Prison Legal News has long reported on the financial partnership between for-profit prison firm GEO Group and Florida politicians – a “legacy of corruption,” as detailed in PLN’s March 2011 cover story. GEO’s Political Action Committee (PAC) in Florida, where the company is headquartered, was disbanded in 2011 after a state audit found the PAC’s partisan contributions were in excess of the amount allowed by Florida law. [See: PLN, Feb. 2012, p.19]. More accusations of improper political influence were leveled against GEO in 2012 when the FBI looked into the relationship between the corporation and former Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom. [See: PLN, Feb 2012, p.34].

Despite this past scrutiny, on August 9, 2016 the Miami Herald reported that the GEO Group’s donations still continue to influence Florida policymakers. According to the newspaper, GEO has directed at least $288,000 to politically-connected committees operated by Rebecca and Joe Negron – a Congressional candidate and sitting state Senator known as a “power couple” in Florida politics. Another GEO Group political favorite is former presidential candidate Marco Rubio, to whom GEO donated $80,400 between July and August 2016 alone.

According to www.followthemoney.org, which tracks campaign contributions on the state level, from ...

PLN has opposed the private prison industry since we began publishing in 1990; back then the industry was in its infancy, having started in 1983 in its modern incarnation. Besides the political and moral implications of farming out correctional functions to for-profit corporations, there has been the well-documented reality that private prisons tend to be even worse than government-run facilities in such areas as safety, transparency and staffing levels. Nor has there been any evidence that they actually save the government money.

So it was a surprise when I heard the U.S. Department of Justice’s announcement in August 2016 that it planned to phase out its use of private prisons because, well, they were less safe and more violent than their Bureau of Prisons (BOP) counterparts and, by the way, there was no evidence they were any cheaper.

That it took the federal government a scant 33 years to realize this is a testament to the fact that they do not read Prison Legal News, or any other independent media outlet that has reported extensively on the private prison industry. This month’s cover story on private prison cost-shifting by PLN managing editor Alex Friedmann is a brief summary of the ...

By Eileen Townsend, Memphis Flyer

Nearly 200 undocumented Memphians wear GPS tracking bracelets as a part of a controversial immigration program.

Sofia Gonzales* had just gotten off a long shift at her weekend job when we met for coffee on a recent evening. The young woman, who carried herself with the confidence of a senior class president, was dressed in her work uniform: a T-shirt and black, bell-bottom pants. Despite being tired from work, Sofia introduced herself energetically, directing my attention to her feet. She explained, as she adjusted the fabric where it flared around her ankle, that she wore these pants for practical reasons. The loose fabric concealed a heavy, black device wrapped around her ankle. In Spanish, she called the device her grillete — or, in English, her "shackle."

"I feel embarrassed," Sofia told me through a translator, gesturing toward the plastic ankle bracelet. "This makes me feel like a delinquent. People look at me like I am a criminal."

Sofia has no criminal record, neither in America nor in her Central American home country. She is a recent immigrant to the United States and is currently seeking asylum from violence that has affected her family. She wears ...

Prison profiteer GEO Group was cited by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) in a June 2012 report with six safety and health violations—totaling $104,000 in fines—at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility, which the company formerly managed.

OSHA said that, based on a December 2011 inspection of the prison that stemmed from an internal complaint, GEO Group exposed PACT employees to workplace violence and failed to take action to reduce the risk. Though prisons are inherently dangerous workplace, OSHA said, GEO Group is nevertheless required to take every precaution to protect guards and other staff from safety hazards.

According to OSHA's report, GEO Group—which trails only Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) as the second-largest For-profit prison operator in the United States—also failed to provide an adequate level of staffing. to fix malfunctioning cell door locks, or to provide proper safety training, All were willful violations by GEO Group, OSHA said. meaning there was intentional knowing or voluntary disregard for the law's requirements,

When OSHA issued its report. it gave GEO Group 15 days to respond, After the report was released. GEO Group spokesman Pablo Paez declined to give an immediate response from the company.

Source: www.wtok.com

Arizona's Department of Corrections (ADC) disciplines private contractors like parents who banish teenagers to the cozy confines of their bedrooms.

Wexford Health Sources, which recently took over prisoner healthcare in Arizona after winning a three-year. $349-million contract, was lined a paltry $10.000 after—among other disturbing incidents—a prisoner at the Florence complex hanged himself on Aug, 23, 2012 after not receiving his psychotropic medication for an entire month.

According to ADC, Wexford's failure to deliver the medication to the prisoner, who was found hanging from a sheet in his cell. was a "significant, non-compliance issue.” State records don't indicate whether or not the prisoner survived.

Wexford was also slow to report a nurse who, on August 28, exposed the insulin supply at the state prison in Buckeye to the hepatitis-C virus. Nwadiuto Jane Nwaohia administered a routine dose of insulin to a diabetic prisoner who also has hepatitis-C and then inserted the same needle into another vial to draw more insulin for the same prisoner. The vial. according to ADC Director Charles Ryan, was then placed among other vials in a medication refrigerator and got mixed up with other vials of insulin used that day on 103 diabetic prisoners.

Nwaohia was ...

On February 9, 2012 Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania upheld claims of deliberate indifference by individual defendants, vicarious liability of Correctional Medical Care, Inc. ("CMC"), and professional malpractice.

Peter D'Agostino, a prisoner in the Montgomery County Correctional Facility ("MCCF"), was examined by CMC physician assistant ("PA") for back, arm, and leg pain, a 104 degree fever and an elevated pulse. PA diagnosed a urinary tract infection, ordered test for confirmation and prescribed antibiotics and acetaminophen. The lab tests were negative for urinary tract infection. A week later, Dr. Carrillo examined D'Agostino, who was now confined to a wheelchair, and decided that no additional treatment or diagnostic tests were necessary.

By the ninth day, D'Agostino's condition worsened. Increasing white blood cell count indicated that the prescribed antibiotics were ineffective. After being transported to Mercy Suburban Hospital emergency room, the MRI revealed a spinal abscess.

In spite of rehabilitation and aftercare, D'Agostino continued to suffer physical problems stemming from the spinal injury. When he filed a civil suit, MCCF and CMC motioned to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). D'Agostino presented factual content for the court to draw reasonable inference on the liability of the misconduct.

Since the content was ...

On May 20, 2012, violence erupted at a 2,567-bed private prison near Natchez, Mississippi which is operated by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). The Adams County Corrections Center (ACCC) houses low-security adult male illegal immigrants who have entered the country illegally after having previously been deported. Although this is a criminal offense, all of the prisoners will eventually be returned to their home countries.

The hours-long disturbance began on May 20, 2012 at 2:40 p.m. local time and centered on the inner compound and housing units of the prison. Prisoners were seen armed with makeshift weapons like broom handles and trash can lids. They built a bonfire in the prison compound, but none of them attempt to escape.

According to Adams County Sheriff Chuck Mayfield, the disturbance involved a power struggle between two different factions of prisoners. He said that 200 to 300 prisoners were involved in the incident and that the prison's Special Operations Response Team (SORT) and SORTs from other CCA-run prisons in the area responded to the disturbance, deploying chemical agents and firearms to quell the unrest while sheriff's deputies and the Mississippi highway Patrol surrounded the prison.

During the course of the disturbance, a half ...

The St. Louis Lawyer's Group is helping the family of a man who died five days after arriving at the St. Louis Justice Center sue the jail's private medical services provider, Corizon. The suit alleges denial of medical care to a seriously ill prisoner resulting in his death.

Courtland Lucas was a 31-year-old man with a history of drug and traffic offenses when he was arrested for parole violation. Because he was complaining of chest pains, he was taken to the St. Alexius Hospital where doctors gave him insulin and set out a plan for checking his blood sugar level. Then he was incarcerated in the St. Louis Justice Center where a jail doctor ordered a similar plan.

Lucas had a history of serious heart disease. His medical records showed several heart valve replacements and a hospitalization for swelling and an irregular heartbeat. He was also diabetic with high blood pressure and a pacemaker.

Unfortunately, jail medical staff didn't take his complaints very seriously. From his medical records, it appears that blood sugar level checks were missed and blood sugar levels as high as 325 were not treated with insulin. When Lucas began complaining of hallucinations, he was ignored and ...

A New Mexico legislative committee is perplexed by the state's $2-million giveaway to GEO Group, since the Florida-based private-prison company has cut staff at one prison but continues to charge New Mexico's Corrections Department (NMCD) as if it's still employing the same number of staff.

A June 2012 report from the state's Legislative Finance Committee (LFC), in partnership with the Pew Center on the States, uncovered the fiscal waste among deeply systemic issues within NMCD, including poor parole planning and problems with "unproven” programs that are meant to lower recidivism rates—all amid projections that New Mexico's prison population will exceed capacity within the next decade.

"The NMCD has potential to reduce costs and improve public safety," said the report, which was prepared by the committee's nine-person program evaluation team. "However, the NMCD currently suffers from gaps in program oversight, ineffective use of resources, and patterns of inefficient spending."

In March 2012, an amended contract between NMCD and Lea County for the operation of the state prison in Hobbs, N.M., reduced prison staff by 32 full-time employees (FTE). But GEO Group, the for-profit company that runs the Hobbs prison—and has been forced to pay fines to NMCD totaling more than $1 ...

The Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) in Ocilla, Georgia is an example of everything that is wrong with small-town private-prison development. It's a story of local government officials seeking to make their community profit off the misery of others, only to end up in misery themselves.

ICDC had half its current number of 1,200 beds and a history of defaulting on bonds when, in 2007, Terry O'Brien, a real estate developer and newly-minted private prison entrepreneur talked local government officials into backing $55 million in bonds to double the jail's size. O'Brien founded a property consulting firm in 2002 and expanded into the private jail business when he incorporated Municipal Corrections LLC in Las Vegas in 2004. The sole purpose of Municipal Corrections was to own the IDCD which it purchased from a trustee in 2004.

At first, the jail was a success. Housing overflow prisoners from the Atlanta jail system, there was even pressure to expand. That's what led to issuing the 2007 bonds. But additional prisoners from Atlanta and promised federal and immigration prisoners failed to materialize, leaving the newly-expanded jail half full and unable to pay its bills.

County taxpayers began complaining about the jail's $1.6 million ...