Prison Bankers Cash in on Captive Customers

by Daniel Wagner

Pat Taylor doesn’t believe in going into debt. She keeps her bills in a freezer bag under her bed, next to old photo albums, and believes in paying them on time religiously. For Taylor, living within your means is part of being a good Christian.

Lately, Taylor, 64, has felt torn between that commitment and her desire to be a loving, supportive mother for her son Eddie.

Eddie, 38, is serving a 20-year prison sentence at Bland Correctional Center for armed robbery. He’s doing his time at a medium-security Virginia state prison located 137 miles northwest of Johnson City, across the dips and valleys of the Blue Ridge Mountains here in the heart of Appalachia. The cost of supporting and visiting Eddie keeps going up, so Pat makes trade-offs.

“I would send him money even if it broke me, because I do go without paying some bills sometimes to go see him,” Pat says.

Between gas to make the trip and overpriced sandwiches from the prison vending machine, visiting Bland costs about $50, a strain on her housekeeper’s wages. So she alternates, visiting …

$690,000 Settlement in HRDC Suit Over Death of Prisoner’s Baby at CCA Jail

by Derek Gilna

In August 2014, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest for-profit prison firm, settled a federal lawsuit filed by PLN’s parent organization, the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), on behalf …

Ethics Charge Against Former U.S. Marshal Ends in Pre-Trial Diversion

by Derek Gilna

A criminal ethics charge filed against a former U.S. Marshals Service agent in Arizona who had applied for a job with a private prison company he previously monitored has been dropped, and prosecutors let him enter a pre-trial diversion program. At the same time, former agent Thomas B. Bullen is proceeding with a lawsuit against the Marshals Service.

The Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office refused to comment on Bullen’s case or the requirements of the pre-trial diversion program, which he agreed to enter in October 2013.

Bullen was indicted in 2012 for allegedly violating a federal ethics law that prohibits federal employees from taking jobs with companies they are responsible for overseeing. In Bullen’s case that included Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which operates a detention facility in Florence, Arizona.

Bullen was a chief administration officer for the Marshals Service until 2011, when he was demoted and put in charge of overseeing the agency’s contract with CCA and monitoring the company’s compliance.

A federal indictment said Bullen had described his duties in an unrelated proceeding, stating: “I go throughout the facility …

JPay Fined in Pennsylvania, Michigan for Operating without a License

As indicated in this issue’s cover story, JPay, a company incorporated in Delaware and based in Miami, Florida, and the industry leader in prison money transfer services, has been fined $408,500 for operating without a license in at least seven states – including Pennsylvania and Michigan.

JPay allows consumers to transfer money by using credit and debit cards through its website and by phone, through cash transfers with cash agent locations that contract with JPay, and by mailing money orders to the company. JPay charges consumers a fee for most money transfers.

The company’s contract with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections specifies it is the sole provider of electronic fund services for state prisoners.

In August 2011, the Pennsylvania Department of Banking (PDB) concluded an investigation that found JPay had not been licensed as a money transmitter as required by the state’s Money Transmitter Act, 7 P.S. §§ 6101-6018. Yet the company had been transferring money from Pennsylvania citizens to prisoners since December 2004.

The PDB found that JPay did not meet any of the Act’s exemptions; during the investigation, the company was cooperative …

By Victoria Law, Truthout

When her daughter was first incarcerated in Arizona's Perryville State Prison, "Rae" sent her money orders bought at the local cash-checking place or from Walmart. But those took too long to clear, leaving her daughter without needed supplies, so she began driving to the post office to buy money orders. Throughout her daughter's four years in prison, Rae has sent her money twice a month - $100 on the first of the month and whatever she can afford (usually $50 or less) on the 15th of the month.

Inspection Finds Improvements at CCA-Owned Ohio Facility Following Rocky Start

A September 2013 re-inspection report cited improvements in conditions at a privately-owned prison near Cleveland, Ohio compared to an inspection performed a year earlier, when state auditors identified numerous areas of non-compliance with state standards and conditions so bad that prisoners were living in mold-infested housing units without running water or working toilets.

Inspectors with the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee (CIIC), Ohio’s independent prison watchdog agency, said not all of the problems previously identified had been fixed at the 1,800-bed Lake Erie Correctional Institution (LECI), operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) – but their September 2013 report indicated the prison was “heading in a positive direction.”

CCA had purchased LECI from the state in 2011 for $72.7 million, and Ohio pays the company an annual fee and per diem rate to house prisoners at the facility under a 20-year contract with a guaranteed 90% occupancy. [See: PLN, Nov. 2012, p.16].

“The CIIC inspection team’s overall sense is that conditions have improved,” the report stated. “CCA has poured significant resources into the prison, including removing or changing staff, hiring on former (Ohio Department of Rehabilitation …

In July 2013, Armor Correctional Health Services agreed to settle a wrongful death suit by paying $800,000 to the family of Allen Daniel Hicks, Sr., who died after being denied medical care while incarcerated at a jail in Hillsborough County, Florida. The county paid another $200,000 to Hicks’ family.

Repackaging Mass Incarceration

by James Kilgore

Since my CounterPunch article in November 2013, which assessed the state of the movement against mass incarceration, the rumblings of change in the criminal justice system have steadily grown louder. Attorney General Eric Holder has continued to stream his mild-mannered critique by raising the issue of felony disenfranchisement;* the President has stepped forward with a proposal for clemency for people with drug offenses that could free hundreds. In the media, we’ve seen a scathing attack on America’s addiction to punishment in The New York Times and the American Academy of Sciences has released perhaps the most comprehensive critique of mass incarceration to date, the 464-page The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences. 

In late May 2014, several dozen conservatives including Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist and former NRA president David Keene pulled together the first Right on Crime (ROC) Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C. The ROC, an organization which boasts a coterie of members with impeccable right-wing credentials, reiterated the need for conservatives to drive the process of prison reform. The conference’s “call to action” argued: “In our earnest desire to have safer neighborhoods, policy responses …

Wells Fargo Bankrolls Private Prison Companies, Immigrant Detention

While Wells Fargo & Company has sold off much of the stock it once owned in private prison company GEO Group amid a divestment campaign targeting the multi-billion-dollar bank, it has concurrently increased its shares in Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

After initially selling off around 33% of its holdings in GEO Group stock in 2012, Wells Fargo continued to divest from GEO in the mutual funds it controlled. As of June 30, 2014, the bank owned 7,425 shares of GEO valued at over $272,000; previously, it had owned 4 million shares. However, Wells Fargo has steadily increased its stake in CCA and owned 1.08 million shares in the company valued at $36.6 million as of June 30, 2014.

Peter Cervantes-Gautschi, executive director of Enlace, a non-profit organization that has convened a National Private Prison Divestment Campaign, congratulated the bank on “its well-advised decision to dump the private prison stock” in GEO Group. He called on the financial industry giant to “rid itself of the rest of its private prison holdings and to cease financing private prison companies.”

A divestment campaign protest outside a Wells Fargo branch …

Captive Customers: Outsourcing Prison Services is Ruining Lives and Bilking Taxpayers

By Donald Cohen

Introducing for-profit companies into America's criminal justice system has been a bad deal for governments across the country.

During the past several years, a movement opposed to profit incentives in our criminal justice system has grown. Private prison corporations such as Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group have come under increasing scrutiny and pressure for cutting corners, contracts that include "occupancy guarantees" of 80, 90 and even 100 percent and unsafe prison conditions.