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 …

Washington state officials asked a federal judge on April 28, 2026 to force The GEO Group to let health inspectors into the Northwest ICE Processing Center, an immigrant detention center the private company runs in Tacoma for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Washington has received over 3,500 complaints regarding conditions at the facility; for months, state health inspectors have tried to gain access to the site to investigate these claims.

While the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the health inspections could take place, GEO has repeatedly turned inspectors away. [See: GEO Grp., Inc. v. Inslee, 151 F.4th 1107 (9th Cir. 2025).] So far, officials from the Washington Department of Health have tried to conduct inspections 10 times since 2023. In February of this year, GEO petitioned the Court to rehear the case and pause its order while the company prepares to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court denied both of GEO’s requests, allowing the ruling to formally take effect in April. [See: GEO Grp., Inc. v. Inslee, 166 F.4th 1188 (9th Cir. 2026).]

As reported by the Washington State Standard, the thousands of complaints …

The auditor for Mississippi announced on April 13, 2026 that Management & Training Corporation (MTC), a Utah-based private prison company, owes the state $7.4 million. MTC operates two prisons in Mississippi—East Mississippi Correctional Facility in Meridian and Wilkinson Correctional Facility in Woodville—as well as 19 facilities in seven other states, making it the third-largest private prison company after The GEO Group and CoreCivic. The demand, which State Auditor Shad White said was among the largest civil demands in the history of his office, arose from MTC’s failure to maintain enough staff to ensure the safety of prisoners and guards.

White’s investigation into MTC began more than five years ago, in response to allegations that the level of understaffing at its prisons violated the contract the company signed with the state Department of Corrections (DOC). As PLN reported, White demanded $1.9 million from the firm in November 2022, but MTC eventually paid $5.125 million in September 2023, after nonprofit The Marshall Project flagged up to $7 million that the DOC had been charged for ghost workers on shifts that were never actually completed. [See: PLN , Jan. 2023, p.58; and Mar. 2024, p.57.] White, in seeking a new $7.4 …

On August 16, 2023, detainee Daniel Foard, 32, died on the floor of his cell at the La Plata County Jail. Foard died from a perforated duodenal ulcer that, according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by his family in 2025, was “highly treatable.” The lawsuit—which listed defendants including the Board of County Commissioners, local Sheriff Sean Smith, and the jail’s private medical contractor Southern Health Partners—also alleges that jail guards ignored Foard’s pleas for help and medical attention over a 15-hour period.

While Foard’s case is still in litigation, the complaint has prompted the La Plata County Jail to improve its protocols for sending detainees out for medical evaluations. As the Durango Herald reported, nurses at the jail have adopted a policy of “when in doubt, send them out” as a general practice. The hospital they are being sent to, however, has returned several detainees without receiving care, according to Smith.

In one instance, a detainee was taken to the emergency room at Mercy Hospital, the county’s primary hospital, only to be quickly discharged and sent back to the jail. Not long after, a guard returned the same detainee to the hospital, which “determined that he …

by Chuck Sharman

In an agreement signed on March 26, 2026, private prison and jail medical contractor NaphCare paid an $875,000 fine to the state of New York to settle charges that the company violated state licensing laws and was operating illegally. As part of the settlement, the Alabama-based firm also agreed not to do business in the state for five years.

In 2020, NaphCare created a subsidiary, Proactive Healthcare Medicine PLLC, to execute a contract with Onondaga County to provide medical care to detainees jailed at the County Justice Center (OCJC) and the Hillbrook Juvenile Detention facility, both in Syracuse. Under New York Business Corporation Law (BCL) Article 15 and New York Limited Liability Company Law (LLCL) Article 12, a PLLC like Proactive is one of two types of businesses that may be licensed to practice medicine in the state—not a Limited Liability Corp. (LLC) like NaphCare. Additionally, the business must be wholly owned and controlled by physicians licensed in the state.

At the time it signed the jail contract, Proactive listed its owner as CEO Rita Armitage, who lived in Alabama but was licensed to practice ophthalmology in New York. Proactive’s President and Corporate …

by Chuck Sharman

The South Carolina Court of Common Pleas for Charleston County approved a settlement on February 26, 2026, paying $2,135,000 to the Estate of D’Angelo Dontrel Brown, a schizophrenic detainee who died in December 2022 after being found unresponsive in his cell at the County’s Al Cannon Detention Center (ACDC). Additional claims survived the settlement and remain pending against the jail’s contracted medical provider at the time, Wellpath, Inc., as well as several employees of the now-bankrupt firm.

Brown, 28, was detained at the jail in August 2022 on suspicion of a home invasion in suburban West Ashley; the settlement included a $500,000 payment to resolve the homeowner’s claims filed against Brown’s Estate. A portion of the settlement funds was provided by the state Department of Mental Health (DMH) and Accountable Healthcare Staffing (AHS) to resolve claims filed by the Estate in yet another suit arising from Brown’s death.

ACDC guards found Brown unresponsive in his isolation cell on December 29, 2022, lying in his own bodily waste and vomit. He was transported to a hospital, where he died. Despite a documented history of mental illness, he received almost no care during his four-month …

by Matt Clarke

On February 19, 2026, an Arizona federal court issued an order that will result in medical care for prisoners in the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation & Re-entry (DCRR) being placed under a court-appointed receiver. This rare and drastic measure amounts to a takeover of that part of the DCRR.

The Court found that receivership was necessary because the DCRR had resisted all lesser measures aimed at correcting the unconstitutionally insufficient health care being provided to DCRR prisoners, which resulted in horrendous suffering and hundreds of premature deaths.

United States District Judge Roslyn O. Silver signed the order granting plaintiffs’ Motion for a Receiver in this class-action lawsuit that was first filed in 2012. The 128-page order detailed the herculean efforts by the Court and Court-appointed monitors in attempting to assist the DCRR in bringing its medical care up to minimal constitutional standards and how the DCRR frustrated every such attempt. The order gave the parties 30 days in which to file motions setting forth proposed duties, powers and authorities of the Receiver. It gave the parties and monitors 60 days to submit a list of up to five candidates each to serve …

by Jo Ellen Knott

The death toll within the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carceral system reached a sad milestone with the April 12, 2026, passing of Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt, 27, at a detention center in Miami. Carbonell-Betancourt, a Cuban national, was found in his cell, with suicide announced as the probable cause of death, according to local station WTVJ. Carbonell-Betancourt was the 17th person to die in ICE custody so far this year (an average of one per week)—and the 48th since President Donald Trump (R) assumed office in 2025. This year has already reached half of 2025’s record-breaking body count.

Just one day prior to Carbonell-Betancourt’s death, a Mexican detainee was found dead at the Winn Correctional Center in rural Louisiana. Officials claim the detainee, Alejandro Cabrera Clemente, 49, was found “unresponsive,” but independent reviews of ICE deaths in custody frequently reveal that systemic delays in care are often the true culprits. It is perhaps unsurprising that Winn is operated by LaSalle Corrections, a private prison profiteer, and that it sits in a cluster of private facilities notorious for medical neglect and chronic understaffing.  

Sources: ABC News, WTVJ