by John E. Dannenberg

The federal court-appointed Receiver for California?s prison healthcare system is investigating the deaths of four prisoners who were transferred to out-of-state facilities, but stopped short of declaring the deaths suspicious or negligent. His concern is heightened because the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is presently engaged in selectively shipping 8,500 foreign national prisoners to privately-run facilities around the country in order to meet federal court demands to reduce the state?s overcrowded prison system.

Court-appointed Receiver Robert Sillen, who has since been replaced, spoke at the Sacramento Press Club in July 2007 and called three of the four out-of-state prisoner deaths ?not quite natural.? He said his staff was reviewing the prisoners? medical files to determine if their deaths were preventable. The prisoners died in Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee and an undisclosed location under the federal witness protection program.

However, it is not clear whether prisoners transferred out-of-state due to overcrowding, who are typically housed at private facilities, are covered under the protections of the Plata v. Schwarzenegger prison healthcare receivership. If they are, that might create a conflicting two-tier program for healthcare delivery: the profit-driven substandard care typical of private prisons and the federal constitution-dictated ...

On June 1, 2007, forty-six prisoners at the Tri-County Justice and Detention Center in Ullin, Illinois were involved in an hour-long riot. The 226-bed jail is owned by Pulaski County but operated by Florida-based GEO Group, formerly known as Wackenhut.

The disturbance began around 8:00 p.m. when prisoners barricaded themselves into one section of the jail and began burning mattresses and books. About half an hour later, police ended the uprising by firing tear gas into the barricaded area. No reason was given for the disturbance.
?We?re investigating why it happened, how it happened and we?re going to get down to the who needs to be charged,? said Pulaski County Sheriff Randy Kern, who is also the jail?s warden.

The incident occurred about five weeks after a riot at a GEO-run Illinois prison, the New Castle Correctional Facility, which resulted in nine injuries. [See: PLN, Nov. 2007, p.16]. The Illinois Department of Corrections blamed understaffing and poor staff training for that incident.

?If you get over the moral issue of incarcerating people for profit, I think you can see they don?t do a good job,? said Ken Kopczynski of the Private Corrections Institute, which opposes prison privatization. He added that ...

Audit Reveals Problems with Maryland's New Prisoner Health Care System

by Michael Rigby

Maryland's new prisoner health care program remained understaffed in 2006, and the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) has yet to implement promised drug treatment programs or an electronic database meant to better track prisoner records, an audit of the state's new system has revealed.

In the report, released on April 30, 2007, auditors from the Office of Legislative Audits noted "several significant areas of noncompliance" affecting prisoner medical care.

"We found a number of areas in which inadequate monitoring (by the state) appeared to lead to potential lapses in required medical coverage and certain required medical treatments," auditors wrote.

The audit was state's first independent investigation of the new system, which the DPSCS implemented in 2005 [see PLN, February 2006, pg. 14].

Under the previous system, for-profit prison medical providers were offered fixed-priced contracts for their services. With rising medical costs, however, these contractors balked at signing new contracts, claiming they weren't as profitable as they once were.

Prisoner activists also disliked the fixed-price system because it gave medical contractors an incentive to skimp on prisoner health care services in order to boost ...

by Matt Clarke

In August 2007, Bexar County, Texas Sheriff Ralph Lopez, 71, was indicted on three felony counts involving corruption. Lopez tendered his resignation on September 1, 2007, and two days later pleaded no contest to three misdemeanor charges in a deal that spared him from going to prison on state charges. He was fined $10,000; the plea bargain also required him to cooperate with state and federal authorities.

The resignation was part of the plea, as was the District Attorney?s agreement not to prosecute Lopez?s wife, Nancy, who was under investigation for helping to launder campaign contributions. On September 4, 2007, Bexar County Commissioners accepted the sheriff?s resignation.

The charges against Lopez resulted from his accepting an all-expense-paid golf vacation in Costa Rica from Louisiana-based Premier Management Enterprises in exchange for helping Premier get the lucrative Bexar County Jail commissary contract. He failed to report the trip and $600 in unrelated campaign donations.

On September 25, 2007, Lopez?s long-time campaign manager, John Reynolds, pleaded guilty to one count of third-degree felony theft related to his diversion of $32,000 in Premier money into his own accounts. Former Premier CEO Ian Williamson testified that Reynolds had demanded ?charitable donations? and ...

Who's Monitoring Prison Medical Contract Requirements in New Jersey? No One

by David Reutter

PLN subscribers often read reports about the effects of privatized prisoner health care and the spread of privatization to prison and jail systems throughout the nation. These real-life stories of prisoner deaths, maimings and suffering occur even when the corrections agency has a contract that describes the services to be performed and, often, ways to determine performance standards and impose penalties for failure to meet those standards. In the face of grossly deficient health care despite such oversight, one is led to ask: Who is overseeing the provision of privatized prison medical services?

That question was recently answered as it relates to the contract between the New Jersey Department of Corrections (NJDOC) and Correctional Medical Services (CMS) for prison dental care. The New Jersey Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that the NJDOC's Assistant Commissioner of Administration (ACA) was responsible for overseeing CMS's compliance with its contract.

The OIG found that despite the ACA's knowledge that CMS had missed contract deadlines for provision of services, the NJDOC did not impose penalties on the company. In other words, no one took any remedial action.

The NJDOC contracted ...

Proponents of privatization of prison services tout it as a way to not only save governmental entities money, but to remove them from legal entanglement. Officials in Florida?s Sarasota County Sheriff?s Office (SCSO) are not realizing those supposed benefits for its medical care contract.

Since 2002, the SCSO had had a contract with Prison Health Services (PHS) to provide medical services to prisoners in its jail. That contract was worth $2.4 million yearly. With the contract expiring on October 1, 2007, Sheriff Bill Balkwill decided to solicit bids in May 2007 rather than negotiate an extension with PHS. He was expecting bids to be about $2.5 million, which was the amount set aside in SCSO?s budget.

When the bids were opened in June, SCSO officials were taken aback. ?We were in sticker shock,? said Major Skip Rossi, SCSO?s finance director. All the bids were over $3 million.

PHS? bid was $738,138 over budget. Armor Correctional Services was $831,234 over budget, and a third bidder was $1.3 million higher. The three year bid from Amor was lower than PHS? bid. Four days after the bids were unsealed, it was recommended all bids be rejected and it was suggested by SCSO?s consultant, ...

During the 2006 elections, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott ran television ads touting the capture of the state's 500th Internet child predator. Shortly after elected lawmakers convened in 2007 they went to work on a bill that would impose the death penalty for the most serious child sex offenders. Less than a month later Governor Rick Perry, Greg Abbott and the entire Texas legislature had to take a long look in the mirror when it was revealed that two high ranking state employees had been molesting young boys for years.

From 2003 to 2005, complaints of inappropriate sexual behavior began piling up against John Paul Hernandez and Ray E. Brookins. But rather than spark an immediate investigation, the complaints were largely ignored while both men rose to positions of authority in the Texas Youth Commission (TYC), the state?s juvenile justice agency.

John Paul Hernandez was the principal of the West Texas State School, a facility for youthful offenders in Pyote, Texas. Reports indicate that Hernandez used offers of candy, cake and educational assistance as enticements to lure boys into sexual encounters.

Ray Brookins, an administrator at the school, had gone so far as to have a 16-year-old boy live with ...

Tennessee's next trial court judge might be a prison company executive who has less courtroom experience than most inmates.

Mother Jones article
Stephanie Mencimer

February 20, 2008 -- In October 2000, Dick Cheney faced off for a debate with Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman. The 60-year-old Cheney appeared comfortable discussing the ins and outs of policy and made good-natured jokes about Lieberman's singing abilities, or lack thereof. Cheney's smooth performance reflected his many years in public service. But the aspiring vice president also had a strong debate-preparation team made up of longtime friends and GOP loyalists. Among them was Gustavus Adolphus Puryear IV, a legislative director for Tennessee senator Bill Frist, who was on contract with the Bush/Cheney campaign. Puryear apparently did such a good job prepping Cheney that he was called in again in 2004 to help him gear up for his debate with Democratic vice-presidential candidate John Edwards.

Puryear's efforts on behalf of the Bush administration paid off last June when the president nominated him to be a federal trial court judge for the Middle District of Tennessee. Puryear certainly isn't the first judicial nominee selected primarily for his political service, but still, his resume is remarkably thin on ...

by David M. Reutter

Joshua W. Martin III, the Independent Monitor who is overseeing an agreement between the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Delaware Department of Corrections (DDOC), has issued his first semi-annual report. The agreement with the DOJ followed a public outcry that ensued after The News Herald published a series of damning articles that detailed the abysmal medical care provided to DDOC prisoners. [See: PLN, Dec. 2005, pg. 1; July 2007, pg. 8].

The Monitor retained a team of medical and mental health experts to assist in inspections and making recommendations to help the DDOC come into compliance with adequate medical care practices. The monitoring team made an initial visit to the Delores J. Baylor Women?s Correctional Institution (Baylor), Delaware Correctional Center (DCC), Howard R. Young Correctional Institution (Young), and Sussex Correctional Institution (SCI) during the week of May 21, 2007.

The Monitor?s first report focused on determining the challenges faced by the DDOC to achieve ?substantial compliance? with the agreement. One year of such compliance will terminate its agreement with the DOJ. Future reports will focus on providing technical assistance to the DDOC and addressing specific areas of concern such as sick call, chronic diseases, ...

by John E. Dannenberg

With salacious tales of murderous and thieving former guards splashed across local headlines, Seal Beach, California officials shut down their privately-run jail on June 15, 2007.

The city claimed that the jail?s for-profit contractor, Texas-based Correctional Systems, Inc. (CSI), not only failed to make money but cost the city thousands of dollars annually. ?We dismissed the vendor for a failure to produce a profit,? said Seal Beach Police Chief Jeffrey Kirkpatrick. ?We had to share a loss and that was not tenable.?

In addition to losing money, CSI managed to score 15 major deficiencies during jail inspections in recent years, including having no written policy for grievances, no policy to segregate prisoners with infectious diseases, and no policy to isolate the mentally ill. But closing the 30-bed jail after 13 years of operation was about more than unsatisfactory performance or financial problems ? it involved one of the most sordid crimes in the history of Orange County, California.

Most average citizens are unaware that there are upper echelon pay-to-stay jails in southern California where non-violent patrons may purchase protected and preferential treatment, including access to laptop computers and cell phones. Typically costing from $70 to $175 ...