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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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Maryland Extends Contract with YesCare Despite Bankruptcy of Predecessor Corizon Health
For-profit prison healthcare contractor Corizon Health had a sordid reputation even before it attempted a legal maneuver known as the “Texas Two-Step,” using that state’s laws to put its valuable assets in a new company called YesCare and creating a second company called Tehum Care Services to assume its remaining liabilities—including payouts owed to prisoners for negligence and malpractice—before promptly declaring the firm’s bankruptcy.
As previously reported in PLN, questions arose over ownership of Tehum, while a Court-appointed mediator in the bankruptcy case, former judge David Jones, resigned after it was revealed he was living with an attorney representing YesCare—even as the firm was attempting to use the bankruptcy proceedings to wriggle free of the bulk of what it owes for lawsuits filed by current and former prisoners. [See: PLN, Jan. 2024, p.29.]
Despite such questionable legal antics, and Corizon Health’s lengthy record of providing inadequate healthcare to prisoners, Maryland officials agreed to extend the company’s contract in March 2024. Now operating as YesCare, the firm had already received $700 million for supplying medical services in Maryland prisons and state-run jails since 2018. The nine-month extension is worth another $125 million.
Gov. Wes Moore (D) and state Treasurer Dereck Davis voted for the extension. Also approved was a nine-month extension valued at $25 million for another private company, Centurion Health, to provide mental health care to state prisoners. According to Carolyn Scruggs, Secretary of Maryland’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, the extensions were necessary due to delays in the rebidding process for the contracts.
State Comptroller Brooke Lierman voted against the contract extension, calling YesCare “uniquely terrible and irresponsible.” She cited the company’s history of poor medical care and unpaid bills to local healthcare agencies, adding: “I do not believe that YesCare is a contractor that aligns with our values and I do not believe that the contractor deserves a unanimous vote from the Board of Public Works.”
Source: Baltimore Banner
