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 payments to them or their estates—was laid bare in agreements obtained from Centurion Correctional Healthcare of New Mexico, LLC, which was NMCD’s private medical contractor from June 6, 2016, to October 31, 2019. [See: PLN, Dec. 2024, p.1.]

But a similarly grim story emerges from settlement agreements obtained from Wexford Health Sources, Inc., which took over the NMCD contract after Centurion. Since its founding in 1992, its website says Wexford “has focused on nothing but correctional health care.” The company provides medical, mental health and dental care to nearly 100,000 prisoners at over 100 jails and prisons across the U.S. Over its three-plus decades, Wexford has also gained a reputation as an unconscionable prison medical provider driven strictly by profits, with little regard for the health or safety of its prisoner patients.

NMCD originally contracted with Wexford in 2004 but canceled the contract in 2007, as PLN reported, after an ...

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; as PLN readers know, the company is also often sued for providing substandard and even fatal care to prisoner-patients. [See, e.g.: PLN, July 2024, p.53.]

Wellpath’s filing cites “escalating operating and labor costs, a transitory increase in professional liability insurance expenses, and underperformance on several significant contracts” as the primary reasons for seeking bankruptcy protection. The company asked the bankruptcy court for protection while it restructures its debt so it may remain in business.

In the way a typical bankruptcy case unfolds, creditors form a committee and provide the court an estimate of the bankrupt company’s outstanding obligations. The court then orders the company to set aside funds to partially settle some—or more often, just a part—of these obligations and then enters an order discharging the unpaid balance. Any litigation pending against the company is typically stayed pending final resolution of the bankruptcy proceeding.

So how does this impact prisoners with cases involving Wellpath? ...

Drawing from a research database of commissary pricing and markups culled from 26 state prison systems, a report published by The Appeal on April 17, 2024, found commissary prices “up to five times higher than in the community,” with markups reaching 600%.

To supplement paltry and unappetizing chow hall meals, prisoners use commissaries that typically stock a variety of snacks, candy and soft drinks, as well as staples such as peanut butter and condiments. Other common food items include meat and fish pouches; tuna and mackerel are especially popular. But in Tennessee prisons, a serving of roast beef costs $7.60, while a pouch of seasoned pork is almost $8.00. The most popular commissary food, ramen soup, illustrates how widely prices may vary, from as little as $.42 for a serving in Tennessee’s prison system up to $1.06 in the Florida Department of Corrections (DOC). Outside of prison, ramen is $.30 or less when bought in bulk.

“Some of the highest-priced ramen in the country was sold at commissaries run by Keefe Group, which is controlled by the private equity firm HIG Capital,” the report noted.

Pricy Personal Necessities

While prison systems supply free hygiene items to indigent prisoners, quality is ...

On November 19, 2024, prison telecom Securus Technologies, Inc., along with subsidiary JPay, notified users of services provided by the firms at prisons and jails of steps being taken to comply with a recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) order. As PLN reported, that August 2024 order capped phone rates at $.06 per minute for prisons and $.12 per minute for jails; video calling transaction fees were also eliminated and rates capped at $.16 per minute in prisons and $.11 to $.25 per minute in jails, depending on size. [See: PLN, Oct. 2024, p.1.]

In its announcement of these changes, Securus/JPay advised incarcerated users that it currently doesn’t have the functionality to charge by the minute for video calling, as the order requires. So free video calling “may” be offered at some lockups while the firms revamped their programs to accommodate the order. But the announcement also included a vague threat that “some facilities might choose to temporarily disable video calling.”

Meanwhile, on November 19, 2024, Securus Video Connect went offline throughout the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) for five days while a “system update” was underway. Video calling in DOC prisons currently costs $4.95 for 30 minutes—a little over 3% ...

by Sam Rutherford

The New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD) has long outsourced its constitutional obligation to provide prisoners adequate medical care to private, for-profit corporations with little incentive to do so. Before November 2019, a $41 million annual contract was held by Centurion Correctional Healthcare of New Mexico, LLC, which lost a battle to withhold documentation of legal settlements when PLN’s publisher prevailed in a suit for the records on September 16, 2024, as reported elsewhere in this issue. [See: PLN, Dec. 2024, p.19.]

Quickly growing since its 2011 founding, Centurion and related companies contract with local, state and federal governments in 15 states at 325 lockups. When Centurion took over healthcare for NMCD in June 2016, predecessor Corizon Health had been sued by state prisoners more than 150 times during its nine-year tenure. Another 24 suits were filed during Centurion’s first year, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Nov. 2018, p.60.]

As PLN also reported, the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), nonprofit publisher of PLN and Criminal Legal News, filed a request pursuant to the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act in August 2020 that Centurion disclose all complaints and settlement agreements for cases in which the company paid ...

This month’s PLN cover story covers documents pried loose from Centurion Correctional Healthcare of N.M., LLC, which held the contract to provide medical care for the state Corrections Department (NMCD) in 2020, when a request was filed under the state Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA), NM Stat § 14-2-1 (2023), by the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), nonprofit publisher of PLN and Criminal Legal News (CLN).

HRDC sent IPRA requests in August 2020 to both NMCD and Centurion for documents related to litigation over prisoner healthcare that cost $1,000 or more to resolve. NMCD in turn asked Centurion whether it wanted to respond or send the documents to the state it could forward them. Importantly, Centurion replied that it had received the IPRA request and would respond.

But Centurion ignored HRDC’s request; it later claimed that it’s not a “public body” under IPRA so not obligated to respond. Meanwhile, NMCD notified HRDC on August 19, 2020, that it had no records responsive to the request and that it had not gotten any from Centurion. With that, the state considered the request closed.

HRDC then filed suit in the state’s First Judicial District Court for Santa Fe County in ...

by David M. Reutter

On November 11, 2024, private prison and jail healthcare contractor Wellpath LLC filed for bankruptcy protection from debtors collectively owed $544 million, casting doubt on its ability to continue in business, much less pay settlements and verdicts owed in suits for poor medical care filed by prisoners, detainees or their estates.

One of the many cases still pending against the firm was filed by the family of a Virginia detainee who died of “salt wasting” after being denied medication necessary to control the disorder by officials at Henry County Adult Detention Center (HCADC), where Wellpath held the healthcare contract. Deborah Sue Damron, a firm nurse responsible for Brad Steven Hensley’s care, was not only named a defendant in the civil case but also criminally charged after his death with involuntary manslaughter.

Hensley, 42, was born with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, which caused him to suffer from “salt wasting” when his body failed to produce cortisol needed to regulate blood pressure and blood sugar, among other things. Hensley’s condition was treated with twice daily doses of prescribed Prednisone and Fludrocortisone, which was noted at booking into HCADC on August 22, 2022. It was further noted that Hensley had ...

In June 2024, after Oklahoma failed to meet a $3 million pay hike demanded by The GEO Group, Inc., the private prison operator gave notice to terminate its contract to run Lawton Correctional and Rehabilitation Facility (LCRF), the state’s last private prison—giving the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (DOC) just three months to find another home for 2,375 prisoners. Unsurprisingly, the state Board of Corrections (BOC), which provides oversight for DOC, then approved a one-year extension for GEO Group to continue running the prison.

Three prisoners died at LCRF in 2023: Matthew Treat, 36, suffered a fatal fentanyl overdose on March 21; Loren Dean Tucker was fatally stabbed by fellow prisoners on May 6, four days after turning 31; and Raymond Bailey, 45, was found dead in a trash can on October 26, gagged, hogtied and stabbed multiple times. After getting rid of 10 guards, GEO Group blamed them for a laundry list of contractual failures which contributed to the deaths: prisoners who were allowed to roam unsupervised and not locked in their cells; mandatory security checks that were skipped; and records that were falsified in all three deaths—a crime under state law, though none of the former employees was referred ...

In a suit filed on September 30, 2024, attorney Daniel Horwitz accused four judges in the federal court for the Middle District of Tennessee of violating his First Amendment rights with a gag order that was issued in a case he was litigating against private prison giant CoreCivic. As PLN reported, the Court’s July 2022 order silenced Horwitz’s criticism of the company and even required him to delete related tweets from his social media account on Twitter, now known as X. [See: PLN, Feb. 2023, p.42.]

CoreCivic settled that case, along with four others Horwitz had pending against the firm, leading the judges in each to dismiss his appeal to the gag order as moot. That left only a lawsuit to continue his challenge to the Court’s local rule, under which the order was issued. “Mr. Horwitz needs to know the extent to which Rule 83.04 restricts his speech about his litigation in the Middle District because he continues to litigate in this Court, and he continues to do so against CoreCivic—a party that has already invoked Rule 83.04 to silence Mr. Horwitz’s speech and has demonstrated that it will do so again each time Mr. Horwitz asserts his right ...

On September 30, 2024, Utah-based Management & Training Corp. (MTC) ended its contract to operate the Giles W. Dalby Correctional Facility in Garza County, Texas. The lockup is owned by the county, which confirmed that most of some 170 employees were out of work.

MTC operated Dalby to hold federal detainees for U.S. Marshals until a ban issued in 2021 by the administration of Pres. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D). Garza County officials quickly brought the lockup in line with Texas Jail Commission (TJC) standards as MTC inked contracts to hold overflow from jails in Harris County and Tarrant County.

But after a failed inspection, TJC issued Dalby a notice of non-compliance on December 18, 2023. The problems were corrected, Garza County Judge Lee Norman said. However, no one notified Tarrant County, whose blindsided Commissioners voted to end their contract on February 6, 2024. Harris County also pulled out its detainees and sent them to other lockups; one, Louisiana’s Natchitoches Parish Correctional Center, inked a new contract with private jail operator LaSalle Corrections for a five-year term beginning November 1, 2024—the same day that Harris County detainees were due to arrive. It was unclear where other overflow detainees went, but ...