by Chuck Sharman

In a decision issued on February 25, 2026, the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) affirmed dismissal of an appeal filed by prison profiteer The GEO Group, after a federal district court refused to grant the firm immunity from a suit challenging conditions at a Colorado lockup it runs for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

No court has yet reached the merits of the suit, even though it was filed in 2014. The Plaintiffs—Alejandro Menocal and group of fellow ICE detainees—accused GEO of violating state and federal law by forcing them to work for pay far below minimum wage while held at the firm’s Aurora Detention Facility in Colorado.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado greenlit two of Plaintiffs’ claims—that GEO violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), 18 U.S.C. §§ 1589, and that it was unjustly enriched by paying them just $1 a day to work in the prison. As PLN reported, the district court then certified two classes of Plaintiffs, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed. [See: PLN, Apr. 16, 2018, online.]

After several years of discovery, GEO moved for summary …

by Michael Dean Thompson

The Davis Correctional Facility (DCF), a medium security prison in Holdenville, was described by The Oklahoman as little-known. Yet, over the last four years, 20 detainees and a prison guard have suffered violent deaths at the hands of prisoners. That contrasts with the better-known maximum-security prison, the Oklahoma State Prison in McAlester, which has had only nine murders, excluding executions.

A review by The Oklahoman of the homicides at DCF shows that for at least seven the perpetrators remain uncharged. Hughes County District Attorney Erik Johnson said about the prison, “It’s like gladiator academy.”

The death of one particular prisoner stands out as preventable as two different videos show guards behind a closed cell door watched the murder. According to The Oklahoman, “Dustin James Patterson didn’t have to die.”

The incident started as Connor Whitlock, a guard at Davis, was performing the 2 a.m. count and found Darren Padron with his cellmate in a chokehold. Whitlock described Patterson “clawing at Padron’s arms and head. Trying to get him off of him.” Over and over, he asked Padron to stop. Whitlock sprayed pepper spray into the cell before calling for help, but …

by Matt Clarke

Brentwood, Tennessee-based CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America) operates the Trousdale Turner Correctional Center (TTCC), the state’s largest prison, and three other Tennessee prisons for the state Department of Corrections (DOC). But despite the company’s large footprint in Tennessee, its legacy is dismal at best as former prison guards and prisoners paint a picture of prisons severely understaffed, awash in drugs, virtually run by gangs, and overwhelmed by beatings, stabbings and rapes. Local prosecutors have complained of having insufficient staff to prosecute all the felony cases that they get from TTCC—which amount to more than 204 since 2021, including 26 prosecutions of CoreCivic employees.

Poor Performance

On August 20, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it was opening an investigation into TTCC, which is located northeast of Nashville, due to alleged violations of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1997-1997j. The DOJ pointed specifically to “reports of staff shortages, physical and sexual assaults, murders, and a 188% turnover rate among prison guards just last year.”

Former U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee Henry C. Leventis, who helmed the office at the time and announced …

by Douglas Ankney

On November 20, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit revived the 42 U.S.C. § 1983 suit of Juliana Swink, Administrator of the Estate of David Ray Gunter, that alleged, inter alia, claims of deliberate indifference under Monell v. Dept of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978), and under the 14th Amendment to the federal constitution.

Pursuant to a bench warrant related to a charge of driving on a suspended license, Gunter was detained in the Davie County Detention Center (“DCDC”) from November 7, 2012, through November 15, 2012. On November 16, 2012, he was transferred to the Stokes County Detention Center (“SCDC”), where he remained until his release on November 21, 2012.

Approximately one week later, Gunter sought treatment for severe stomach pain at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center (“Medical Center”) on November 29, 2012. Doctors at the Medical Center surgically removed a blood clot and Gunter was discharged from the Medical Center on December 11, 2012. However, further complications developed and on January 18, 2013, Gunter was diagnosed with a second blood clot that required surgeons to resect a portion of his bowel. On December 27, 2016, …

by Chuck Sharman

In a Facebook post on May 21, 2026, Albert Pugh reported hearing news from both prisoners and guards at Alabama’s Bullock Correctional Facility that Facility Administrator Jermaris Porter was arrested and walked off the job the day before by Law Enforcement Services Division (LESD) agents of the state Department of Corrections (DOC).

Pugh, 63, is the founder and Executive Director of Cullman Re-entry and Addiction Assistance, Inc., a nonprofit operator of halfway houses for those with “no place to go after completion of addiction-related programs.” Before his 2011 release from prison, he served 29 years for a robbery conviction that he was fully exonerated of in November 2024, according to the nonprofit Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, whose attorneys represented Pugh in that effort.

Porter had worked for the prison system just eight months, coming off a troubled tenure at Tennessee’s Trousdale Turner Correctional Center (TTCC), which is operated for that state’s DOC by private prison profiteer CoreCivic. As reported elsewhere in this issue, Porter and his then-boss, former TTCC Warden Vince Vantell, are accused in a federal civil rights complaint of involvement in a widespread drug smuggling ring at the …

by Chuck Sharman

Under the terms of a settlement reached on April 16, 2026, Colorado’s La Plata County agreed to pay $5 million to the estate of Daniel Foard, 32, whose death in the County lockup was both “gruesome and preventable,” according to the complaint filed on his behalf. Claims that the agreement did not resolve against Tennessee-­based Southern Health Partners (SHP), a private firm that still holds the contract to provide medical care at the Durango jail, are still pending.

When Foard was booked into the jail on failure to appear warrants on August 11, 2023, he admitted to taking fentanyl pills. An SHP nurse had him placed in a detox unit. Five days later, on August 16, his associated vomiting and diarrhea had subsided, but his heart rate, breathing and blood pressure remained elevated. Nevertheless, he was given a body scan in preparation to rejoin the jail’s general population (GP), collapsing repeatedly during the process. Guards allegedly mouthed to one another that he was “faking,” and SHP nurse Ashley Box eventually cleared him for GP early the following morning.

Later that day, after vomiting several times, Foard asked to return to the medical unit. …

The Kansas Department of Corrections (DOC) announced on May 14, 2026 that it would drop its troubled healthcare contractor and replace it with a separate company. In a bidding process that included seven other prison healthcare profiteers, Kansas decided to replace its current contractor Centurion Health with VitalCore Health Strategies beginning on July 1 of this year.

Centurion, which does business with at least 11 other state prison systems and claims to provide services to 275,000 incarcerated people, has a long track record of abuse and neglect. In New Mexico, Centurion won a 40-­month contract with the state DOC; during that time, as PLN previously reported, the company paid out over $8,396,751.00 to settle 47 claims—including 13 cases where prisoners died. [See: PLN, Dec. 2024, p.1.] Centurion’s record in Kansas is much the same.

A 2022 investigation by The Capital-Journal and the Kansas News Service, for example, found that Centurion had been fined 5,000 times in a 16-­month period, for a total of nearly $1 million in fines. Later reporting from The Beacon, a nonprofit news source based in Kansas City, revealed that Centurion’s performance reports got worse in the years after 2022.

…

by Douglas Ankney

On November 26, 2025, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled that Columbiana County Sheriff Brian McLaughlin did not violate Ohio’s Public Records Act (“Act”), RC 149.43 and declined to award sanctions to prisoner Terry Brown.

In August 2023, Brown requested numerous records from McLaughlin related to the Columbiana County Jail (“Jail”). McLaughlin produced only two records; declined to provide the requested records related to the Jail’s retention policy because he had previously provided those records to Brown; and explained that he did not have any further records because those records would be kept and maintained by the two previous private companies that had operated the Jail. Those two companies were Correctional Solutions Group, L.L.C. (“CSG”) and Community Education Centers, Inc./GEO Group, Inc. (“GEO”).

McLaughlin suggested to Brown that he request the records from CSG and GEO. Instead, Brown petitioned the court for a writ of mandamus compelling McLaughlin to produce the requested records. The court divided Brown’s records requests into three broad categories: (1) “policy-­records requests”; (2) “personnel records requests”; and (3) records documenting retention policies. The court observed that, because Brown had not sued CSG or GEO, or requested records from either …

by Michael Dean Thompson

The Tulsa Municipal Jail holds just 70 people. For a jail that size, according to a 2021 Department of Justice study, national data suggests that a person might die every 10 to 15 years. It is possible the Department of Justice undercounted national deaths, but that wouldn’t make the number of Tulsa deaths any less shocking.

Until 2017, Tulsa County held the city’s arrestees. The city paid $809,000 per year for the services, which included a dedicated pod for people with mental illnesses, as well as onsite medical staff. But that year, the county nearly doubled its price to $1.47 million annually. This led the mayor, G. T. Bynum, to make the “business decision” to build the city’s own jail.

The windowless jail sits underground within a parking garage beneath the city’s downtown civic center. It was originally classified as a lockup facility, meaning it could hold people up to ten days. Lockups are not required to have onsite medical care. Anyone that fails a medical screen must be moved to a different facility, yet it often holds people who are in dire need of services. For Tulsa, jail guards, not medical …

by Michael Dean Thompson

Prison healthcare profiteer NaphCare is a private company based in Alabama with over $300 million in revenue that is expected to exceed $1 billion within ten years. The company recently announced it is withdrawing operations from more Washington jails. In a statement, NaphCare said, “Unreasonably large civil verdicts have significantly increased liability exposure throughout the industry, making it more difficult for providers to sustainably operate in certain jurisdictions.”

The company operates in 23 states across the country, including Alabama, Nevada, Texas, and Virginia. By 2022, it had seen more than 150 lawsuits for “constitutionally inadequate and established practices,” according to a lawsuit in which a federal jury awarded $25 million to a former Pierce County prisoner whose leg needed to be partially amputated due to NaphCare’s medical neglect. Another, more recent lawsuit placed the lawsuit count at over 250.

NaphCare, like many other prison healthcare profiteers, contracts a flat fee for its services. This encourages them to lower their standard of care. Jim McLane is the founder, owner and board chair of NaphCare. He told the Birmingham Business Journal that the key to his company’s profitability is that it puts up “barriers …