Repackaging Mass Incarceration

by James Kilgore

Since my CounterPunch article in November 2013, which assessed the state of the movement against mass incarceration, the rumblings of change in the criminal justice system have steadily grown louder. Attorney General Eric Holder has continued to stream his mild-mannered critique by raising the issue of felony disenfranchisement;* the President has stepped forward with a proposal for clemency for people with drug offenses that could free hundreds. In the media, we’ve seen a scathing attack on America’s addiction to punishment in The New York Times and the American Academy of Sciences has released perhaps the most comprehensive critique of mass incarceration to date, the 464-page The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences. 

In late May 2014, several dozen conservatives including Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist and former NRA president David Keene pulled together the first Right on Crime (ROC) Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C. The ROC, an organization which boasts a coterie of members with impeccable right-wing credentials, reiterated the need for conservatives to drive the process of prison reform. The conference’s “call to action” argued: “In our earnest desire to have safer neighborhoods, policy responses to crime have too often neglected ...

Wells Fargo Bankrolls Private Prison Companies, Immigrant Detention

While Wells Fargo & Company has sold off much of the stock it once owned in private prison company GEO Group amid a divestment campaign targeting the multi-billion-dollar bank, it has concurrently increased its shares in Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

After initially selling off around 33% of its holdings in GEO Group stock in 2012, Wells Fargo continued to divest from GEO in the mutual funds it controlled. As of June 30, 2014, the bank owned 7,425 shares of GEO valued at over $272,000; previously, it had owned 4 million shares. However, Wells Fargo has steadily increased its stake in CCA and owned 1.08 million shares in the company valued at $36.6 million as of June 30, 2014.

Peter Cervantes-Gautschi, executive director of Enlace, a non-profit organization that has convened a National Private Prison Divestment Campaign, congratulated the bank on “its well-advised decision to dump the private prison stock” in GEO Group. He called on the financial industry giant to “rid itself of the rest of its private prison holdings and to cease financing private prison companies.”

A divestment campaign protest outside a Wells Fargo branch in Nashville, Tennessee on July ...

Captive Customers: Outsourcing Prison Services is Ruining Lives and Bilking Taxpayers

By Donald Cohen

Introducing for-profit companies into America's criminal justice system has been a bad deal for governments across the country.

During the past several years, a movement opposed to profit incentives in our criminal justice system has grown. Private prison corporations such as Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group have come under increasing scrutiny and pressure for cutting corners, contracts that include "occupancy guarantees" of 80, 90 and even 100 percent and unsafe prison conditions.

California Exhaustion Requirement Extends to Independent Contractors

by Mark Wilson

On December 6, 2013, the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, held that prisoners must exhaust administrative remedies before suing independent contractors employed by the prison system.

California prisoner Ira Don Parthemore was examined by Dr. Peter R. Col, an optometrist under contract at the Mule Creek State Prison.

Col diagnosed Parthemore with cataracts in both eyes and advised him that he would need surgery. Col later re-examined him and concluded surgery was not necessary. Col prepared a transfer request, incorrectly identifying Parthemore as being “legally blind.” He was then transferred to a medical facility.

A different optometrist examined Parthemore and found that he “never should have been diagnosed as legally blind or transferred to the medical facility.”

Parthemore fell while at the medical facility, breaking his right kneecap and several bones in his left shoulder. After he recovered, he was sent back to Mule Creek.

Parthemore sued Dr. Col in state court for negligence, alleging that the injuries from his fall were caused by Col’s refusal to issue a new eyeglasses prescription. He also alleged that Col intentionally falsified official medical records, resulting in his unnecessary transfer to ...

Class-Action Suit Claiming Inadequate Medical Care at Virginia Prison Set for Trial

A December 2014 trial date has been scheduled in a class-action federal lawsuit that could determine the future of health care for prisoners at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women (FCCW) in Troy, Virginia.

The suit was filed in July 2012 on behalf of five women incarcerated at Fluvanna, and names as defendants the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC), Armor Correctional Health Services and both VDOC and Armor officials for failing to provide constitutionally adequate medical care at FCCW. The Legal Aid Justice Center (LAJC) in Charlottesville, Virginia; the Washington, D.C. law firm of Wiley Rein, LLP and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs are jointly representing the plaintiffs – Cynthia B. Scott, Bobinette D. Fearce, Patricia Knight, Marguerite Richardson and Rebecca L. Scott.

On July 15, 2013, the district court held that Corizon Health, Inc., of Brentwood, Tennessee, which was the contract provider for medical care in VDOC facilities prior to Armor, and which outbid Armor in May 2013 to resume its role as Virginia’s correctional health care provider, could be added as a defendant.

The suit does not seek monetary damages, but ...

Texas Court Finds CCA Subject to State’s Public Information Act, Awards Attorney Fees

On September 15, 2014, a Travis County District Court entered a final judgment that found Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest for-profit prison company, is a “governmental body” for purposes of the Texas Public Information ...

Arizona DOC Cancels 5,000 Bed Private Prison Contract

by Matt Clarke

Since January 2009, the Arizona Department of Corrections (DOC) has been working on a contract for private prison corporations to build and operate prisons with a capacity of 5,000 minimum and medium security beds in Arizona. The contract suffered several delays and was finally cancelled in December 2011, when the DOC announced that it would cut the number of requested beds in half and change the configuration to 500 beds in state-run prisons and 2,000 in privately-operated prisons. No time frame for proposals for the revised contract was announced.

What led to the contract's cancellation were statistics showing that the prison population in Arizona has ceased growing. The DOC presented statistics showing a growth of only 65 prisoners in FY 2010 and a decline of 296 prisoners in FY 2011. The Arizona prisoner population peaked at 40,544 in 2009 and had declined to 40,038 by December 22, 2011. The prison system's design capacity is 36,658 with another 5,216 temporary beds available. Thus, the prisoner population is well within that total capacity.

DOC statistics also show that private prisons fail to result in any significant savings ...

Auditors Find Deficiencies in Tennessee Prison Operations

by David M. Reutter

A performance audit of the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) was released in September 2012 by the state’s Comptroller of the Treasury. It made five findings related to security, information protection, weaknesses in monitoring contractors, abnormalities in reporting incidents, and minor noncompliance with prisoner trust fund policies.

The audit focused on TDOC operations for fiscal years 2010 through 2012. It examined all aspects of TDOC 12 prisons, which as of July 12, 2012, held 19,829 prisoners; 18,622 males and 1,207 females. Three of those prisons are operated by Corrections Corporation of America.

The report found potentially serious security risks with inadequate proof of staff exiting prisons and the training academy returning state-issued property. The audit found that four prisons and the Tennessee Correction Academy failed to document the return of uniforms, picture IDs, and TDOC badges by personnel leaving TDOC employment.

TDOC has in place a policy and form to document the issuance of state property to TDOC employees. The policy requires certain items to be returned within 72 hours of leaving TDOC’s employ. Failure to do so is supposed to result in a ...

Another Failed Experiment: Minnesota’s Private Prison Health Care Saves Money but Costs Lives

by David M. Reutter

Minnesota privatized its prison health care system in 1998 to achieve cost savings. While it has saved taxpayers money, it has exacted a toll of human suffering from prisoners subject to the profit-first motive of the private contractor. Since 2000, nine prisoners have died and another 21 have suffered serious or critical injury from the denial or delay of necessary medical care.

State officials have the ultimate responsibility for assuring prisoners receive medical care, but private contractors who deliver care make the day-to-day decision on who or if care is rendered. Minnesota has contracted with Corizon, the nation’s largest prison health care company. It has contracts with state prisons and local jails in 31 states. [See: PLN, March 2014, p.1].

Such contracts are for a fixed rate annually. The Minnesota contract pays Corizon $28 million each year, providing it with a strict incentive to cut costs. Cutting costs typically entail paying staff less and reducing the staff to the leanest levels possible.           

Corizon’s prison doctors end their shift at 4 P.M., and they do not work ...

Utah Democrat Defeated for Party Post Defeated After "Outing" as Private Prison Official

By Derek Gilna

Her position as Vice-Chairman of Management and Training Corporation (MTC), third largest private prison operator in the United States, proved to be the undoing of Jane Marquardt, who was seeking the vice-chair of the Utah Democratic Party's Central Committee. Despite her political record showing support for the organization "Human Rights Campaign and Equality Utah," and public support for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) causes, the documented abuses at MTC facilities derailed any chance she might have had to win that party position.

According to Counterpunch.org, "her company profits from the disproportionate caging and abuse of LGBT people, especially transgender women," citing studies that show that LGBT youth are more likely to be homeless, and therefore more likely to come onto law enforcement's radar. "Transgender people have their risk of incarceration further exacerbated by being profiled for prostitution charges and sometimes even locked up for using public restrooms," the organization stated.

It is well known that wherever private prisons make large donations to public officials, legislation to open new for-profit prisons generally soon follow. The recent debate surrounding Arizona's bill ...