This site contains over 2,000 news articles, legal briefs and publications related to for-profit companies that provide correctional services. Most of the content under the "Articles" tab below is from our Prison Legal News site. PLN, a monthly print publication, has been reporting on criminal justice-related issues, including prison privatization, since 1990. If you are seeking pleadings or court rulings in lawsuits and other legal proceedings involving private prison companies, search under the "Legal Briefs" tab. For reports, audits and other publications related to the private prison industry, search using the "Publications" tab.
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Seventh Circuit Revives Former Illinois Prisoner’s Claim for Delayed Hepatitis-C Treatment by David Reutter On January 14, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a former Illinois prisoner’s deliberate indifference claim against a healthcare provider contracted by the state Department of Corrections (DOC) could proceed …
nearly $300 million—all with the same healthcare contractor, VitalCore Health Strategies.
In July 2020, after the DOC’s former contractor, Centurion Health, opted to terminate its contract
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Oklahoma Supreme Court Kills One Jail Death Suit, Threatening Settlement of Another by In a case with enormous implications for Oklahoma jail detainees, the state Supreme Court ruled on March 11, 2025, that a jail’s subcontracted medical providers are “employees” for the purposes of the Oklahoma Governmental Tort Claims Act …
Wellpath and VitalCore Skip Paying Nearly $2 Million in Settlements in South Carolina by In October 2024, Wellpath—a private for-profit contractor that provides medical care in prisons and jails—was ordered to pay a $1.5 million settlement it entered in a lawsuit alleging that one of the company’s nurses performed “unnecessary …
that privateprison healthcare giant Centurion allegedly ignored, officials with the company agreed to an undisclosed settlement and claims were dismissed on March 27, 2025. That left claims by Elmer Williams
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Six Deaths in Eleven Months at Washington Jail by The South County Correctional Entity, a jail shared by six cities in Washington’s King County and located in the Seattle suburb of Des Moines, recorded its sixth death in 11 months on February 1, 2025. Known locally as SCORE, the lockup …
Wellpath Sanctioned for Discovery Violation in Suit Over Kentucky Prisoner’s Death
by Douglas Ankney
by Douglas Ankney
Privateprison and jail medical provider Wellpath, LLC has announced
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Wellpath Prepares Plan to Exit Bankruptcy by Prison healthcare giant Wellpath took a step closer toward exiting bankruptcy proceedings on April 15, 2025, when it announced a settlement reached with a group a notch below those senior creditors first in line for repayment. That group of junior creditors includes prisoners …
by their privately contracted provider, NaphCare, Inc.
One detainee at the Pierce County Jail in Tacoma lost his leg in 2018 after NaphCare staffers allegedly missed a blod clot that led to an infection, ultimately
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Sixth Circuit Upholds $6.4 Million Jury Award Against Corizon Nurses For Michigan Jail Prisoner’s Fatal Alcohol Withdrawal
by Matthew Clarke
by Matt Clarke
On August 16, 2024, the United
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: Eat standard meals or nothing. At Huachuca Unit in Kingman, which is run for DCRR by privateprison contractor The GEO Group, cooking allegedly ceased, and prisoners were fed uncooked food. Prisoners
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cost of this arrangement to prisoners’ health—not to mention $8 million in lawsuit settlement payments to them or their estates—was laid bare in agreements obtained from Centurion
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ForensicMedicalGroup (CFMG) was first contracted to provide healthcare at MCJ in 1984. As far back as 2007, a consulting firm warned that detainee healthcare was “inadequate and result[ed
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Wellpath Declares Bankruptcy by On November 11, 2024, Wellpath Holdings, Inc., and its affiliated corporate entities filed for bankruptcy protection in United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. Wellpath is a private, for-profit medical and mental health care provider at approximately 420 detention facilities in 39 states; …
cobbled together from profitable pieces of what used to be Corizon Health, whose money-losing parts were shunted into another entity called Tehum Care Services, which has filed for bankruptcy. [See: PLN
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Turn Key Health Walks Away From Oklahoma County Jail by On October 9, 2024, Turn Key Health Clinics ended its contract to provide healthcare at the Oklahoma County Jail in Oklahoma City. The firm gave notice 30 days earlier, after winning just a one-year $7.4 million extension to the contract …
Mentally Incompetent Maine Defendants Sent to South Carolina Wellpath Lockup Called “Essentially Prison” by Pre-trial detainees found not criminally responsible in Maine are being quietly transferred from the state’s Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta to Columbia Regional Care Center, a South Carolina psychiatric lockup owned by Wellpath, Inc. Wellpath has …
release from prison. On November 3, 2022, Centurion settled the case for $75,000. Unusually, the settlement agreement specifically did not resolve claims against individual NMCD defendants or privateprison
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In Failure-to-Treat Claims, Wellpath Denied Dismissal in Virginia, Settles in Pennsylvania
by David Reutter
by David M. Reutter
On November 11, 2024, privateprison and jail healthcare
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privateprison and jail medical contractor Wellpath, LLC for destroying evidence in a suit filed over a detainee death at the Josephine County Jail (JCJ). It was the second time in just over a year
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