by David M. Reutter

Florida's Correctional Privatization Commission (CPC) consistently failed to safeguard the State's interests in its role as steward of privately operated correctional facilities," causing Florida's taxpayers to pay $12.7 million in questionable and excessive of cost. That conclusion was arrived at in a scathing report of the CPC by Florida's Inspector General.
The audit, issued on June 30, 2005, comes a year after the Florida Legislature abolished the CPC and turned its operation and management of private prison contracts over to the Department of Management Services (DMS).

Florida contracts with two vendors to operate five prisons in the state. Gadsden, Bay, and Lake City prisons are operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) while GEO Group, formerly Wackenhut Corrections, operates Moore Haven and South Bay prisons. Combined, these prisons warehouse 5,290 male prisoners.

The audit said that CPC records and contract documentation showed CPC consistently made questionable contract concessions to the vendors." That statement comes as no surprise to those familiar with the cronyism and infestation of the CPC by those who are in the vendors' pockets. That story as told in Private Capitol Punishment: The Florida Model, by Ken Kopczynski, reviewed in PLN, December 2004, pg. ...

Private Prison Contractor Who Allegedly Diverted $1.6 Million in Telephone
Revenues Sues California DOC

A Bakersfield, California businessman, who lost a contract for his private prison housing California Department of Corrections (CDC) prisoners due to allegations that he misappropriated $1.6 million from prisoner collect telephone call revenues, has filed suit in Kern County Superior Court against CDC for libel, defamation and breach of contract. He claims his reputation and his ability to do business were harmed.

Terry Moreland, affiliated with Marantha Corrections LLC, once operated a CDC Community Corrections Facility in Adelanto, but that contract was constructively terminated when he sold the 550 bed minimum security facility to San Bernardino County while CDC was demanding he return the disputed revenues. (See: PLN, Feb. 2005, p.39.) Moreland has resisted CDC's refund demand for years, arguing that his contract did not require it.

Source: Bakersfield Californian.

by Michael Rigby

A Maryland prison is no place to get sick. Virtually every facet of prisoner health care, which has been provided by Tennessee-based Prison Health Services (PHS) since 2000, is in disarray. Prisoners sometimes receive the wrong medicine or none at all; records are poorly kept; physical exams are often cursory; sick call requests are ignored; and short-staffing is ubiquitous.

To address the problems, the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS), which operates Maryland prisons and Baltimore jails has implemented a new health care system and changed providers. The department also promised to spend more money for health services. Some critics doubt the new system and additional money will make a difference since the quality of care--or lack thereof--will still be influenced by profit motives.

Medication mix-ups, and delays are common in Maryland prisons, according to independent audits, internal documents, and prisoner complaints. In a December 2004 letter to a concerned community organization, DPSCS Secretary Mary Ann Saar acknowledged the problem when she wrote, We have repeatedly heard complaints relating to the failure of inmates to receive medications ... in a timely manner." The situation can be deadly for prisoners with life-threatening illnesses such as asthma, ...

by Michael Rigby

Nearly two years after the Prison Rape Elimination Act, (PREA) passed unopposed in the U.S. House and Senate, an attitude of indifference and skepticism surrounding prison sexual assaults still permeates the Arkansas Department of Corrections (ADC).

Signed into law on, September 4, 2003, as Public Law 108-79, the PREA authorizes the Bureau of Justice Statistics to collect statistical data and calls for a federal commission to devise standards aimed at combating prison rape. The law also requires states to track prison sexual assaults and encourages prison officials and lawmakers to attack the problem at the state level.

Because Arkansas stands to lose money if it doesn't comply--federal funding to states failing to meet the standards will be reduced by 5% a year--the Arkansas Board of Corrections met on June 9, 2005, to vote on the state's planned compliance. For Arkansas, which augments its annual $231 million prison budget with $840,000 in federal grant money, the reduction equates to a loss of $42,000.

According to the text of the law, an estimated 13% of the nation's 2.1 million prisoners have been sexually assaulted in prison. Experts note the consequences are far reaching--especially since an estimated 95% of prisoners ...

Private prison companies, which presently house only 2,550 of California's 165,000 prisoners, have hired a former county lawmaker, former CDC employees and the former state Finance Director in an attempt to expand into the $7 billion California corrections market. However, the powerful prison guards union (CCPOA), which represents state-employed (but not private) guards, is using its considerable swagger to beat back this assault on union jobs.

In 2004, Maranatha Corrections Corp., a faith-based private prison operator, was on the verge of losing an $8.1 million CDC contract for the 660-bed Victor Valley Community Correctional facility in Adelanto, San Bernardino County, in a dispute over $1.6 million in kickbacks collected from prisoner phone calls. (See: PLN, Feb. 2005, p.39.) After meeting with Maranatha on November 17 and December 13, 2004, CDC set a January 31, 2005 deadline to settle or terminate the contract.

But Maranatha had another option. San Bernardino County houses 5,500 prisoners in its jails but has to release around 700 per month early due to a lack of space. Maranatha quietly negotiated a $3.8 million annual contract with the county to lease bed space, rendering CDC's threatened termination moot. CDC would now have to relocate the 500 state ...

In November 2005, GEO Group, the second-largest private prison company in the U.S., finalized its purchase of the Sarasota, Florida-based Correctional Services Corporation (CSC) for $6 a share -- a total of $62 million in cash -- and the assumption of $124 million of CSC's debt. GEO had previously announced a downward revision of its earnings forecast for the third and fourth quarters and 2005 overall. The closing price of CSC stock on July 14, 2005, the day CSC entered into an Agreement and Plan of merger with GEO, was $4.39 per share. Wall Street seemed undeterred by GEO's payment of a 37% premium for CSC stock, as the listed value of both corporations' stock rose significantly the day after the announcement of the buyout. GEO gained $0.62 to $25.93 a share while CSC gained $1.43 to $5.82 a share.

Under the buyout agreement, GEO will assume management of CSC's 15 adult correctional facilities with a total capacity of 7,500 beds. In a related transaction, CSC CEO James Slattery agreed to buy back the company's juvenile services division, Youth Services International (YSI), for $3.75 million and will continue to operate YSI's 17 juvenile facilities with a total of 1,300 beds. ...

by John E. Dannenberg

In July 2005, a New York federal jury awarded $150,000 in compensatory damages and $632,988 in punitive damages to a jail prisoner who suffered permanent disabilities when treatment for his heart attack was delayed for three critical days by indifferent guards and medical staff.

Byron Lake, ...

by David M. Reutter

Anthony Pierce was serving a 14 month sentence for parole violation of a burglary charge at Delaware's Sussex Correctional Institution when he discovered a marble-sized lump growing on the back of his head. A prison doctor employed by the Delaware Department of Corrections' (DDOC) medical contractor, Correctional Medical Services (CMS), said the lump was most likely a cyst or an ingrown hair.

Seven months later, the lump had become ten inches in diameter, or like a second head. The growth caused Pierce to be known by cellmates as the "brother with two heads." In August 2001, CMS' medical director, Dr. Keith Ivens, stabbed the bulging tumor five times with an 18-gauge needle, withdrawing a bloody fluid, which he emptied into a trash can rather than send to a lab for analysis.

"Despite the size and rapid growth of Pierce's lump," CMS medical staff ordered no tests or treatment. They just allowed it to grow unhampered. An autopsy report after the 21-year-old Pierce's death determined his lump was cancerous and he died from a brain tumor due to osteoscarcoma of the skull.

"That boy was growing another head," said Michell Thomas, a former CMS substance abuse counselor. ...

The Louisiana Supreme Court held that retroactive application of a 2002 law, requiring exhaustion of administrative remedies by prisoners before bringing a state tort action, would unconstitutionally deprive prisoners of a vested right. Therefore, the court held that the law has prospective application only when the prisoner was not required to comply with the unconstitutional procedure that existed before 2002.

In 1985, Louisiana enacted the Corrections Administrative Remedies Procedure (CARP), La.R.S. 15:1171--- 1179. Following CARP, the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (the Department) adopted an administrative remedy procedure... La.R.S. 15:1171(B). As originally enacted, no state court could entertain an offender's grievance or complaint that fell under the purview of the administrative remedy procedure unless and until the offender had exhausted the remedies provided by the procedure. La.R.S. 15:1172(B)." Initially, Section 1171 of the CARP provisions" made no reference to tort actions. However, in 1989, the Legislature amended Section 1171 to expressly include personal injury in medical malpractice within the type of claims encompassed by CARP[.]
In 1997, Louisiana enacted the Louisiana Prison Litigation Reform Act (LPLRA), which, operating in conjunction with CARP, sought to curtail baseless or nuisance suits by prisoners." The LPLRA also provides that [n]o prisoner's ...

On Dec. 2, 2005, Prison Legal News filed a civil suit against The Geo Group, Inc. (formerly Wackenhut Corrections) in the Circuit Court for Palm Beach, Florida, demanding access to public records held by the company.
The Geo Group is a for-profit company that operates privatized prisons, including two Florida prisons, and its contract-based fees are paid with public (taxpayer) funds. Pursuant to Florida's public records law, The Geo Group is required to produce requested public records pursuant to Public Records Law, F.S. 119.01(1).

Prison Legal News's editor, Paul Wright, submitted written public record requests to The Geo Group in April, 2005, requesting information related to lawsuits that resulted in settlements or verdicts against the company, as well as contract audits, violations and court-ordered injunctions. While The Geo Group provided a limited amount of information related to one category of the requested records, it ignored the other requests and never responded to a second record request submitted in September.

In its lawsuit, Prison Legal News alleges The Geo Group's failure to provide the requested public records is illegal, malicious and willful, and is designed to delay Prison Legal News from obtaining the records because they are critical of The Geo ...