On February 26, 2002, the family of a prisoner who died as a result of medical neglect at the privately-run Bay County jail in Florida filed formal notice that they intend to sue the jail, as well as the Bay Medical Center where the prisoner was treated, for failure to properly care for him when he became violently ill in a jail holding cell on Feb. 15, 2002.

The story began when Justin Sturgis, 21, was booked into the jail, which is operated by the Corrections Corporation of America of Nashville (CCA), and charged with driving under the influence. When Sturgis was pulled over he reportedly swallowed 10 hits of Ecstasy to avoid police finding the drug on him when he was arrested. Sturgis arrived at the jail and repeatedly told guards that he had swallowed the drugs and that he needed medical treatment.

However, according to former Bay County jail nurse Jerry Militich, the jail's medical staff was under constant pressure from jail custody staff to avoid sending sick prisoners to the hospital. This inhumane cost-cutting venture eventually led Militich to resign in protest over this practice. Sturgis was brought to see a jail nurse who did call a ...

Boot Camp Or Boot Hill? Troubled Teens Suffer From Too Much Tough Love

by Roger Hummel

On February 15, 2002, Charles Long II was arrested on murder and child abuse charges growing from the death of Anthony Haynes. On July 1, 2001 the 14 year old Haynes died while attending an Arizona boot camp operated by America's Buffalo Soldiers ReEnactors Association. Long, 56, was the camp's director. He was also charged with marijuana possession and aggravated assault for allegedly pulling a knife on a young camper.

The medical examiner's office said Haynes died from the unlikely combination of dehydration and near drowning. Without benefit of shade from the summer sun, the teenager had been made to stand in the 114degree desert heat for 5 hours. When Haynes began hallucinating and eating dirt, he was left face down in a bathtub filled with water.

Haynes was not the first teenager to die in a correctional boot camp, the nation's increasingly popular nontraditional sentencing option for juvenile offenders. Since 1980, at least 31 youngsters have perished in these camps under diverse and often suspicious circumstances.

Boot camp programs are modeled after military basic training. Juveniles often enter the program in groups referred ...

Alaska: On April 11, 2002, Cynthia Cooper, the head prosecutor in the state attorney general's office, resigned after being judicially admonished for pursuing felony charges against a public defender who crashed his car into a light pole. Anchorage prosecutors had agreed to a misdemeanor plea bargain with Wally Tetlow, the public defender, when Cooper stepped into the case and demanded a guilty plea to a felony. Judge Jonathan Link found Cooper was motivated by animus against Tetlow because he was a public defender, not because of any crime he may have committed. Federal judge H. Russell Holland had recently found that Cooper made an "untrue statement" in responding to a contempt motion after she refused to abide by a court decision striking down the state's sex offender registration law.

Connecticut: In March 12, 2002, Anthony Tortorella, 41, a guard at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, pleaded guilty to charges of unlawfully harboring an illegal alien and engaging in sexual acts with female prisoners at the facility. Tortorella admitted to having sex with six different female prisoners while employed at the prison. He also lived for ten months with a former female prisoner who was an illegal alien from Ecuador ...

A private company, MgtGP Inc., was awarded a $1.5 Million contract in 1997, and a four-year renewal in January 1997 worth $615,000 for that year alone, to run Kansas's Reno County Jail Annex. In May 2001, Reno's Sheriff, Larry Leslie, pled innocent to 34 counts of bribery. Also pleading innocent to bribing Leslie was MgtGP's co-founder and treasurer, Gerald Hertach. MgtGP was named as a defendant. Leslie and Hertach are free on a $300,000 bond.

Hertach had previously received a fee for renting and operating a dormitory at the State Fairgrounds where non-violent prisoners served their sentences. When the agreement with the fairgrounds ended, the county renovated a building next to the courthouse to serve as an annex to the jail. Leslie recommended MgtGP to county commissioners saying it would be cheaper than hiring more county employees.

According to state records, MgtGP was incorporated just 13 days before the county awarded the 1997 contract. MgtGP's annual report to the Kansas State Secretary states the company function is operating "a minimum security jail for the Sheriff of Reno County." Leslie, who earns $59,672 a year as Sheriff, accepted more than $280,000 from Hertach. Both maintain they did nothing wrong.

County commissioners ...

Judge Awards $2.8 million to Victims of CSC Texas Boot Camp Sexual Abuse

On March 5, 2001, State District Court Judge Paul Enlow found Correctional Services Corporation (CSC) criminally liable for the actions of two former employees who sexually harassed three women while they were confined in a CSC-operated boot ...

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a Tennessee Federal District Court's dismissal of a prisoner's 42 U.S.C. §1983 claims as frivolous, vacating and remanding part of the lower court's decision with instructions.

David Dellis is a Wisconsin prisoner who was for a time held in private Tennessee prisons operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Dellis sued CCA and the prisons in which he was incarcerated alleging numerous civil rights violations. After granting Dellis in forma pauperis status, the district court dismissed all claims as frivolous. Dellis appealed.

Citing Nietzke v. Williams , 490 U.S. 319, 325, 109 S.Ct. 1827 (1989), the appeals court defined "frivolous" as a claim lacking a legal or factual basis for argument. The court found that some of Dellis' claims were frivolous, and other claims failed to state a claim for relief under applicable legal standards.

Three of Dellis' claims failure to protect from gang member assaults, excessive use of force, and deprivation of water were not frivolous.

Prison officials have a duty to protect prisoners from violence suffered at the hands of other prisoners." Dellis' refusal of protective custody did not excuse CCA's failure to protect if Dellis could "establish that this ...

Moore Medical Corporation, a leading supplier of medical, surgical, and pharmaceutical products, recently signed multi-year agreements with three major corrections industry organizations on September 5, 2001. Moore will provide internet, telesales, and catalog procurement services to the 65 facilities managed by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), to the readers of Correctional News , and to visitors to the Corrections Connection website at www.corrections.com.

There are more than two million prisoners held in over 7,000 facilities in the U.S. including prisons, jails, and detention centers. Moore already serves 2,000 of these facilities with a line of health care products, including hundreds of special items designed for prisoner-patients and for secure clinical settings.

CCA, the nation's largest private prison company, has about 61,000 prison beds under contract. "In addition to streamlining our ordering process, this arrangement [with Moore] represents another step in our company's ongoing efforts to manage medical costs while ensuring quality services," said Michael Dray, CCA's managing director of corporate health services.

Danielle Klaussen, associate publisher for Correctional News , noted, "We know our readers are keenly interested in health care issues and medical care efficiency. Our relationship with Moore Medical brings a practical, cost-effective management system for medical supplies ...

On November 26, 2001, more than 1,800 prisoners at the Taft Correctional Institution (TCI) refused to report to work in protest of shortcomings in the prison's food and medical care.

TCI, a privately run low-security federal prison operated by Wackenhut, remained on lock down since the first day of the work stoppage. Relatives of TCI prisoners say the work stoppage is just a culmination of several months of building frustration.

"It's rice and beans just about every day," said former prisoner David Salazar, who was released from TCI the day after the strike began. "Even if you like rice and beans, you don't want to eat it every day." Salazar said the meals only occasionally contain meat and then only processed meats.

TCI prisoners have long complained about the substandard food at the prison, but prison official insist the complaints are mere fabrications.

TCI spokesman Terry Craig said had the prisoners not been on lockdown due to the strike, they would be eating meals which include items like pie, cake and cookies. Because they are locked down, they are only receiving three sack lunches every day.

TCI officials also dispute that prisoners do not receive adequate medical care. "They get ...

by Matthew T. Clarke

The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the district court's sanctions against the prisoners' lawyers in a suit against Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (WCC) after the lawyers revealed the terms of a secret settlement agreement.

Five young girls who were allegedly sexually, mentally, and physically ...

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia has partly granted, and mostly denied, the defendants' motions for summary judgment on a District of Columbia (D.C.) prisoner's claims that he was racially discriminated against by the defendants' arbitrary handling of his religiously based request for a vegetarian diet and by the unsanitary way in which food was prepared and served.

Lawrence Caldwell is a white D.C. prisoner. He is a member of the Liberal Catholic Church and a strict vegetarian. Willie Caesar was the Chaplain at Lorton Reformatory's Maximum Security Facility (Maximum) while Caldwell was confined there. Aramark is a private company contracted by D.C. to prepare and serve food for Maximum.

While in Maximum, Caldwell repeatedly requested that he be given a vegetarian diet as part of his religious beliefs. Caesar had to approve the requests and notify Aramark. Although requests were supposed to be renewed every 90 days, Caesar made Caldwell renew his requests at arbitrarily shorter times, sometimes monthly. Aramark also repeatedly failed to serve Caldwell the vegetarian diet, and frequently prepared and served it in an unsanitary manner.

After repeated complaints, Caldwell sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming First Amendment and Religious Freedom ...