By Matthew T. Clarke


States, strapped by tight budgets and pressed by swelling prison populations, are faced with the Hobson's choice of releasing prisoners early to ease overcrowding or building prisons they can ill afford to construct and staff. Private prison corporations seem to offer a third choice: They claim to be able to house excess prisoners without the substantial outlay of capital required to build prisons, and at a lower cost of incarceration than the government can manage.[1]

How do private prison corporations achieve this miracle of modern capitalism? By running a much more efficient operation than is possible with moribund state bureaucracies, say private prison proponents.[2] Opponents of private prisons reply that the savings are achieved by locating prisons in distant states with distressed labor markets and cutting the number of employees, slashing employee salaries and benefits, discouraging unionization, and reducing the quality and/or quantity of food, medical care and programs offered to prisoners, as well as by plain, old-fashioned cooking the books.[3]

Regardless of the quality of programs and services offered, relocating prisoners to distant states traumatizes both them and their families, making communication and visitation difficult and expensive, if not impossible, and reducing one of the ...

The plaintiff said he dislocated his previously injured shoulder in his sleep.

At 511: "For purposes of this case, it is undisputed that a shoulder dislocation causes great pain and is a serious medical need."

The defendants were not deliberately indifferent. Although the plaintiff said his shoulder had popped out of joint and had to be reset, he refused to let staff examine him (allegedly because of the pain), he didn't appear to be in extreme pain, so they didn't think his shoulder was actually dislocated. The next night he fell asleep and woke up without any shoulder pain.

On these facts, the court can't conclude that the defendants were deliberately indifferent or that they knew that the plaintiff had a serious medical need. (The dissenting judge has a rather different view of the facts: the plaintiff had obvious symptoms of a dislocated shoulder, and he was offered "Tylenol and a visit to a psychologist.")

The plaintiff alleged that the private medical provider had a practice of saving money by denying care and that its policy of having nurses seek approval before sending inmates to the hospital was a cost-saving measure. However, if the individual defendants didn't violate the plaintiff's ...

The plaintiff sought an injunction against his transfer to a private prison in Texas or Tennessee. His commitment to the "Wisconsin State Prisons" as opposed to the "Wisconsin Department of Corrections" does not mean he has a state law right to avoid transfer, and anyway state law is not enforceable in federal court. The failure to give notice that he may be incarcerated out of state did not deny due process; it is the conduct prohibited, not the potential sanctions, of which a criminal defendant must receive adequate notice.

The fact that the plaintiff may be forced to work at the prison to which he is transferred does not violate the Constitution, and the same rule applies to private prisons.

The Constitution does not prevent transfers out of state or to private prisons. Richardson v. Knight buttresses the prior conclusion by expressing no concern about private incarceration while recounting its history. See: Lambert v. Sullivan, 35 F.Supp.2d 1131 (E.D.Wis. 1999).

The hearing-impaired plaintiff complained of his treatment in a Wackenhut facility while awaiting deportation. Since he has now been deported, his claim about conditions is moot, and the court lacks jurisdiction to overturn his deportation even though he says he elected not to contest it because of the "torturous" treatment at the facility.

Although state prisons are within the scope of the Americans with Disabilities Act under Yeskey, federal detention centers are not, since the ADA addresses state or local government. See: Hurtado v. Reno, 34 F.Supp.2d 1261 (D.Colo. 1999).

by David M. Reutter

Whenever prisoners complain about inept healthcare, prison officials accuse them of being manipulating whiners, or assert they are being administered the ?community standard of care? by competent medical professionals. A review by The Capital Times has revealed that the community standard of care rendered to Wisconsin prisoners is often provided by doctors who have been disciplined by the Wisconsin Medical Examining Board (MEB).

Of the current 23 doctors employed by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (WDOC), four physicians, or 17 percent, have been disciplined by the MEB for incidents that occurred prior to their employment with the state prison system.

Since 2002, WDOC has had 37 different doctors in its employ. Of those, eight (22 percent) have been disciplined for incidents that occurred prior to or during their tenure with the department. In comparison, of the 23,000 licensed physicians in Wisconsin, only 1.5 to 2 percent have been disciplined by the MEB.

In its report, The Capital Times identified one WDOC doctor with a standard of care so disturbing that it unsettled his professional colleagues. Dr. Thomas Williams joined the WDOC in July 2004; the following year he was in charge of the infirmary at Dodge ...

$2 Million Confidential Settlement In CCA Prisoner's 2004 Beating Death Revealed

by Alex Friedmann

PLN has previously reported on the death of Estelle Richardson, a mentally ill prisoner who died at the CCA-operated Metro-Davidson County Detention Facility in Nashville, Tennessee on July 5, 2004.

Richardson was found unresponsive in a ...

$3,175,000 Judgment against Private Health Contractor for Illinois Prisoner's Stroke

On January 26, 2007, an Illinois prisoner who claimed he suffered a stroke due to negligence on the part of Health Professionals, Ltd. a private company that contracts with the State to provide health care to prisoners' was awarded $3.175 ...

This exclusive article was first published on Alternet, at: www.alternet.org/rights/84388 and www.alternet.org/rights/84491

By Silja J.A. Talvi, AlterNet

Posted on May 5, 2008, Printed on May 7, 2008

Editor's Note: In 2004, Estelle Richardson's lifeless and battered body was found on the floor of a Corrections Corp. of America prison cell. Four years later, that unsolved homicide has come back to haunt Republican stalwart "Gus" Puryear, the nation's top private prison litigator and Bush nominee for U.S. District Court. This is Part I of an AlterNet exclusive, two-part investigative feature by Silja J.A. Talvi.

Part 1: Mr. Puryear, meet Ms. Richardson

It's hard to say what Estelle Ann Richardson would have thought if she would have had the chance to meet the man who authorized a hefty settlement check for her children.

Maybe she would have noticed that he moved in the world like someone who was used to things going his way, that he had a lot of money, or that he looked a lot younger and more relaxed than most of his corporate peers. It's hard to say, because she never had the chance to be introduced to the harmless-enough looking man possessed of a rather ostentatious name: Gustavus ...

by Matt Clarke

Last September produced a bumper crop of prison and jail escapes around the country, including a desperate escape by two Texas prisoners that resulted in the death of a guard, a car jacking and two shootouts. Plus a dead horse.

Jerry Duane Martin, 37, and John Ray Falk, Jr., 40, were just two Texas prisoners working oppressive field labor jobs at the Wynne Unit, a Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) facility, until they escaped and killed a guard in the process on September 24, 2007. Field labor is the TDCJ's equivalent of a chain gang. The "hoe squads" work outside the prison fence in agricultural fields, often literally with an eight-pound hoe in hand. They are supervised by armed guards on horseback.

The work is hard. Verbal and psychological abuse by the guards is plentiful. It is essentially a disciplinary detail without the benefit of any disciplinary process. Prisoners who have disciplinary problems are put to work in the field, as are new prisoners, who must "prove themselves worthy" of a non-paying job in industry or support services, and prisoners the administration simply doesn't like, such as "writ writers." In Martin's case, he was likely on ...

by David M. Reutter

A Report by the Vermont Protection and Advocacy System (VP & A) has found breakdowns by staff of the Vermont Department of Corrections (VDOC) in its furlough procedure and troubling care provided by VDOC's medical provider, Prison Health Services (PHS). The July 2007 report focuses on the treatment of VDOC prisoner Michael Estabrook.

The subject of the report has been unable to read it. That is because while in custody of VDOC, Estabrook died at Fletcher Allen Health Care (FAHC) on March 7, 2006. The report is based upon Estabrook's medical and classification file notes. At the time of his death, Estabrook was 37 years old, divorced with two children.

In May 2004, he entered VDOC a very sick man. He suffered from a disabling disease called severe dilated cardiomyopathy, which is a condition that decreases the heart's ability to pump blood because the heart's main pumping chamber, the left ventricle, is enlarged and weakened. He also had congestive heart failure.

Recognizing his condition was "terminal and debilitating," VDOC around July 21, 2005, granted Estabrook a medical furlough because he was physically incapable of presenting a danger to society. His furlough, however, was revoked on April ...