by David M. Reutter

Businesses seeking to profit from the exponential expansion of our nation’s prison population are now turning to visitation. Florida-based JPay is implementing its “video-conference visitation” in Indiana’s prison system, while other companies, such as einmate.com, are developing similar prison-based video visitation programs.

The use of technology for prison visits has its benefits. For prisoners, the latest generation of video conferencing puts them right into their family or friends’ homes, allowing them to see things they could never view in the sterile, drab atmosphere of a prison visiting room.

“I feel like I’m at home, kind of,” said Indiana prisoner Candace McCann. “It’s good to see that kind of stuff.” Video visitation allows McCann to see her seven-year-old daughter, Kashmir, every Sunday morning. In addition to saving her family a three-hour drive and the costs associated with such lengthy trips, McCann is able to watch her daughter model new clothes and show off her toys through live streaming video.

Prison officials prefer video visitation due to its security features. Video visits allow monitoring in real-time or via re-cording while eliminating the possibility of contraband entering the facility. The video visitation service being developed by einmate.com, for example, ...

The South Dakota Supreme Court has ruled that a state prisoner can bring a third-party beneficiary claim to enforce a settlement agreement between the South Dakota Department of Corrections (DOC) and another prisoner.

Charles E. Sisney, a DOC prisoner, filed a pro se complaint in state circuit court seeking to enforce a settlement agreement between the DOC and another prisoner, Philip Heftel. Heftel had filed a civil rights suit against the DOC in 1998, alleging that he was deprived of his First Amendment right to free exercise of his Jewish religion because the DOC refused to provide him with kosher meals. Heftel and the DOC settled, with the DOC agreeing “to provide a kosher diet to all Jewish inmates who request it,” consisting of “prepackaged meals which are certified kosher for noon and evening meals.”

In February 2007, the prison’s food service provider stopped serving prepackaged kosher meals and began serving a new kosher diet that included beans and rice prepared in the prison kitchen. Meals not prepared in a kosher kitchen are not considered kosher regardless of the food used for the meal. Sisney filed a grievance alleging that the new kosher diet violated both his religious beliefs and ...

Andrew W. Kilburn, a Massachusetts state prisoner, filed suit in state superior court alleging negligence and violation of the Eighth Amendment by Department of Correction (DOC) officials and medical personnel employed by Correctional Medical Services (CMS) and University of Massachusetts Correctional Health (UMCH). Kilburn claimed that the defendants had failed to properly treat a small cavity for over three years until the tooth had to be pulled. He also challenged a DOC policy that required him to use “the world’s smallest toothbrush,” which would not reach his back teeth. A series of three judges issued orders which ultimately resulted in a summary judgment ruling in favor of the defendants. Kilburn appealed.

The Court of Appeals held that the toothbrush issue was moot because the DOC had since changed its policy to allow the purchase of one larger toothbrush every 90 days. The appellate court also held that a medical malpractice tribunal’s finding of insufficient proof of liability against CMS dentist Anthony Orlatunji required that he be dismissed as a defendant. However, the court’s findings did not extend to former CMS dentist Steven Black, who had failed to answer Kilburn’s complaint, or to CMS as a company.

The DOC claimed immunity ...

“Trouble, oh we got trouble, right here in River City! With a capital ‘T’ that rhymes with ‘P,’ and that stands for pool.”
– Professor Hill

The above quote is from The Music Man, a 1957 Broadway musical in which “Professor Hill,” an opportunistic con artist, convinces the gullible residents of a small rural town to buy instruments and uniforms to form a marching band. Replace “River City” with “Hardin” and “pool” with “prison,” and you have a modern-day adaptation of this classic performance – complete with a shady conman, unsuspecting townfolk and entertaining hijinks. The only thing missing is a musical score. And a happy ending.

A Prison Without Prisoners

PLN recently reported on the plight of Hardin, Montana, a middle-of-nowhere town with a population of 3,500 located in Big Horn County about an hour’s drive east of Billings. Hardin made national headlines last April when the city, desperate to find prisoners to fill its vacant 464-bed correctional facility, offered to take maximum-security terrorist detainees housed at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. [See: PLN, October 2009, p.28].

Hardin’s Two Rivers Detention Center was completed in September 2007 with the goal of spurring economic development and creating ...

By Lucas Anderson *

I. Introduction
II. Background
A. Historical Perspectives and the Growth of the Private Prison Industry
B. The Debate over Prison Privatization
III. Prison Administration Is an Inherently Governmental Function
A. Due Process Requirements and the Nondelegation Doctrine Forbid Private Prison Administration
B. The Office of Management and Budget A-76 Circular and the Federal Acquisition Regulation Prohibit Delegation of “Inherently Governmental Functions:”
C. Delegating Prison Administration Is a Poor Policy Choice
IV. The Profit Motive Detrimentally Impacts Inmate Care, Rehabilitation, and Criminal Sentencing Policy
A. Cost-Cutting Measures Lead to Decreased Quality of Care
B. The Profit Motive Imposes Severe Social and Economic Costs
1. Harsh Criminal Laws Benefit the Private Prison Industry
2. Harsh Criminal Laws Do Not Reduce Crime Rates or Benefit Society
3. Effective Rehabilitation Programs Decrease Recidivisim Rates, Impacting Private Prison Companies’ Revenue
C. The Purported Short-Term Economic Benefits of Prison Privatization Are Offset by Long-Term Economic Costs
V. Statutory Prohibitions on Private Prison Contracts
A. Particularized Contract Terms and Aggressive Monitoring Programs Are Inviable Alternative Solutions
B. Current Legislative Prohibitions on Government Contracts with Private Prison Corporations
VI. Conclusion

Appendix [Note: The appendix is available in the .pdf version of this article on ...

With the unraveling of the deal for the shadowy American Private Police Force to take over and populate an empty jail in Hardin, Montana, it’s pretty clear that the small city got played by an ex-con and his (supposed) private security firm.

But an investigation by TPMmuckraker into how Hardin ended up with the 92,000 square foot facility in the first place suggests that, long before “low-level card shark” Michael Hilton ever came to town, Hardin officials had already been taken for a ride by a far more powerful set of players: a well-organized consortium of private companies headquartered around the country, which specializes in pitching speculative and risky prison projects to local governments desperate for jobs.

The projects have generated multi-million dollar profits for the companies involved, but often haven’t created the anticipated payoff for the communities, and have left a string of failed or failing prisons in their wake.

“They look for an impoverished town that’s desperate,” says Frank Smith of the Private Corrections Institute, a Florida-based group that opposes prison privatization. “They come in looking very impressive, saying, ‘We’ll make money rain from the skies.’ In fact, they don’t care whether it works or not.”

The Pitch ...

by Prof. Andrew L. Spivak

The incarceration rate, which from the 1920s to the early 1970s hovered between about 100 to 120 state and federal prisoners per 100,000 Americans, has risen nearly fourfold. While the rate of increase has slowed substantially in recent years, the raw numbers continue to climb and many prisons are operating at or above capacity. Along with increasing correctional populations, per capita state prison expenditures have likewise expanded, but spending for building new prisons or renovating existing facilities has not been commensurate with the overall level of growth.

Under these pressures, the country increasingly turned to the private sector to deal with burgeoning prison populations. Americans’ affinity for market economy solutions and a corresponding distrust of government in general led to a belief that the private sector might outperform government agencies in providing incarceration services. Although the proportion of state correctional budgets spent on private prisons is relatively low, about six percent nationally, some states spend a much higher proportion than others.

As of the last available data (about 3 years ago), Oklahoma ranked fourth in the nation with 30% of its funds allocated for private prison expenditures, and was sixth in the percentage of total ...

by Matt Clarke

Medical care for approximately 10,000 prisoners in the Maricopa County jail system is an abject failure. That may explain why the Arizona county, which is the fourth largest in the nation, has had to pay over $13 million in jury awards, settlements and legal fees in lawsuits involving prisoners’ deaths and injuries due to medical neglect over the last decade. The county has also paid $250,000 to consultants to help identify solutions to the jail’s problematic health care services. [See: PLN, March 2009, p.34]

The major causes of the breakdown in medical treatment have been identified as poor record keeping and understaffing, with attendant overworking of the jail system’s health care personnel. Maricopa County operates six detention facilities, including its infamous tent city, under the direction of also-infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

In the early 1990s, then-Sheriff Tom Agnos asked the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to create Correctional Health Services (CHS) to assume responsibility over the medical care needs of prisoners in the jail system. By the time Betty Adams took over as director of CHS in 2007, the agency had gone through four other directors in the past ten years. By all accounts, health care at ...

by David M. Reutter

“We’re a law-respecting, law-abiding community. ... We teach our children to respect and look up to men and women who wear badges, and that’s the way it oughta be,” said Florida state senator Don Gaetz. But the way it “oughta be” and the way things are do not always coincide.

Numerous incidents in Florida indicate that just because someone wears a law enforcement badge does not mean they are deserving of respect. In fact, corrections and sheriff’s officials involved in recent scandals are in some cases headed to prison or jail themselves, or have joined the ranks of the unemployed.

Senator Gaetz’s comment came after Okaloosa County Sheriff Charlie W. Morris and his director of administration, Teresa Adams, were arrested by federal marshals. At the time of their arrests in February 2009, Morris was president of the Florida Sheriffs Association.

Morris and Adams “created fictitious bonuses to sheriff’s department employees,” according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice. “[T]he employees were directed to return all or a portion of the bonuses in the form of cash or cashier’s checks under the pretense that these returned funds were to be used for charitable purposes,” but ...

by Matt Clarke

As the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) prepared for a June 20, 2009 protest in Williamson County, Texas outside the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility, a secure immigration detention center run by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), it was revealed that LULAC had accepted substantial donations from the private prison company.

According to LULAC’s national convention programs for 2005, 2006 and 2007, CCA was a Patron-level donor for each of those years. Patron-level means a donation of $10,000 or more; the company was also an exhibitor at the 2005 and 2007 conventions. Some critics said CCA’s sponsorship of LULAC events dated back to 2002.

Jaime Martinez, a San Antonio labor activist and LULAC’s National Treasurer, explained that he and LULAC President Rosa Rosales initiated the return of CCA’s 2007 sponsorship funds as soon as they learned about disturbing conditions at Hutto – conditions that resulted in a lawsuit against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), which led to much-needed reforms at the facility. [See: PLN, Jan. 2008, p.20; Aug. 2007, p.10]. Referring to the money as “tainted,” Martinez said LULAC didn’t want CCA’s sponsorship.

Before the controversy erupted over the maltreatment of immigration ...