Cleaning up Mississippi's Supermax: Conditions Suit Settled

by David M. Reutter

A class action lawsuit filed on behalf of prisoners at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman charged that the totality of conditions are so "hellish" that it makes "Unit 32 the worst place to be incarcerated in Mississippi, perhaps the nation." The suit forced prison officials into a consent decree to upgrade Unit 32's conditions.

Unit 32 is a supermax facility that comprises five buildings, housing around 1,000 men. It imposes forced lockdown of 23 to 24 hours a day in total isolation. Many prisoners have been there for years. Often, they are confined for arbitrary reasons such as being HIV-positive, have special medical needs, are severely ill, or have requested protective custody. Generally, prisoners are not given advance notice or an explanation why they have been placed in Unit 32, nor do they receive information on how they can be removed from there.

With enforced idleness and isolation being imposed, the mentally ill regress, making the unit into a miniature hell. Those prisoners scream, moan, curse, make animal noises, engage in maniacal laughter, and have hallucinatory ravings. This prevents those holding onto their sanity from being able to ...

On September 15, 2006, a jury in Willacy County, Texas awarded $47.5 million to the family of a prisoner who was murdered at a private prison operated by the Geo Group (formerly Wackenhut Corrections). The Florida-based company was spun off from Wackenhut's parent corporation in 2003 [see PLN, June 2004, ...

9th Circuit Holds § 1997e(a) Applies to Private Prisons; Magazine Confiscation Is a "Prison Condition"

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of an Idaho prisoner's suit for non-exhaustion, concluding that the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) applies to private prisons. The court also held that confiscation of magazines is a "prison condition" under the PLRA.

Raymond Roles is a prisoner of the Idaho Department of Corrections, housed in a private prison operated by Corrections Corporation of America, Inc. (CCA). A CCA guard confiscated eight magazines from Roles' cell because he kept them more than 6 months.

Roles did not grieve the confiscation before filing suit alleging that the confiscation violated the First Amendment, and state law. The district court dismissed the suit for non-exhaustion under 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a).

The Ninth Circuit joined the Sixth, Tenth and Eleventh Circuits in concluding, based upon statutory language and Congressional intent, that the PLRA's "exhaustion requirement plainly applies to private prisons."

The court also rejected Roles' argument that the confiscation of magazines is not a "prison condition" within the meaning of § 1997e(a). Although the PLRA does not define "prison condition" the Supreme Court construed the term broadly in Porter ...

Management and Training Corporation (MTC) and Santa Fe County, New Mexico, will pay $8.5 million to settle with an estimated 13,000 former prisoners who were unconstitutionally strip searched at the Santa. Fe County Detention Facility between January 2002 and June 2006. The Utah-based MTC, which operated the jail from October ...

Wisconsin "Boondoggled" Into Buying Broken Down New Private Prison

After buying a private prison for $87.1 million, the Wisconsin Legislature is crying foul upon discovering the Stanley prison violates electrical, plumbing, and safety codes that will cost $5 million to repair. It's turning out that the entire situation, from the building of the prison to its purchase by taxpayers, was influenced by political lobbyists who had legislators on the take.

The Stanley prison, which confines 1,511 prisoners, was built by Dominion Asset Services in Edmond, Oklahoma. To build a prison in Wisconsin, the Legislature and Governor must agree with what is needed and the Building Commission must formally approve the plan. That process was circumvented to build the Stanley prison.

After the prison was built Attorney General, now Governor, Jim Doyle advised legislators that no prisoners could be housed at the prison unless the state leased or bought it. Dominion went into action after that opinion was issued in 2001.

Dominion hired lobbyists to push the Legislature to buy the prison. To help grease that wheel, Dominion gave $125,000 to Independent Citizens for Democracy, a campaign group illegally controlled by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala (D-Madison). That changed Chvala's position ...

Florida's Department of Corruption

by David M. Reutter

An underlying principle of our penal system is to instill respect for the laws and rules that govern our society. As such, those charged with running our nation's jails and prisons have an ethical obligation to set an example for all citizens, including employees under their watch and prisoners in their custody. Investigations of the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC), however, have revealed that more often FDOCS leaders are seeking to emulate the criminal acts of prisoners.

Where you follow, so shall you go. Prisoners, by their lot, are unemployed and confined in jails or prisons. As of August 2006, more than 50 key upper-level FDOC staff members have been fired or forced to retire. An additional 21, including former FDOC Secretary James V. Crosby, have been arrested and indicted. They are being transformed from the watchers to the watched.

To those familiar with FDOC's inner workings, the revelations come as no surprise. Everybody likes to use the phrase good ole boys club, thats what it is out there and they protect one another. There is a code of silence, says a former guard identified by First Coast News as Dave.

But ...

Florida Prison Canteen Operator's Offices Raided

by David M. Reutter

Agents from the FBI and Florida Department of Law Enforcement raided the office of American Institutional Services (AIS) on June 7, 2006 and seized the companys business records. AIS ran weekend visiting park canteens within the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC), and following the raid AIS was banned from further operations at FDOC facilities.

AIS was a subcontractor of St. Louis-based Keefe Commissary Network, which has operated all FDOC prison canteens since winning a no-bid contract in October 2003. [See: PLN, February 2006, p.22]. In 2004, Keefe took over operations of visiting park canteens and subcontracted with AIS to manage that part of its prison operations. Keefe has since taken over full operations of the visiting park canteens. We readily agreed to assume those duties, said Keefe spokesman Pat Farrell. Considering how prisoners and their families are being price-gouged, its understandable why Keefe was so eager to capitalize on that captive market.

A preliminary report indicated that FDOC was losing money on the visiting park canteen operations, but no explanation of how much money was being lost or how that occurred was given.

AIS is owned by Gainesville businessman Edward ...

by John E. Dannenberg

Aramark, Inc. is a Philadelphia-based $10 billion/yr. Fortune 500 company providing diverse institutional food services. Its Illinois-based subsidiary, Aramark Correctional Services, Inc., (ACSI), which bought out Wackenhut's Correctional Foodservice Management division in 2000, contracts with 450 prisons and jails in 40 states, serving over 300,000 prisoners. In addition to food, it provides commissary services, laundry services, maintenance, and vocational prisoner training in food services. But Aramark's record is replete with allegations of making political donations to gain contracts, over billing on their contracts, skimping on food portions, maintaining poor sanitation, and offering poor food quality. Contracts have not been renewed, fines have been levied and Aramark employees have been arrested for smuggling contraband into prisons. This report chronicles Aramarks checkered past in 19 states and Canada.

Colorado

At the El Paso County Jail in 2005, many of the 1,300 prisoners filed suit in the 4th Judicial District against foodservice contractor Aramark and the jail, claiming that Aramark's food fails Colorados statutory requirement for good and sufficient food for prisoners. Claims included repetition (turkey was served for five consecutive meals), spoiled fruit, and a 25% reduction in portion size beginning in March 2005. The situation was so ...

Many of the problems associated with imprisonment in the U.S. high staff turnover, prisoner neglect and abuse, and the introduction of contraband by employees, for example can be attributed to the paltry salaries and few benefits that most guards receive. But while low-paid guards must make do with their miserly paychecks, those at the top of the prison hierarchy especially the executives of private prison companies are living lives of lavish excess.

Like those they watch over, many prison guards make a barely livable wage. In Mississippi, for example, the starting salary for state prison guards is $19,620 a year; in Tennessee its $21,000 and in Alabama $25,352. These salaries are generally far less than those of their bosses. For instance, the commissioner of the New York Department of Corrections (DOC) makes $136,000 a year, and Californias top prison official earns $129,000. At the Bureau of Prisons, where annual pay for guards starts at $34,000 to $35,000, the BOP commissioner draws a healthy $160,000 salary. The dichotomy is perhaps most striking in Texas, however, where Brad Livingston, Executive Director of the Department of Criminal Justice, rakes in $165,000 a year more than 7 times the $22,400 starting salary of a ...

by David M. Reutter

Despite mainstream media pressure, public outcry, and a federal investigation, the Delaware Department of Corrections (DDOC) continues to keep its head in the sand about prisoner health care. Not surprisingly, it has resulted in another prisoner's death.

PLN reported the deplorable health care given to DDOC prisoners. See: PLN, Dec. 2005, pg 1. The Delaware Legislature, as we reported, refused to provide money to upgrade that care.

The latest DDOC prisoner death occurred at Young Correctional Institution (YCI). In the early morning hours on May 30, 2006, guards found Thomas J. Burns hanging in his cell. Burns had only been off suicide watch for a few hours.

Burns' saga began when police arrested him on a forgery arrant. When arrested, he was found at his sister's house in the midst of a suicide attempt, using pills and alcohol. He was taken to Christina Hospital, where he remained until taken to YCI.

Once at YCI, Burns, 56, was placed in a strip cell on suicide watch. Despite phone calls by mental health advocates to warn YCI that Burns would kill himself, a Correctional Medical Services counselor decided Burns could be removed from suicide watch. Within hours of ...