate indifference to their serious medical needs, were not adequately protected from physical harm and sexual assault, and were exposed to unsanitary and unsafe conditions.


McPherson is the state's only women's prison. Built to house roughly 600 prisoners, it held approximately 700 at the time of the investigation. Grimes housed young men from 16-24 years of age. The units are part of a single complex. Both are comprised of barracks-style dormitories (which have been found unconstitutional as far back as 1970).


Originally operated by Wackenhut Corrections Corporation, the state resumed control of the prisons in July 2001 after refusing to pay for increased operating costsbut the problems persist.


Medical Care


Medical care at the prisons, which is provided by Correctional Medical Services (CMS), was found to be seriously deficient.


For instance, asthmatics' access to chronic care was impeded by a CMS policy prohibiting medical personnel from ordering inhalers, instead requiring the prisoners to report to the infirmary when they experienced ...

Pastor Don Raymond isn't trained in corrections and is not employed by the government, but he runs a new 140-person wing of the Ellsworth, Kansas, medium-security prison that draws prisoners from throughout the state system.


In the phylum of prison staff, Raymond defies classification. He is not a tight-lipped warden, vindictive guard, or burnt-out social worker. In an industry that thrives on invisibility and resents the media, Raymond drives 140 miles, past newly seeded wheat fields and the rhythmically bowing heads of oil-well pumps, to pick me up from the airport, where he offers prayers of thanksgiving for my visit and "for the ministries of writing He has blessed Samantha with." In a building that hums with hostility, Raymond is attentive, unguarded, gentle. Prison staff are not permitted to share personal information with prisoners, address them by their first names, or socialize in any way; if a prisoner wants to speak privately with a counselor, he has to fill out a Form-9. But these restrictions do not apply to Raymond, who often puts in 14-hour days working the cellblocks of the state's prisons, recruiting men to transfer to his wing. In prisoners' marked bodies, averted eyes, and bristling rage, Raymond ...

"Unremarkable." That's what prison nurse Jolinda Waterman called Donnie Powe's condition when she relegated him to an observation cell. Guards perfunctorily recorded his declining health right up until he died, face down on the floor of his 6 by 8 foot tomb in Wisconsin Secure Program Facility (WSPF) aka Supermax.


For twenty-one hours guards literally watched Powe die slowly inside his Supermax prison cell. Powe had complained of weakness and vomiting, telling a prison nurse he thought he had the flu. The nurse put Powe on a clear liquid diet and told him to contact medical later if he didn't feel better. This is where the record of his slow, agonizing death begins.


March 15, 2003, 12:45pm A prison sergeant calls nurse Waterman to Powe's cell. Powe is "only mumbly when spoken to," says the sergeant. Powe's mattress is on the floor, he is "unable to, move (his)" legs and his speech is "slow and softly spoken."


Unable to walk and barely able to lift his head, Powe is placed in a "restraint chair" and taken to the infirmary. Waterman diagnoses Powe's symptoms as "unremarkable." She leaves him on a liquid diet and gives him a laxative. Powe is placed ...