by Kevin Bliss

An analysis published on October 26, 2020 by Reuters showed U.S. jails that contracted with private health care companies had higher death rates on average among prisoners and detainees than those with government-run health-care programs. Reuters reviewed over 500 jails and found that of the five leading health-care contractors — Corizon, Wellpath Holdings Inc., NaphCare, PrimeCare Medical Inc. and Armor Correctional Health Services Inc. — death rates ran anywhere from 18% to 58% higher.

The 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that deliberate indifference to a jail detainee’s health care constituted “unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain,” violating the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment and opened the door for those in the jails’ care to file suit and hold the jails accountable. Subsequently, the 1980s saw the birth of the private health-care industry to help cover costs and shoulder this responsibility.

Next, the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in the 2000s saw the closure of mental health hospitals and ensuing growth of county jail populations and therefore, the private health care industry. By 2010, 62% of the nation’s jails had privatized medical care.

But Reuters points out that utilization of the health care industry ...

Corizon Health paid $40,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging it beached a contract with Nursefinders.

The February 26, 2016, settlement resolved a lawsuit Nursefinders filed in a Virginia state court, but which was removed to a federal court, on March 20, 2015.

Nursefinders employs nurses and other health-care professionals for ...

by Matt Clarke

Members of National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) maintained their place at the forefront of the movement for racial justice even while encapsulated in the National Basketball Association (NBA) bubble during the 2020 championship playoffs. The basketball court inside the Disney World bubble was proudly emblazoned with “Black Lives Matter” with an impossible-to-miss font size.

NBPA members went on a three-day playoff strike in August 2020, triggered by the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who was left paralyzed, shot seven times as he leaned into a car. The strike resulted in an agreement between the league and players to establish a social-justice coalition and associated advertising with a focus on civic engagement, ballot access and reform of police and the criminal justice system. Franchises that own their own arenas pledged to “work with local elections officials to convert the facility into a voting location for the 2020 election.”

Yet the players and league were strangely silent about one of the owners exploiting incarcerated individuals for profit.

As reported in The American Prospect, Tom Gores, the owner of the Detroit Pistons NBA franchise, is a billionaire who founded Platinum Equity, a private ...

by Ed Lyon

In late July 2020, about 30 protesters stood all day in the rain in Bailey Park near the Forsyth County Detention Center (FCDC) in downtown Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to demand answers and action from Sheriff Bobby F. Kimbrough, Jr., and District Attorney Jim O’Neill in the death of John Neville, a Black prisoner who died in December 2019 from injuries sustained at the jail.

Just before Neville, 56, lapsed into a coma at FCDC on December 2, 2019, he managed to rasp to the sheriff’s deputies and jail nurse who had hogtied him, “I can’t breathe.” Two days later, on December 4, 2019, he died at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center without ever having regained consciousness.

In the interim, Kimbrough’s office got O’Neill’s office to drop its charges against Neville. As a result, the death did not technically occur in custody, so the sheriff was relieved of any duty to report its details to the state Department of Health and Human Services. The death was not publicly reported for six months and then only under pressure from the Winston-Salem Journal.

“It sounds like they rushed to get him out of custody so they would not have ...

by Derek Gilna

On October 22, 2020, New Jersey federal district court Judge William J. Martini ended a seven-year class action brought by New Jersey Department of Correction (DOC) prisoners complaining of excessive phone fees levied by Global Tel*Link (GTL), approving a settlement fund of $25 million. Prisoners had alleged that the company charged up to 100 times the actual cost of calls made from jail, stemming in part from of the practice of GTL paying high commissions to participating correctional institutions.

Under the terms of the settlement, individuals incarcerated in New Jersey prison and jails between 2006 and 2016 who used the GTL phone system, as well as individuals who received telephone calls through the company from New Jersey prisoners before June 2010 or in Essex County, N.J., before June 2011, would be able to file claims.

GTL also had been heavily criticized for requiring people receiving calls from a prisoner to make deposits into a company account and then keeping those deposits if the accounts became “inactive,” generally after the prisoner had been released. Plaintiffs had alleged in their initial complaint that, “Defendants fail(ed) to inform their customers that they will be charged a service or set-up fee ...

by Kevin Bliss

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 3228 (AB 3228) September 27, 2020, allowing U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) detainees to sue private detention facility contractors for alleged abuses of civil rights and violations of standard of care. The bill takes effect January 1, 2021.

In the latest in an ongoing battle between California leaders and ICE officials, state Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Alameda) authored AB 3228 to combat abuse and neglect inside private detention facilities. “For-profit private detention centers must be held accountable in the face of egregious human rights violations and harm to the health, safety and welfare of Californians, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Bonta said.

AB 3228 was an extension of Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32), also proposed by Bonta. AB 32 was passed to end the practice of private-run prisons in California. State-run facilities were responsible for the health and welfare of ICE detainees. If abuses were present, detainees had recourse to hold the federal government accountable through the Federal Tort Claims Act.

But private prison companies, such as the GEO Group, CoreCivic and Management and Training Corp., were not governed by the Act. So, the Assembly adopted AB 32, which held ...

by Matt Clarke 

Thanks to a public records request by The Associated Press, news broke in March 2020 that Louisiana-based private prison firm LaSalle Management Company had settled for $177,500 a lawsuit over a 2016 incident in which five prisoners were pepper-sprayed while handcuffed and kneeling.

Adley T. Campbell, ...

by Jayson Hawkins

A recent audit at an Allegheny county jail revealed a series of shortcomings by a food service contractor tasked with providing meals to prisoners. Florida-based contractor Trinity Services Group was paid $3.5 million to provide three meals a day to prisoners at the Shuman Juvenile Detention Center and Allegheny County Jail in Pennsylvania. The audits were conducted by the County Controller’s office and examined the year from June 2018 to June 2019. Controller Chelsa Wagner released the audit on July 20, 2020 and noted what she called “several instances of noncompliance” with contract provisions.

Much of the audit’s 34 pages focused on flawed record-keeping and Trinity either over charging for meals or failing to reimburse the county for commissions as stipulated in the contract. The county was overcharged at the Shuman Center, for example, by $8,413, including more than $6,000 for food donated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. At the jail, the county was overbilled more than $1,600.

There also is a discrepancy concerning meals from a program called Trinity Take-Out, which allows prisoners to order specialty items like cheeseburgers and chicken sandwiches at prices ranging from $12 to $20. Trinity’s contract with the county provides ...

by David M. Reutter

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed June 18, 2020 the grant of summary judgment for defendants in a prisoner’s lawsuit alleging deliberate indifference to his dental infection.

Illinois prisoner Aaron Murphy had a molar in his upper-left jaw extracted on May 4, 2016, by a dentist at his prison. Two days later, a Friday, Murphy went to the prison’s health-care unit with a “softball-sized” swelling in his cheek. Suspecting infection, the nurse spoke to Dr. Vipin Shah, who worked for the prison’s medical contractor, Wexford Health Services, Inc.

Shah prescribed penicillin by mouth twice a day for five days because it is “one of the most commonly chosen drugs for M.D.s for medical infection.” Murphy alleged he received one dose that morning, but he could not orally take further doses due to the swelling. The next day, Murphy reported twice to medical due to difficulty swallowing; he was unable to open his mouth wide enough for a nurse’s exam due to the swelling. He was given Benadryl. Shah was subsequently contacted and unconcerned because penicillin takes days to work, but he ordered a steroid injection.

Two days after that, Shah examined Murphy ...

by Matt Clarke

On June 11, 2020, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reinstated some of the claims brought by a couple seeking permission to marry, one of whom is an immigration detainee being held in a private prison operated by GEO, under contract with the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

Brian A. Davis, an immigration detainee being held at a Pennsylvania private prison that houses foreign nationals awaiting deportation or deportation proceedings, sought permission to marry his U.S. citizen fiancée, Fredericka K. Bedford. They complied with the prison’s regulations, which exceeded the BOP’s, but permission was denied.

The couple filed a federal civil rights lawsuit pursuant to Bevins, 42 U.S.D. §§ 1981, 1983, 1985(3) and 2000d, and other state and federal laws, alleging they were denied their constitutional right to be married because of unlawful discrimination. The district court adopted without analysis a magistrate judge’s report recommending dismissal of all claims. The report reasoned that GEO employees were not federal actors and the two federal officials who were sued were not properly served.

On appeal, the Third Circuit held that the district court erred when it failed to undertake the required two-step process to determine whether ...