The California Court of Appeal held in 2008 that Governor Schwarzenegger did not exceed his authority when, after invoking the Emergency Services Act (Gov. Code § 8550 et seq.) to issue a “Prison Overcrowding State of Emergency Proclamation” in October 2006, he directed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to negotiate contracts for the transfer and housing of prisoners in facilities outside of California.

The guards’ union, the California Correctional Peace Officers’ Association (CCPOA), opposed the Governor’s actions because they threatened to give jobs to non-union, out-of-state workers. The CCPOA filed a petition for writ of mandate and sought declaratory as well as injunctive relief, arguing (1) that the Governor did not have the statutory authority to declare a person over-crowding emergency; (2) that the contracts to house prisoners in out-of-state institutions violated the civil service mandate of Article VII of the California Constitution.

The trial court ruled in CCPOA’s favor with respect to both arguments. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding (1) that the Emergency Services Act unambiguously permits the Governor to proclaim a state of emergency based upon conditions in state prisons; and (2) that, because of the conditions underlying the state of emergency, the negotiated ...

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that private prison-management corporations and their employees may be sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

“Billy Rosborough is a prisoner of the Bradford State Jail, a Texas prison owned and operated by…Management and Training Corporation (MTC), a private prison-management corporation.”

Rosborough brought a § 1983 action against MTC and guard Chris Shirley, alleging that “Shirley maliciously slammed a door on Rosborough’s fingers, severing two fingertips” and that MTC failed to properly train and supervise Shirley.

“The district court sua sponte dismissed Rosborough’s action on the grounds that Shirley was an employee of MTC rather than…the State of Texas and, therefore, was not acting under color of state law for purposes of suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.” The court “did not address MTC’s potential liability for failing to train Shirley.”

The Fifth Circuit reversed, observing that “[t]he Supreme Court…has held that ‘to act “under color” of law does not require that the accused by an officer of the state.’ Addickes v. S.H. Kness & Co., 398 U.S. 144,152…90 S. Ct. 1598 (1970)…Under the Supreme Court’s ‘public function’ test, a private entity acts under color of state law ‘when that entity performs a function ...

The Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) has ended a four-year-long program that provided Jewish and Muslim prisoners with meals that satisfy their religious requirements. Originally, the program was aimed solely at Jewish prisoners.

Costs and fairness were cited as the factors to end the FDOC’s Jewish Dietary Accommodation Program. It was available at only two FDOC prisons, resulting in the 259 prisoners involved to be transferred upon requesting to participate. Another 95 were seeking inclusion when the program ended.

Because FDOC does not provided halal food, many Muslims also participated in the kosher food program. Now, Jewish and Muslim prisoners must now eat a vegan diet to meet their religious requirements. In an attempt to satisfy Muslims, FDOC changed its menu in September 2007 to exclude pork items.

The vegan diet will not satisfy kosher meal requirements unless it is prepared separately from other meals. That is not likely to happen in FDOC’s privatized kitchens. FDOC was already confronted by a lawsuit brought on behalf of Muslim prisoners that faulted FDOC for denying them meals in accord with their religious beliefs. Randall Berg, of the Florida Justice Institute, said he is considering amending that complaint to include Jewish prisoners.

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Before one goes to jail or prison, what one eats is usually taken for granted. After one finds oneself imprisoned, what is presented to eat becomes a huge issue. With the trend towards privatization of prison services and economic pressures upon local and state governments, the concern about a nutritionally adequate diet for prisoners is growing.

Of course, prior to being imprisoned, the choice of what one eats is a matter of taste. When confronted with jail or prison cuisine, there is only the option of eating what is presented or eating from the canteen if one has the funds. Most jails and prisons utilize a rotating menu to plan meals. Some utilize meal planning by what is available at the lowest price.

Over the last decade, jail and prison officials have been turning to private companies to cut the cost of feeding prisoners. Leading the way in obtaining contracts to feed prisoners is Philadelphia-based Aramark Correctional Services, but the privatization of feeding prisoners actually started in Alabama.

Over 80 years ago, Alabama passed a law that gave sheriffs $1.75 a day to feed each of the jail’s prisoners. While that law went into effect in 1927, it is still ...

An audit report of the prisoner food service operations of the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) found deficiencies that increase costs to taxpayers. Amongst the recommendations to cure those issues was to privatize those operations.

The June, 2008, report by Michigan’s Office of the Auditor General (Auditor) was based upon on-site and record review at 13 of MDOC’s 51 prisons, which house an average of 51,165 prisoners. MDOC’s prisoner menu follows the Dietary Guidelines for Americans issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

That menu provides male prisoners with an average of 2,900 calories per day and female prisoners an average of 2,600 calories per day. During fiscal year 2006-07, MDOC expended $46.2 million on food purchases and $37.2 million on food service staff wages, resulting in a statewide average prisoner food and labor cost per day of $2.48 and $2.50, respectively.

The Auditor said it reviewed the contract for food services that Florida and Kansas maintain with private vendors. For total food services, those states pay $2.65 and $4.14 per prisoner per day for comparable services that MDOC now pays $4.68 per prisoner per day. It was recommended that MDOC ...

Two Rivers Authority in Hardin, Montana has decided to throw in the towel on a 464-bed jail the city built with hopes of renting out its cells. Rather than spur economic development, the facility has been an economic disaster.

The 92,273-square-foot Two Rivers Detention Facility was constructed in 2007 to cash in on the prison industrial complex boom. With the tide turning in the need for bed space, the Two Rivers Authority "tried everything they knew and everything possible to fill [the jail], and nothing has worked," said Hardin Mayor Joseph V. Koebbe.

Those efforts included trying to import prisoners from Vermont and Alaska, and offering to house sex offenders. The desperation to lease the jail beds almost resulted in officials turning the facility over to a convicted con artist who wanted to use it for a military training camp in an elaborate scam. [See: PLN, Dec. 2009, p.1]. Things got so bad that Hardin officials unsuccessfully tried to house terrorism suspects from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. [See: PLN, Oct. 2009, p.28].

To build the jail, Two Rivers issued $27 million in bonds through Capital Markets Group, Inc., a Texas company. The deal was brokered by ...

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held on August 10, 2012 that a district court's jury instructions concerning deliberate indifference in a prisoner's lawsuit were misleading and prejudicial, and therefore required a new trial.

In November 2004, Illinois River Correctional Facility prisoner Peter Cotts suffered a painful, two-inch inguinal hernia that was diagnosed by Dr. Seth Osafo, employed by Wexford Health Sources, a for-profit company that provides medical care to Illinois state prisoners. An inguinal hernia is when the intestines or bladder protrudes through a weak spot in the surrounding muscles of the abdominal wall near the groin.

Over the next five months, Cotts requested surgery for his painful hernia 16 times, claiming that the "pain was interfering with his ability to walk, sleep, and use the restroom."

Medical staff "treated his hernia by 'reducing' it, that is, by manually shoving it back into Cotts's abdomen." This extremely painful procedure provided only temporary relief, because "when he returned to a seated position, the hernia would pop right back out."

Dr. Osafo told Cotts that "no matter how much he complained of the pain," he would not receive surgery because the hernia was reducible. Cotts was released on parole in 2005 ...

On July 23, 2012, after expediting a prisoner's appeal, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the district court to likewise act promptly following remand. The appellate court said such action was necessary because the plaintiff was experiencing "excruciating pain" due to his golf ball-sized hemorrhoids.

Illinois state prisoner Anthony Wheeler filed a civil rights complaint in September 2011, alleging that officials at the Pinckneyville Correctional Center, including staff employed by Wexford Health Sources, had ignored his severe, ongoing pain stemming from his hemorrhoids. "Documents submitted with the complaint show he is not fantasizing," the Seventh Circuit wrote.

Wheeler had moved the district court for a preliminary injunction, seeking surgery for his serious medical condition – a recommendation that had been endorsed by two physicians. He also asked the court to appoint counsel for him.

The district court did not act on either motion, nor conduct a preliminary screening pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. Wheeler filed a second and third motion for a preliminary injunction which the district court denied in a terse order, concluding that "federal courts must exercise equitable restraint when asked to take over the administration of a prison, something that is best left to correctional ...

Human rights organizations monitoring complaints regarding conditions of confinement for prisoners held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities were likely not surprised when they received news that two detainees had committed suicide at the Eloy Detention Center outside Phoenix, Arizona. The April 2013 deaths of Jorge Garcia-Mejia, 40, and Elsa Guadalupe-Gonzalez, 24, both Guatemalan nationals, three days apart at the Corrections Corporation of America-operated facility, focused attention on for-profit companies housing immigration detainees.

According to Alessandra Soler, executive director of the ACLU of Arizona, "Suicides are a red flag. They usually signify a much larger problem. Sometimes it's because of ineffective mental health treatment, but often times it's caused by poor staffing issues."

Prison Legal News has reported extensively on human rights abuses in private immigration detention facilities, as well as the fact that private prison firms lobby on immigration-related issues and have been implicated in Arizona's enactment of a harsh anti-immigrant law, SB 1070. [See, e.g., PLN, July 2013, p.1; Nov. 2010, p.1]. Around half of the approximately 34,000 immigration detainees held in ICE custody at any given time are housed in privately-operated prisons.

Unfortunately, the rapid expansion of the immigration detainee population, including asylum-seekers and other detainees ...

By the time Jan Brewer replaced Janet Napolitano as Arizona’s governor in 2009, it had been 22 years since the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) built the first prison in the United States designed exclusively for permanent lockdown – a prison that became the prototype for supermax facilities across the country.

Even before Brewer assumed the governorship and brought Charles L. Ryan out of retirement to run the ADC, Arizona’s prisons were known to be ruthless and inhumane. Few other prison systems can claim the dubious distinction of leaving a mentally ill prisoner in an outdoor cage for hours in scorching summer heat until she literally baked to death. [See: PLN, Feb. 2010, p.32].

Yet by playing politics, contracting with for-profit prison healthcare companies and kowtowing to private prison firms, Governor Brewer and ADC Director Ryan have taken a prison system already infamous for its draconian conditions and unfettered incompetence and made it deadlier and even more vindictive and profit-driven than ever before.

The ADC, with a $1.1 billion budget in 2012, will soon open a new maximum-security facility with 500 solitary confinement cells at a prison complex in Buckeye, at a cost of $50 million. In doing so, state ...