Prison Legal News Prevails in Tennessee Public Records Suit Against CCA

In 2002, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that a private company which performed services that were “functionally equivalent” to those provided by a public agency had to comply with the state’s Public Records Act, T.C.A. § 10-7-501, et seq. See: Memphis Publishing Company v. Cherokee Children & Family Services, Inc., 87 S.W.3d 67 (Tenn. 2002).

This ruling was not tested against the nation’s largest private prison company, Nashville-based Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), until CCA officials refused to produce public records requested by PLN associate editor Alex Friedmann in April 2007.

PLN had asked for records related to successful litigation against CCA, including verdicts, settlements and judgments, as well as “reports, audits, investigations or other similar documents which found ... that CCA did not comply with one or more terms of its contracts” with government agencies.

After CCA declined to produce the requested records, PLN filed suit in Davidson County Chancery Court on May 19, 2008, seeking to force CCA to comply with the state’s Public Records Act pursuant to the ruling in Cherokee. “Public agencies cannot contract away the public’s ability to review records that otherwise would be ...

TASER International’s Stock Shocked By $6.2 Million Damages Award

by John E. Dannenberg

The stock of TASER International, Inc. tanked by 11% to $6.13 per share on June 9, 2008 when three days earlier a federal jury in San Jose, California awarded $6.2 million in a wrongful death suit to the family of a fatally shocked prisoner. TASER spokesman Steve Tuttle said it plans to appeal the verdict.

Scottsdale, Arizona based TASER manufactures 50,000 volt stun guns for sale to police departments to use in lieu of bullets as “less lethal” weapons. But the irony of the concept “less lethal” is on a par with that of “partially pregnant.” It makes precious little difference to the deceased victim if he is slain by a police bullet or a Taser. While TASER touts its stun guns as safe, the statistics tell otherwise. Over 160 deaths involving Taser shocks by police have left civil rights advocates protesting and aggrieved families suing.
TASER has proudly touted its record of having survived 70 wrongful death lawsuits without a verdict against the company. But many of those cases were “settled,” meaning payment was made without admitting liability.

The instant case involved the family of Robert ...

Harris County, Texas Sends 600 Jail Prisoners to Private Pen in Louisiana

In December 2007, Harris County, Texas officials announced they were sending an additional 200 jail prisoners – 180 of them women – to a privately-run prison in northeast Louisiana. This brings the total number of Harris County prisoners incarcerated at the West Carroll Detention Center (WCDC) in Epps, Louisiana to 600. WCDC is owned and operated by Emerald Correctional Management.

Harris County, which includes the City of Houston, has a history of failing inspections by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) due to overcrowding and staffing issues. The Harris County Jail has failed every inspection since 2004, but finally passed an inspection in May 2007, shortly before shipping 400 prisoners to WCDC.

The county is also concerned about intervention from the U.S. Dept. of Justice (DOJ). It was reported in March 2008 that the DOJ had notified county officials that the jail was under investigation, with a focus on “protection of inmates from harm, environmental conditions, and inmate medical and mental health care.”

The Harris County jail system houses around 11,000 prisoners – 1,600 over capacity – and has received permission from the TCJS to use 2,000 ...

PHS Wins Quadriplegic Prisoner’s Negligence Suit, Jail Settles for $100,000

On February 14, 2008, a Florida jury found that Prison Health Services (PHS) was not negligent in misdiagnosing a jail prisoner’s broken neck, which left him a permanent quadriplegic. The series of events that led to this tragic result for ...

“The house always wins,” Warden Don Cabana proclaimed to the Sun Herald, a Mississippi newspaper, in July 2007. However, Harrison County, home of the Harrison County Adult Detention Center (ADC), has agreed to pay $3.5 million to the family of Jessie Lee Williams, Jr., who was brutally murdered at the ...

by David M. Reutter

Since 1984, the GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut Corrections) has focused on operating private prisons as its business model. It is now finding a more lucrative niche in privatizing mental health facilities and civil commitment centers for sexual predators. The company has been able to procure multiple contracts in Florida to develop and refine its expanded, and lucrative, business model.

This evolution in the type of services provided by GEO is a major transformation from the private investigation firm founded in 1954 by former FBI agent George R. Wackenhut. By 1958, Wackenhut was providing security guard services. With a nationwide need for more prison beds in the 1980s due to tough on crime rhetoric and harsh sentencing laws, the company saw an opportunity for increased profits when it entered into prison and jail operations in 1984.

That expansion resulted in Wackenhut Corrections – renamed as the GEO Group, Inc. in 2003 – becoming the self-proclaimed “world leader” in providing prison design, construction, financing and operations to state and national governments. The company does business in the United States, Australia, South Africa and the U.K. It manages or owns 67 prisons or residential treatment facilities with a total ...

by Matt Clarke

The Bush administration’s hard-nosed approach to immigration enforcement has caused an explosion in the immigrant detainee population, which has grown from a daily average of 19,600 in 2005 to 29,700 in 2007. This increase parallels a rise in deportations, from around 186,600 in FY 2005 to 276,900 in FY 2007. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has reacted to this increasing number of detainees by contracting with local jails and private prison firms for additional bed space.

The expanded use of imprisonment for immigration violators stems from the “deport them at any cost” philosophy of the current administration, which resulted in the elimination of ICE’s “catch and release” policy and a decrease in the use of alternatives such as release on bond and electronic monitoring. The justification for this approach is that less than a third of non-incarcerated immigration detainees voluntarily leave the country when ordered to do so, even if they are being supervised or monitored.Increasing the number of ICE detainees comes at a cost for both taxpayers and prisoners. The budget for ICE detentions grew from $864 million in FY 2005 to $1.6 million in FY 2008. A large portion of that budget was paid to ...

A federal jury has awarded a former detainee $100,001 against a private company that operated a New Jersey detention center for the U.S. government. The jury found for the plaintiff on her negligent supervision and Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) claims, but rejected her Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) claim. ...

Prison Legal News Attends CCA Shareholder Meeting

by Alex Friedmann

From 1992 to 1998, I served time at the South Central Correctional Center in Wayne County, Tennessee, which is operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest private prison firm. On May 16, 2008 I attended CCA’s annual shareholder meeting at the company’s corporate office in Nashville ... as an investor. I’ve been to several other CCA shareholder meetings over the years, usually in the company of Harmon Wray – a tireless advocate for criminal justice reform through his work with the United Methodist Church and Vanderbilt Program in Faith and Criminal Justice. Harmon died unexpectedly in July 2007, so this year I went alone.

All of CCA’s board members were present plus most of the corporate officers, including general counsel Gustavus A. Puryear IV. Gus and I don’t have much in common. He’s a multi-millionaire and I’m not. He’s a member of the exclusive, notoriously discriminatory Belle Meade Country Club; I’m not. He’s been nominated for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench in Middle Tennessee, the same jurisdiction where CCA is headquartered. I’m trying to derail his nomination (for details, visit www.againstpuryear.org).

We didn’t exchange pleasantries. ...

The defendants were not deliberately indifferent in providing the plaintiff a wheelchair that collapsed under him. The court notes that they always recognized his medical needs by providing him a wheelchair, he signed two forms reflecting that the wheelchair issued to him was in good working order and he filed no grievances about it, there was some indication that he sometimes used medical equipment in a rough manner, supporting a discretionary decision to give him an older wheelchair, and he got medical care immediately when he fell.

The plaintiff had no ADA or Rehabilitation Act claim because there was no evidence that he had been excluded from programs or denied other benefits afforded to others. See: Moore v. Prison Health Services, 24 F.Supp.2d 1164 (D.Kan. 1998).