On May 25, 2016, Joanna Saul, 33, the executive director of Ohio’s Correctional Institution Inspection Committee (CIIC), was forced to resign due to infighting between the bipartisan prison watchdog agency, Republican legislators and Governor John Kasich.

Saul first touched a nerve when the CIIC aggressively pursued transparency in prison inspections and issued reports on drugs, violence, gang activity and prison staffing. She again stepped on political toes when she exposed problems at the Lake Erie Correctional Institution, owned and operated by Corrections Corporation of America. [See: PLN, Nov. 2014, p.44]. Further, CIIC inspections led the state to fine private food vendor Aramark $272,000 for maggot outbreaks in prison kitchens and multiple incidents of employee misconduct. [See: PLN, Dec. 2015, p.1].

Republican lawmakers wanted to disband the CIIC, claiming that Saul had displayed “insubordination and rogue behavior,” although the agency was considered “Ohio’s best protection against a federal lawsuit regarding prison conditions” according to Public Defender Tim Young. Young further noted that the state’s “prison population continues to grow, with an estimated all-time high coming this summer. It is vital to the safety of prison employees and inmates that the institutions are inspected regularly, and potential problems identified and ...

Government accountability advocates have called for private prison companies like Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group to be subject to open records laws – including the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) – to ensure they are accountable to the public. This is especially important considering that private prison contracts are paid with public taxpayer funds.

A report from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) accuses private prison companies of manipulating their current immunity from most open records laws to cover up violations of prisoners’ rights and conceal their real costs.

“It makes no sense to exempt private prisons from the same transparency requirements already applied to government-run state and federal prisons,” said Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director. “Highly profitable private prison companies like [CCA] and the GEO Group have quite a deal: They take in taxpayer dollars without suffering taxpayer scrutiny.”

For-profit prison operators can skirt public records laws, including FOIA, due to their status as private entities. But clearly, companies like CCA and GEO are simply acting as surrogates for government agencies, and CREW and other critics of the private prison industry argue that open records laws should therefore apply to privately-run prisons. ...

An Arizona federal district court concluded that employees of Corizon Health, a private company providing care to prisoners at the Mohave County Adult Detention Facility, “are not within the class of persons to whom qualified immunity is afforded.”

The plaintiff brought two claims under 42 U.S.C. §1983 and a state law wrongful death claim, Defendant John Anastasoff, a nurse employed by Corizon, moved for qualified immunity, that was joined by co-workers nurse Margaret Saltsgiver and Dr. Donovan Schmidt.

They contended they were not public employees whose “eligibility for qualified immunity should not be denied merely because they provide the public function of medical care and treatment to the jail inmates through the county’s private medical contractor.”

The court concluded that none of the factors in Richardson v. Mcknight, 521 U.S. 399 (1997) [See PLN December 2000, p. 32), to allow a qualified immunity defense are involved here.  In sum, the court found that “market forces and privatization flexibility” overcame the Richardson “timidity and deterrence factors” which are the basis for granting public officials qualified immunity.

The trend in federal law is to refuse granting qualified immunity “to privately-employed health care providers working in detention centers or correctional facilities.”  The ...

The Congressional Black Caucus Political Action Committee (CBC PAC) says that it works to increase the number of African-Americans in the U.S. Congress, support non-black candidates who champion black interests, and promote African American participation in the political process.

However, Color of Change (CoC), the nation’s largest online civil rights organization, has accused the Caucus of not working in the best interests of the black community. CoC launched a national campaign in April 2016 to urge the CBC PAC to stop accepting funding from lobbyists that advocate for private prisons, arguing that private prison companies target African-Americans to reap corporate profits.

Research has found that privately-operated prisons house a disproportionate number of minorities that is even greater than the disparity in public prisons. [See: PLN, March 2014, p.20; March 2013, p.16].

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group – the two largest for-profit prison firms in the U.S. – have donated millions of dollars to political candidates and spent millions more lobbying government agencies.

“Ironically, both Democratic presidential candidates have shunned contributions from private prison lobbyists but the CBC PAC has taken thousands of dollars from Akin Gump, the lobbying firm that makes millions lobbying to protect their ...

A 55-year-old mother of seven died in a Pennsylvania jail cell on June 7, 2014 while serving a 48-hour sentence for failure to pay truancy fines and court costs that totaled about $2,000.

Eileen DiNino was jailed by Berks County District Judge Dean Patton for debts that had been accruing since 1999. The truancy violations caused by her children missing school were numerous, each resulting in up to a $75 fine, but DiNino’s debt increased as a laundry list of court costs began to add up. In one case, for example, she was billed $8.00 for a “judicial computer project,” $60.00 for county constables and $10.00 for postage.

“The woman didn’t have any money,” said Diana Sealy, whose son married DiNino’s daughter. “Years ago, I tried to help her out. She had all these kids.”

Judge Patton referred to DiNino as a “lost soul,” and said it was only reluctantly that he sent her to jail. He noted that a short stint behind bars can sometimes “break the habit” of parents who’d rather party into the night and not get their kids to school the next day. The judge added that he had lost sleep over her death.

DiNino did ...

Information collected by the federal government has revealed the conspicuous inequality between private prison executives and the guards that their corporations employ. According to data compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median salary for private prison and jail guards in 2015 was $32,290. One in four private prison guards makes less than $26,091 annually – near the poverty line for a family of four.

By sharp contrast, based on filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) Chief Executive Officer Damon Hininger received a base salary of $882,807 in 2015, which was augmented by $2.52 million in other compensation, such as bonuses and stock awards. That same year, George Zoley, CEO of the GEO Group, the nation’s second-largest private prison firm, received a $1,000,000 base salary with additional compensation of $5.6 million.

Examining the income of those two CEOs in comparison to wages paid to private prison guards between 2011 and 2015, In the Public Interest, a public policy research organization that opposes privatization, found the median hourly rate for guards ranged between $15.53 and $16.47 per hour. In stark disparity, Zoley and Hininger’s equivalent hourly pay ranged from $426 to $487 ...

Pfizer, Inc., the world’s second-largest pharmaceutical manufacturer, recently announced new restrictions on the distribution of drugs used to execute prisoners.

The May 13, 2016 announcement detailed “distribution restrictions” that the company is placing on certain drugs used in lethal injection protocols, including pancuronium bromide, potassium chloride, propofol, midazolam, hydromorphone, rocuronium bromide and vecuronium bromide. According to Pfizer’s statement, the new restrictions will limit the sale of those drugs to “a select group of wholesalers, distributors, and direct purchasers under the condition that they will not resell these products to correctional institutions for use in lethal injections.”

Opponents of the death penalty applauded Pfizer for restricting access to the execution drugs, noting that the company’s move, in conjunction with other efforts to limit access to lethal injection drugs, may force states to reconsider their use of capital punishment.

“I think it will have the effect of encouraging states to rethink their policies,” said Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Information Center. “The lethal injection debate is causing legislators to rethink the death penalty as a whole. Some states may move to other methods, but they face significant problems because the majority of Americans believe each of the alternatives is cruel ...

A local news station reported on March 29, 2016 that Joseph Safonte, 72, was placed on desk duty after becoming the target of an internal investigation into the theft of items from the lost and found at the courthouse in Broward County, Florida.

The veteran bailiff and president of the Broward Sheriff’s Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police was one of three people sanctioned during the investigation. Lisa Bouley, a civilian sheriff’s community service aide, also was assigned to desk duty. According to sources, a third person – an unnamed guard employed by private security contractor G4S – was terminated. The State’s Attorney’s office is reportedly reviewing the cases for possible criminal charges.

In the past year, two other former Broward County bailiffs received prison time. Garrett Cunningham was sentenced to 20 years following an incident in which he terrorized his wife, while Brian Preston received eight years for child pornography. In a separate incident in March 2016, bailiff Kendrick Busby was suspended without pay and jailed after being charged with the rape and attempted murder of a prostitute. Yet another Broward County bailiff, Steve Palacios, awaits trial for a felony charge of dealing in stolen property.

“It seems ...

William Pierce, a prisoner held by the District of Columbia’s Department of Corrections (DCDOC), has won a $70,000 jury verdict for repeated violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Pierce, who suffers from severe hearing loss, was denied hearing aids and sign-language interpreters while he was held at the Correctional Treatment Facility, a jail managed by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

Pierce’s complaint alleged that although CCA and the DCDOC had policies in place which, on their face, complied with the requirements of the ADA, in practice those policies were not followed. U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a lengthy September 11, 2015 order, wrote that officials at the Correctional Treatment Facility “effectively sat on their hands.... This court easily concludes that the District’s willful blindness regarding [Pierce’s] need for accommodation and its half-hearted attempt to provide Pierce with a random assortment of auxiliary aids – and only after he specifically requested them – fell far short of what the law requires.”

An amicus brief was filed on Pierce’s behalf by the National Association for the Deaf, which argued that prisoners are also protected by the provisions of the ADA. Many prisoners’ rights advocates have argued that ...

About two dozen immigrants’ rights advocates picketed outside the headquarters of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle on April 10, 2014, protesting the Foundation’s investments in the GEO Group, the second-largest private prison company in the U.S.

The demonstrators urged the Gates Foundation – whose co-chairman, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, has publicly supported immigrants’ rights and immigration reform – to dump the $2.2 million it has invested in the Florida-based GEO Group, which operates 64 prisons and immigration detention facilities nationwide, including the 1,500-bed Northwest Detention Center in nearby Tacoma, Washington.

“This isn’t just a moral argument,” William Winters, a protest organizer, told the Seattle Times. “If the Gates Foundation wants to have the effect in the world they say they want to have, then investing in private prisons is the antithesis of that.”

The Foundation’s website proclaims that “all lives have equal value” and “we are impatient optimists working to reduce inequity.” The charity is best known for its grants that fund projects related to poverty, education and health care worldwide.

The protestors presented almost 11,000 signatures collected online asking the Gates Foundation to stop investing in GEO, and Foundation officials promised they would be submitted to ...