Citing budgetary cuts, the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) finally closed the troubled, privately-operated Walnut Grove Correctional Facility (WGCF) on September 15, 2016.

As previously reported in PLN, Walnut Grove had been under a federal consent decree since 2012 over allegations of guards smuggling drugs and having sex with youthful offenders, denial of medical care and educational services, and grossly unsafe conditions.

The federal judge over the case wrote that WGCF, managed by GEO Group at the time, had “allowed a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate, the sum of which places the offenders at substantial ongoing risk,” and that the prison “paint[ed] a picture of such horror as should be unrealized anywhere in the civilized world.”

Juveniles were removed from Walnut Grove under the consent decree; the facility subsequently housed adult prisoners.

In 2015, the district court overseeing the litigation denied a motion to dissolve the decree, citing gang activity, cell doors that did not lock properly and continued problems with untrained, inexperienced guards. The prison had also experienced two major riots the year before. [See: PLN, Sept. 2016, p.60; Nov. 2013, p.30].

The 2016 fiscal year resulted in a 5% – or $16.8 ...

A surprise predawn shakedown on March 3, 2017 yielded an “excessive amount of contraband” at one of Mississippi’s three privately-operated prisons, according to Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) Interim Commissioner Pelicia Hall. The search at the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility was the start of “Operation Zero Tolerance,” which includes surprise searches at prisons statewide.

Shakedowns were performed at the state’s two other private prisons – the East Mississippi Correctional Facility and Marshall County Correctional Facility – in March 2017, resulting in less contraband than that found at Wilkinson but still an “unacceptable” amount, Hall said in a press release.

The MDOC released photos of tables covered with shanks, drugs and cell phones that had been discovered. All three private prisons in the state are run by Management and Training Corp. (MTC).

On June 6, 2017, Operation Zero Tolerance netted 54 packages of tobacco, 47 cell phones, 83 cell phone chargers, pills, marijuana and shanks, among other contraband, at the MDOC’s Bolivar County Regional Correctional Facility in Cleveland during a surprise search. Hall said the contraband was “disturbing,” especially after the prison had recently conducted its own shakedown.

“I expect all facilities in the MDOC system to have zero tolerance for ...

by Derek Gilna

On July 24, 2017, the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), the parent organization and publisher of Prison Legal News, entered into a settlement with private prison firm Management and Training Corp. (MTC), which has contracts to operate detention centers nationwide. The settlement agreement resolved what HRDC argued were First and Fourteenth Amendment violations with respect to sending publications to prisoners at the company’s facilities.

HRDC filed separate federal lawsuits alleging that MTC, a Utah corporation, had blocked the distribution of PLN books and other publications sent to prisoners at the company’s Otero County Prison Facility in New Mexico and North Central Correctional Complex in Ohio.

HRDC and PLN have published numerous articles critical of private prison companies like MTC, accusing them of engaging in the systematic violation of prisoners’ rights in their quest to generate profit. [See, e.g.: PLN, Feb. 2017, p.60; Dec. 2016, p.20; March 2011, p.24].

According to HRDC executive director Paul Wright, “MTC has a policy and practice of censoring the free speech of publishers and book distributors around the country. As a for-profit, private prison company, it is shameful that they are being paid by taxpayers to violate the First Amendment ...

by Matt Clarke

Corizon Health is one of the nation's largest for-profit medical providers for prisons and jails. Recent lawsuits against the company, however, call into question the quality, and even the availability, of the healthcare services it is supposed to provide. Further, a former New Mexico prison employee has filed a whistleblower suit claiming she was fired in retaliation for raising concerns about Corizon’s provision of medical care to prisoners in that state.

In April 2017, the former behavioral health chief for the New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD) filed a lawsuit after she was placed on administrative leave and then terminated in November 2015. Dr. Bianca McDermott claimed she was fired for “various whistleblower activities” related to the NMCD’s contract with Corizon.

McDermott said she began raising concerns with her supervisors about the company’s contract in 2009. “Dr. McDermott was personally aware that Corizon was not providing all mental health care required under the contract, which meant that some portion of the [$200 million] NMCD paid to Corizon had not been earned,” according to her complaint.

She filed a qui tam action, which allows a private party to sue for fraud against the government, and made several public records requests. The state Attorney General ...

On August 14, 2017, the King County Council in Washington State voted 8-1 to pass an ordinance prohibiting the county from contracting with private prison companies. The county does not currently use for-profit prisons and has contingency arrangements with other counties should additional jail beds be required.

Councilmember Dave Upthegrove introduced Ordinance No. 18560 in November 2016, to codify King County’s longstanding practice of not using private prisons. Washington State law is silent on that issue, and while a decades-old opinion by then-State Attorney General Christine Gregoire says cities cannot contract with private prisons, Councilmember Upthegrove introduced the ordinance out of concern that state law could change or another Attorney General might issue a different opinion. He said his intent was to “set the example here.”

Human Rights Defense Center campaign director Carrie Wilkinson presented testimony regarding the private prison industry, specifically related to problems created by the for-profit business model and the industry’s need to maintain and increasethe number of prisoners in order to stay profitable. Prison Legal News has reported on abusive conditions and other problems inherent within for-profit prisons for over two decades.

Wilkinson testified that in general, private prisons employ fewer staff, pay them less, offer ...

by Bob Libal

Legislation developed by private prison corporation GEO Group that would have licensed immigrant family detention centers as “child care facilities” failed in the Texas legislature in May 2017 following widespread opposition by child welfare, medical and immigrant rights organizations.

Companion bills filed in the Texas House (HB 2225) and Senate (SB 1018) would have granted state officials the authority to issue licenses for immigrant family detention centers under lowered standards. The two family detention facilities in Texas, derisively known as “baby jails,” have been at the center of scandals involving medical neglect, sexual abuse, a ban on crayons for children in visitation areas, and multiple hunger strikes by detainees.

“The Texas legislature did the right thing,” said Dr. Laura Guerra-Cardus of Children’s Defense Fund-Texas. “Now it’s time for the Department of Homeland Security to follow the advice of their own advisory committee and discontinue detention [of children] as a matter of DHS policy.”

For-profit prison companies run both immigrant family detention centers in Texas. GEO Group operates the Karnes County Family Residential Center in Karnes City, while CoreCivic, formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America, runs the South Texas Residential Center in Dilley, which is the largest ...

by Lonnie Burton

Shortly before the scheduled date of trial in the case, a woman who said she was raped by a Bay County, Florida, sheriff's deputy during a transport run to another jail agreed to settle her lawsuit for just over $91,000. That amount included $25,000 paid by Corrections ...

by Lonnie Burton

On March 14, 2016, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of appeals vacated a district court ruling which dismissed a class action sexual harassment complaint brought by female Arizona prison guards. The appellate court held that the district court erred in dismissing the lawsuit on several bases, including the fact that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) could maintain a class action suit on behalf of employees on a supplementary issue that was alleged within 300 days of the first act of misconduct.

Alice Hancock was employed as a prison guard at the Arizona State Prison, Florence West Facility. That prison is run by a private company, Geo Corporation, who operates two prisons in Arizona. On June 5, 2009, Hancock filed an EEOC complaint alleging that Sgt. Robert Kroen had grabbed her crotch and pinched her vagina. Three of Hancock's co-workers then complained that Kroen made offensive comments. Geo did not immediately take action to remedy the harassment, but instead placed Hancock on 15 days unpaid leave during the "internal investigation." Three months later, Geo fired Hancock.

The EEOC directed Geo to provide information regarding complaints of sexual harassment against Kroen, and they responded with the names of ...

by David Gambacorta, The Philadelphia Inquirer

The secret, dangerous world of private prisons

Something was wrong with Thomas Bryant.

He couldn't eat or sleep. His body was drenched in a cold sweat, and he trembled and shook like a radiator on its last legs. The simple life he once knew in Chichester — one where he worked at a steel mill and provided for his two kids — was a faded memory, a snapshot from a stranger's photo album.

After breaking his back in a work accident, he became addicted to opioids and began a downward spiral that led him here, to a cell inside the 1,883-bed George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Thornton, Delaware County. He'd been arrested on a bench warrant over unpaid child support, but all he could think about was the unrelenting pain from withdrawal. Bryant, 38, asked prison guards for medical attention for three days, scrawling his pleas on scraps of paper. He was ignored.

“We have copies of letters he wrote, begging for Advil or Motrin because he was in so much pain,” said Sue Taylor, his sister. “They did absolutely nothing to help him.”

When the agony became too much, Bryant hanged himself ...

by Derek Gilna

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), now known as CoreCivic, and GEO Group (GEO), the two largest private prison companies, are major profit-generators for six U.S. banks – Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, BNP Paribas, SunTrust, U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo – according to a report issued by In the Public Interest (ITPI), a non-profit public policy organization. The report was sharply critical of the banks’ involvement in supporting the exploitive private prison industry.

ITPI stated that CCA and GEO Group “depend on debt financing in the form of credit, loans, and bonds to conduct their day-to-day business operations....” As of June 2016, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, CCA owed $1.5 billion to various banks while GEO owed $1.9 billion. In comparison, as of late July 2017, CCA had a stock market value of $3.39 billion and GEO was valued at $3.7 billion.

The debt amounts are significant because, as ITPI notes, for-profit prison companies “have a perverse incentive to make business decisions that lead to more people behind bars. Private prisons also are rife with human rights abuses, pay correctional officers less than they are paid at publicly managed prisons, and foster ...