Historically, prisons and jails have been loathe to give prisoners access to technology. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) didn’t even allow prisoners regular access to telephone calls until 2009. Access to internet-based services, which the non-incarcerated take for granted, is also forbidden by prison officials who cite vaguely-expressed “security concerns.” In recent years, however, electronic tablets that include a variety of programs and ­services have proliferated behind bars.

What has caused this shift in the Luddite mentality of prison officials? Money, mainly. Corrections agencies almost always receive “commission” kickbacks from the revenue generated by fee-based content offered by tablet providers, which ranges from e-messaging and video calls to music downloads and games. The two primary tablet vendors are GTL/ViaPath Technologies, headquartered in Virginia, and Dallas-based Securus Technologies. They are also the nation’s leading prison and jail phone service providers.

Both are owned by private equity firms and have long histories of price-gouging prisoners and their families. Other companies that supply tablets and e-content include Edovo, Inmate Calling Solutions (ICSolutions) and Keefe Commissary Network.

In the business model they all use, corrections officials can select the programs and features available on tablets that are usually provided to prisoners at ...

Pointing to “reports of staffing shortages, physical and sexual assaults, murders and a 188% turnover rate among prison guards just last year,” the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on August 20, 2024, that it was launching a civil rights investigation into Tennessee’s troubled Trousdale Turner Correctional Center (TTCC), which is operated for the state Department of Corrections (DOC) under contract by private prison profiteer CoreCivic, Inc.

“Publicly available information suggests that Trousdale Turner has been plagued by serious problems since it first opened its doors” in 2016, declared U.S. Attorney Henry C. Leventis—something PLN reported. [See: PLN, Feb. 2018, p.46.] DOC temporarily suspended prisoner transfers shortly after the opening, forcing CoreCivic to import employees from other prisons and hire another private firm, G4S, to provide rent-a-guards.

Prisoners held at the lockup today confirmed to PLN that it is largely run by gangs and rife with violence, resulting in frequent lockdowns. Yet the state showed no signs it was ready to part ways with the firm, even after wrapping up a five-year $276 million contract in August 2024. The facility, which is owned by a Trousdale County agency that contracts separately with CoreCivic, houses the prisoners.

The DOJ’s investigation, ...

The Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Re-entry (DCRR) has faced bitter criticism for the healthcare provided to state prisoners, which a federal judge in 2022 called “plainly, grossly inadequate,” as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Dec. 2022, p.1.] So it wasn’t surprising when its early response to the COVID-19 pandemic drew a 2020 warning from prisoner advocates in 11 faith groups that DCRR officials were sleepwalking through the pandemic and “not recognizing this reality nor addressing the asymptomatic nature of this virus.”

Yet the magnitude of the prison system’s failure—which, unlike the virus, was entirely within its own control—is only now coming to light. In a series of reports published on October 1, 2024, the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said that prisoners reported being given “fake” health checks—where no vital signs were taken—along with “do not resuscitate” orders that they never requested and were powerless to rescind.

Predictably, the DCRR’s response to criticism during the pandemic was to point the finger at private healthcare contractor Centurion Health, to which it paid $4,028,900 for COVID-19 tests in December 2020. But it was prison officials who then failed to strictly follow quarantine policies—signing off on transfers of ...

by Matt Clarke

On August 16, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the verdict and jury award of $6.4 million in compensatory damages against three nurses who worked for Corizon Health when it held the contract to provide healthcare at Michigan’s Kent County Correctional Facility (KCCF) in Grand Rapids

In April 2018, Wade Jones, 40, was caught trying to rob a store of $94.50 worth of merchandise that included golf balls, a whole chicken, bread, macaroni and cheese, plus four 1.75-liter bottles of alcohol. He was charged with third-degree misdemeanor retail theft.

Jones pleaded guilty at his arraignment. That’s also when the 59th Judicial District Court became aware of his drinking problem because Jones tested at .159 and .145 when given two breath tests by a probation officer during the proceedings. This concerned Judge Peter V. Versluis because Jones did not seem drunk, showing a high tolerance for alcohol. The judge then sentenced him to five days in the jail.

When booked into KCCF, Jones denied being drunk but admitted to drinking vodka “occasionally.” About five hours later, he reported experiencing symptoms consistent with Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome (AWS), a serious and potentially fatal medical ...

by Sam Rutherford

As PLN reported, the New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD) has for many years outsourced its constitutional obligation to provide healthcare to those it confines, contracting the service from private, for-profit corporations. The terrible cost of this arrangement to prisoners’ health—not to mention $8 million in lawsuit settlement ...

by Douglas Ankney

On June 18, 2024, the United States Court for the Northern District of California approved a series of settlements totaling $1 million that resolved a civil rights suit brought by the survivors of Carlos Chavez, whose suicide at the Monterey County Jail (MCJ) they blamed on guard ...

Because incoming Pres. Donald J. Trump (R) vowed during his campaign to launch “the largest deportation operation in American history,” the stocks of private prison companies, including The GEO Group and CoreCivic, spiked after his election victory on November 5, 2024. Within 24 hours, GEO Group’s stock ticked up 42% and CoreCivic’s 29%—reaching their highest price levels in five years.

Hoping to capitalize on a second Trump presidency, GEO Group donated $5,000 to his 2024 campaign, the maximum legally allowed; but one of the company’s subsidiaries gave $500,000 to pro-Trump organizations, according to nonprofit watchdog Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility (CREW). Private prison firms “have not only been fueling Trump’s political aspirations, but they have been putting money directly in Trump’s pocket by using his businesses in a pretty conspicuous way,” stated CREW’s Lauren White.

The day after the election, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials issued a request for proposals to expand the agency’s surveillance infrastructure, anticipating a dramatic increase in the number of migrants monitored under its Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP). Managed under a $2.2 billion contract by GEO Group subsidiary B.I. Inc., ISAP currently uses GPS trackers and biometric apps to track some 200,000 migrants ...

The commissary operated in San Diego County jails collected enough revenue from detainee purchases to pump up the balance in its Incarcerated Persons’ Welfare Fund (IPWF) to $11.1 million by June 30, 2024. But the office of Sheriff Kelly A. Martinez provided few details about fund spending, which state Penal Code § 4025e says “shall be used solely for the benefit and welfare of” those incarcerated.

Rather, county commissioners received a one-page report announcing that $5.7 million was spent from the fund in the previous fiscal year. An accompanying pie chart noted that 75% went to educational programs, without providing any specifics. Bus passes and other goods and services for indigent detainees consumed another 11% of that total. About $700,000 more went to cover supplies, operations, equipment and other services. In years past, this included vehicle fuel and maintenance, as well as employee cellphones and even out-of-county travel. But again, no detail was provided. The report showed that the lion’s share of IPWF spending—75%—went to “educational services,” which the law allows the Sheriff to use for salaries of employees who provide them. But again, no details were provided.

County resident Paul Henkin complained in an email, “To call an annotated pie ...

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 filed for federal bankruptcy court protection, as reported elsewhere in this issue. [See: PLN, Jan. 2025, p.1.]

In the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2024, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) spent $53.8 million to run Riverview and another $1.2 million on six treatment beds at Columbia. Just a month earlier, 29 of 92 licensed beds at Riverview were empty.

DHHS spokesperson Lindsay Hammes said that those sent south had “demonstrated a high level of violence” or assaulted other staff and patients. But transferees reported harsher conditions at Columbia than at Riverview: more isolation and less privacy from omnipresent guards, as well as increased use of restraints and limited access to treatment and activities.

Anthony Reed, the first Maine defendant sent to the South Carolina lockup in 2015, died there in December 2023; DHHS has released no information about the death, except that Reed was 48. His transfer had already raised the eyebrows of an Augusta judge, as well as ...

On May 20, 2024, a federal jury in Alabama returned a verdict against a doctor employed by Wexford Health Sources, Inc., the private medical provider contracted by the state Department of Corrections (DOC). It was part of a civil rights action brought by a prisoner who suffered medical neglect that eventually led to the amputation of his toes.

When Canyon Duff Moye arrived at Kilby Correctional Facility in August 2019, he had an injury to his left foot. But the foot’s condition was “stable, with no open sores or need for medical treatment,” as recalled in the complaint he later filed. Less than a week later, however, he had developed blisters due to the low-quality shoes he was issued.

Moye received a “no-work” slip from the medical department, but prison officials required him to continue working anyway. He was transferred to Fountain Correctional Facility a few months later, and the blisters on his foot worsened and developed into open sores. By late 2019, “there was a stench from the wounds on [his] foot” and “holes in the pad of [his] foot below the big toe and below the middle toe area,” all of which was documented in a photo taken ...