Recidivism Performance Measures for Private Halfway Houses in Pennsylvania

by Alex Friedmann

In 2013, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) officials announced they would provide financial incentives to privately-operated community corrections facilities – halfway houses – that reduce the recidivism rates of offenders released from those facilities.

The unique initiative followed a DOC report that found high recidivism rates in the state, with prisoners released from halfway houses (most of which are privately-operated) having higher rates than those released directly from prison. For example, for 2010-11 releasees, the one-year overall recidivism rate was 40.5% for those paroled to a community corrections facility but only 32.7% for those released from prison.

An average recidivism rate based on data from the report was established as a baseline, and privately-operated community corrections facilities are required to meet the baseline rate within a certain range or risk losing their contracts. Those that achieve rates at least 10% lower than the baseline will receive a financial bonus of one percent of the contract amount.

“It’s not unreasonable for us to expect them to have an impact on crime, because that’s what we’re paying them to do,” said Pennsylvania Department of …

Former New Mexico State Senator Released from Prison

Manny Aragon, 66, a former New Mexico state Senate leader, was released from federal prison on December 5, 2013. Although most federal prisoners are sent to a halfway house to complete the remainder of their sentence, Aragon was released to home confinement at his house in Albuquerque.

“He’s still subject to our rules and regulations and accountability monitoring,” said Bureau of Prisons spokesman Chris Burke.

Aragon served three decades in the state legislature, rising to the position of Senate President Pro Tem, and was one of New Mexico’s most powerful Democrats. However, his lengthy political career was eclipsed by the sordid details of his downfall: A scandal that involved skimming $4.4 million from a project to build the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Courthouse. Aragon, who admitted taking $600,000 from the courthouse project, was one of several defendants prosecuted in the scandal.

He pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy and fraud charges in 2008 and was sentenced to 67 months in prison, plus a $750,000 fine and $649,000 in restitution. He served around 4½ years before being released.

Aragon was also known for flip-flopping on the issue of prison …

BOP Criticized for Failing to Oversee Healthcare Administrator at FCC Butner

by Derek Gilna

The federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is facing criticism for its apparent failure to adequately oversee a Florida-based company responsible for coordinating the payment of BOP bills for prisoner medical care in North Carolina.

Before it went into receivership, MDI Holdings, Inc. of Ponte Verde Beach, Florida was a health care technology and analysis company that administered medical care for some 5,000 prisoners at the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, North Carolina. The BOP’s contract with MDI was the company’s largest; the actual medical care at Butner was subcontracted to Duke University Health Center and a number of private practitioners.

MDI was successful for a number of years. Sales in 2009 reached $97 million, for example. But shortly thereafter the firm experienced a series of events that culminated in the expiration of its contract with the BOP in July 2012. When that contract was not renewed, the financial house of cards holding the company together collapsed.

The court-appointed receiver tasked with cleaning up the mess was Ronald Winters, a managing director with the Alvarez & Marsal Healthcare Industry Group in …

CCA Has Long History of Wage Violations, Poor Treatment of Employees

On August 20, 2014, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest for-profit prison operator, issued a press release that attempted to put a positive spin on over $8 million in back wages the company had agreed to pay to employees at one of its facilities.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), CCA had paid 30 to 40 percent less than required under rules for federal contractors to workers at the company’s California City Correctional Center. CCA was also accused of failing to make required payments to employees’ retirement and health and life insurance accounts, as well as violations related to “inaccurate recording of breaks, lunches and overall hours worked,” according to the Associated Press. Some employees will receive more than $30,000 in back pay.

“The people that get these federal monies from a federal agency to get one of these contracts have to abide by the wage rates,” stated Eduardo Huerta, assistant director of the DOL’s wage and hour division.

CCA claimed the $8 million payment for back wages was due to a “retroactive contract modification” by federal officials, and said …

Private Prison Contractor Not Subject to New Jersey’s Open Records Act

On October 12, 2012, a New Jersey state superior court held that Community Education Centers (CEC), a private prison contractor, was not required to disclose its records under the state’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA), N.J.S.A. § 47:1A-1 to -13. The decision was affirmed on appeal.

CEC operates Delaney Hall, a prison-like facility, for Essex County. The company contracts with Education and Health Centers of America (EHCA), a private non-profit entity, and EHCA contracts separately with the county to manage the facility.

John Paff filed an application in state court to require CEC to comply with his OPRA request for disclosure of records, including attorney billing records and personnel files for three CEC employees. The company opposed his request, arguing it was not subject to OPRA because it was not a “public entity.”

The court held that records subject to OPRA are limited to those kept or filed by any officer, commission, agency or authority of the state or political subdivision thereof in the course of the government’s official business. “OPRA defines ‘public agency’ to include ‘any of the principal departments in the Executive …

Ninth Circuit: Prisoner’s Service of Process for Other Prisoner Not Protected Conduct

by Mark Wilson

On September 10, 2013, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a prisoner’s retaliation claim, holding that serving a summons for another prisoner is not constitutionally protected conduct.

Hawaiian prisoner Richard H. Blaisdell was incarcerated at the Saguaro Correctional Center, a prison in Arizona operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Since 2007 he has filed at least three lawsuits against prison officials.

On April 23, 2008, Blaisdell asked CCA classification supervisor Christina Frappiea to notarize a document for a lawsuit he planned to file against the facility. When she finished, Blaisdell announced that she had been “served” and handed her an unrelated summons and federal civil complaint prepared by another prisoner, Anthony Gouveia.

The complaint concerned Frappiea’s refusal to notarize a document related to a lawsuit Gouveia had filed in Mississippi. Blaisdell was not a party to that suit and had agreed to serve process for Gouveia.

Blaisdell and Frappiea argued about whether he had the right to serve her. She then issued disciplinary reports against Blaisdell, charging him with “Conspiracy” for agreeing to …

How to Starve the For-profit Prison Beast

by Justin Jones

I know some private prison lobbyists who would love it if you were found with a cell phone. Assuming, of course, that you’re already locked in one of the prisons their clients operate in Oklahoma.

Introducing a cell phone into a correctional facility used to be a misdemeanor in Oklahoma. Now, it’s a felony. This change did not happen for any reason other than a private prison lobbyist provided his client with a good way to make even more revenue off of people already imprisoned. Bumping this crime up from a misdemeanor to a felony means that when a person is caught with a cell phone in prison, he or she will end up staying in prison even longer; in most cases the new sentence will be added to the end of the existing one, instead of allowing people to serve time for both the crime that landed them behind bars and the cell phone infraction simultaneously. More prison time, more profits.

Does it matter that this policy has zero public safety value, as cell phones were already considered contraband behind bars? Not to a …

Seventh Circuit: No Qualified Immunity for Diabetic Detainee’s Death

by Mark Wilson

On August 20, 2013, the Seventh Circuit affirmed a district court’s denial of qualified immunity in a case concerning an Illinois pretrial detainee’s death due to medical neglect.

Phillip Okoro, 23, was arrested for …

SEC Rejects CCA, GEO Group Shareholder Resolutions to Reduce Prison Phone Rates

On February 18, 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) granted a request filed by for-profit prison company GEO Group to exclude a shareholder resolution that sought to reduce the high cost of phone calls made by prisoners at GEO-operated facilities. Ten days later, the SEC granted a request by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) to exclude a similar shareholder resolution.

The resolutions, filed by Alex Friedmann, managing editor of PLN and associate director of the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), would have required the companies to forgo “commission” kickbacks from prison phone service providers. [See: PLN, Jan. 2014, p.44]. Such kickbacks are typically based on a percentage of revenue generated from inmate telephone services (ITS) – revenue that is mostly paid by prisoners’ families.

Specifically, the shareholder resolutions stated that GEO and CCA “shall not accept ITS commissions” at their facilities, and that when the companies contract with prison phone service providers they “shall give the greatest consideration to the overall lowest ITS phone charges among the factors [they consider] when evaluating and entering into ITS contracts.” CCA and GEO both filed no-action …

Administrators Fired at Privately-Run Texas Jail

The warden and head of security at the Liberty County Jail (LCJ) in Liberty, Texas have been fired in the wake of allegations that the chief of security sexually assaulted a female prisoner at the facility. The 285-bed jail is operated by the New Jersey-based Community Education Centers (CEC), a for-profit company.

Warden Timothy New and Chief of Security Kenneth Reid Nunn were fired in September 2012, just days after the county received a notice of claim from attorney Paul Houston LaValle on behalf of former LCJ prisoner Brandy Nichole O’Brien. O’Brien had been incarcerated at LCJ for failing to make timely child support payments.

According to the notice of claim, O’Brien “was repeatedly subjected to assault and battery, sexual assault, deviant sexual assault, humiliation, degradation and intentional infliction of emotional distress at the hands of Chief of Security Kenneth Reid Nunn and others” while incarcerated at the privately-run lock-up.

“Further, when Chief Nunn was repeatedly caught violating my client’s rights by other members of the jail staff or sheriff’s office, my client was threatened, coerced and coached on the statements she gave to investigators by Warden Tim New …