Corizon Health agreed to pay $350,000 in a lawsuit that alleged it failed to provide mental health care to a pretrial detainee who committed suicide at Florida’s Charlotte County Jail.

Victor H. Ackers was arrested on May 21, 2013, for domestic violence and violation of probation for a 2012 conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol. Prior to his arrest, Ackers had a history of mental health disorders, major depression, anxiety, hospitalization for mental illness, recent treatment for mental illness, and was prescribed medication for depression, anxiety, and insomnia. He informed officers of these conditions at booking.

While incarcerated, Backers informed guards and Corizon staff that he could not sleep, was depressed and needed his medications and to see a doctor, and that he was going to commit suicide if he didn’t get help. At no time during his imprisonment did Ackers receive medical care, see a doctor, or undergo suicide observation or watch.

Moments after Ackers told a guard and Corizon employee on May 29, 2013, that he was going to commit suicide, Ackers was returned to his cell and committed suicide.

Represented by Sarasota, Florida attorneys H. Roger Lutz, Elizabeth Lutz, and Charles W. Telfair, IV, Ackers’ ...

Corizon Health agreed to pay $47,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging it negligently failed to assure street drugs did not enter its Jail Alternatives to Substance Abuse (JASA) program.

Brian G. Brewer was transferred from Florida’s Polk County Jail on May 12, 2012, to the rehabilitative JASA program. That same day, he died from an overdose of gamma hydroxybutyrate and Doxepin, neither of which were prescribed to him.

The complaint, which was filed on July 8, 2014, alleged Corizon and the Polk County Sheriff were negligent for allowing those drugs to enter the JASA program.

Corizon agreed on April 20, 2017, to pay $47,000 to settle the estate’s claim against it.

The estate was represented by Tampa attorneys Martin W. Palmer and Joseph K. Lopez, Jr. See: Brewer v. Judd, et al., Florida Tenth Judicial Circuit Court, Case No. 2014-CA-1801000000

Corizon Health agreed to pay $50,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging it failed to provide a Florida prisoner with medication for his heart and blood pressure. He also alleged that he was not provided postoperative dental care or treatment for glaucoma.

Henry Washington was described as “a frail and elderly prisoner who relies on a wheelchair” and who suffers from “multiple disabilities and chronic medical conditions, including paralysis, a pacemaker, and glaucoma.”

In 2012, the Suwannee Annex prisoner was subjected to an alleged excessive use of force by guard Leonard Myers. After that incident, “Washington found it hard to get health care.” He alleged medical passes were taken away from him, that staff falsely witnessed “refusal of care” forms, and was told by Corizon staff to get over his pain.

Represented by Tallahassee attorney James V. Cook, Washington filed a civil rights complaint on September 22, 2016, in federal court. As to Corizon, he alleged deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs. On March 19, 2018, Washington accepted the $50,000 settlement to resolve his claims against Corizon. The lawsuit remained pending against the Florida Department of Corrections and several guards for excessive force and violations of the Americans with Disabilities ...

by Keith Sanders

Big business is king in America, and the business of operating correctional and detention facilities is no exception. Within the private prison industry, two firms stand out for their sheer size: Florida-based GEO Group, with 2019 revenues of $2.477 billion, and Tennessee-based CoreCivic, with $1.981 billion in 2019 revenues.

But they also stand out for another reason: Like other corporations accused of prioritizing profits over people, both firms have been plagued by allegations of controversial business practices. Critics claim that the public-private partnerships through which the companies take over prison operations actually serve to line the pockets of politicians in exchange for regulatory concessions that curb oversight and protect the industry’s financial bottom line – all at the expense of the prisoners they are charged to oversee.

That, however, may soon be coming to an end.

Criminal justice activists have long sought, without success, to dismantle the private prison industry. Their efforts have been thwarted, in large measure, by an apathetic public with little appetite for addressing issues related to mass incarceration in America. But with the 2018 immigration crisis, that began to change. Images of children being separated from their families and the abysmal conditions inside ...

by David M. Reutter

When one thinks of financial support for America’s privatized prisons, one assumes it primarily comes from entities in the United States. But that is not always the case.

A February 18, 2020 story by Danwatch, a Danish investigative website, uncovered three Danish pension funds that had invested into two of America’s biggest prison profiteers: CoreCivic and the GEO Group. PKA, Villiv, and Lærernes Pension are pension funds for Danish social educators, social workers, nurses, and medical secretaries.

PKA invested the equivalent of about $8.5 million in the two private prison companies. Lrernes Pension has invested about $1.1 million in CoreCivic, and Villi invested about $160,000 in the two companies.

The Denmark pension fund investments come as America’s largest pension funds and banks have increasingly divested themselves from these prison profiteers. Politically, the companies are becoming pariahs, as some state Democratic parties and political groups are refusing to accept donations from private prison companies.

American public opinion of private prison companies has been trending against the profiteers. The Obama administration issued an executive order to phase out federal use of private prisons, but that order was reversed by President Trump. Both CoreCivic and GEO Group ...

by Jayson Hawkins

As public opinion continues to turn against profiting on punishment, a law signed March 6, 2020, by Governor Jared Polis will study the economic effects of eliminating private prisons in Colorado over the next five years and recommend ways to diversify economics that now rely on private prisons.

“I believe that profit should never be a motive in the prison industrv,’’ said Rep. Leslie Herod, the Denver Democrat who co-sponsored the bill.

Support for the legislation was split along party lines, but the bill was approved in the House and Senate. Resistance from Republicans has been based on the economic impact that closing the state’s three private prisons will have on the small towns where they are located.

“I don’t know why there is a bill here to target rural Colorado in such a detrimental way as this bill does,” said Rep. Rod Pelton, whose eastern district houses a correctional facility owned by CoreCivic that had been scheduled to reopen.

Other counties in the southeastern part of the state reported that their local private prisons accounted for 25 percent to 50 percent of their tax base. Herod said the study funded by her bill would take those ...

by Mark Wilson

The state of Maine and medical provider CorrectCare Solutions (now Wellpath) paid a 14-year-old $250,000 after two guards at a juvenile detention center “bashed” his face into a metal bed frame, knocking out two teeth when he was age 11. Parts of the December 9, 2019 settlement, ...

by David M. Reutter

An unnamed Armor Correctional Health Services doctor was blamed for spreading COVID-19 at the Pre-Trial Detention Center in Jacksonville, Florida. Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams said the doctor “had previously shown symptoms of the virus but failed to notify the jail personnel,” according to The Florida Times-Union.

The doctor went to work on June 19, 2020. Within days, the number of detainees testing positive for coronavirus jumped from two to 20 to 178. Another 19 staffers also tested positive.

“We had done a great job up until, you know, we had one employee or contract employee not follow, you know, basic protocol and started this whole chain,” Williams said. “They were, at some point, symptomatic and didn’t report that. It was one of the health care workers in the jail. They, obviously, have since been removed and are no longer an employee of the health care provider.”

The Sheriff’s Office issued a statement that said it was a doctor who exposed detainees and staff to COVID-19. “When you contact trace it back, that seems to be the only point where, you know, there was a lapse in following the protocol.”

Prior to that exposure, the Sheriff’s ...

by Matt Clarke

On January 24, 2020, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint in California federal court challenging the application to the federal government of a new state law — Assembly Bill 32 (A.B. 32) — which phases out all privately-operated prisons and jails inside state borders, including federal detention facilities.

Signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October 2019, A.B. 32 bars any entity with a prison, jail or detention facility in the state from signing or extending a contract for its operation with a private firm after January 1, 2020. It also prohibits the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation (CDCR) from entering into any new contract to house prisoners outside of the state in privately operated detention facilities. However, the law allows exemptions necessary to comply with a court-ordered population cap.

According to the DOJ complaint, five of eight exceptions provided for in A.B. 32 apply only to California’s contracts and not to those entered into by the U.S. government. They cover facilities that:

• provide services to a juvenile pursuant to a state juvenile court order;

• provide mental health evaluation or treatment to a person under a state court commitment order;

• ...

by Douglas Ankney

On February 25, 2020, student members of the Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign (HPDC) filed suit in the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County, Massachusetts, seeking to force the university to divest its charitable trust investments from entities that directly or indirectly profit from the “prison-industrial complex” (PIC) – a sprawling group of privately owned firms that provide management and staffing, as well as food and health services to American prisons and jails.

Prompted by a similar student action in 2015, New York City’s Columbia University became the first American institution of higher education to restrict its PIC investments. Since then, the University of California system, Georgetown University, and more than a dozen other prominent universities have followed suit.

With nearly $40 billion invested, Harvard University holds the nation’s largest endowment for a learning institution. Students have been able to uncover specifics related only to about $400 million of that amount, but it includes at least $3 million invested in an equity fund that owns shares in the country’s two largest private prison operators, Florida-based GEO Group, Inc. and Tennessee-based CoreCivic, with 2019 revenues of $2.48 billion and $1.98 billion, respectively.

“Both my own parents have been incarcerated,” ...