Deficient medical care at the unit level has Texas prisons incubating a new, more virulent strain of HIV. Dr. William Obrien is one of the most noted doctors on staff with the University of Texas Medical Branch. (UTMB) Over a year ago he discovered that "patients in the Texas prison system infected with (HIV) frequently have a drug-resistant form of the virus." He links this occurrence with the "inconsistent administration of medication" at the unit level. Such inconsistent treatment produces "diminished responses to drug therapy." Obrien has determined that the source of the problem is what Texas prisoners call "the pill window."

On Texas prison units, drugs are administered in basically two ways. The preferred and most effective method is a cardboard package of pop-out pills called KOP, an abbreviation for "keep on person." The obvious advantage to KOP packs is the consistency with which medication can be taken, a consistency that is vital for the effective treatment of AIDS.

However, as with most bureaucracies, the preferred method is not necessarily the most common. A 1998 audit showed that since UTMB took over health care at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) in 1993, KOP medication was reduced from ...

After receiving an anonymous tip about billing irregularities, the Ohio State Auditor conducted a special audit of the two state prisons: the Noble Correctional Institution (NCI) at Caldwell and the Belmont Correctional Institution (BCI) in St. Clairsville.

Released in November, 2001, the auditor's report showed that NCI's private food service contractors had knowingly over-billed the state $2.08 million for meals not served while NCI, BCI and other Ohio state prisons had paid over $2.8 million for college classes that prisoners did not, or were not eligible to, attend.

Dining for Dollars

In 1998, NCI executed a two year contract with Aramark , a private, for profit food service company based in Oakbrook, Illinois. Beginning November 1, 1998, Aramark was contracted to purchase, cook and serve all daily meals to the 2,200 prisoners at NCI. The contract called for Aramark to be paid $1.24 for each breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack and emergency meal served. The number of meals was to be determined by dining hall entry turnstile counts or the totals from scanners that read the prisoners' meal cards.

During the first six months of the contract, the actual counts showed an average of only 63% of NCI's prisoners attending any ...

The family of Charles Dials, who was carjacked and killed by prisoner Alva Campbell during an escape attempt in April 1997, was awarded a $1 million default judgment against CMS in Franklin County (OH) Common Pleas Court on March 6, 2002. This verdict comes after CMS and Franklin County have ...

Danish Security Firm Buys Out The Wackenhut Corporation

In 1954, former FBI agent George Wackenhut and three FBI buddies formed a private detective firm in Miami. In 1955, the firm moved into the security guard business after winning a contract with National Airlines. In 1958, Wackenhut bought out his partners and incorporated as The Wackenhut Corporation. Thereafter, the company continued to grow in the security business. Today, with 68,000 employees worldwide, corporate revenues in 2001 reached $2.81 billion.

In 1901 in Denmark, Philip Sorensen founded the company that was to become Group 4 Falck. Joergen PhilipSorensen, Chairman of Group 4, is the grandson of the founder. Group 4 has grown into the world's second largest security firm with operations in 50 countries, 140,000 employees, and 2001 revenues of $2.47 billion.

In March 2002, Group 4 Falck of Copenhagen and Wackenhut Corporation of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, reached agreement where Group 4 would pay $573 million to acquire Wackenhut. The Danish company agreed to pay $33 per share for all of the Class A and Class B shares of Wackenhut stock.

After 48 years, George Wackenhut, still active in daytoday corporate operations, will cash out with $124 million. "It's like giving ...

Five prisoners at Boston's Suffolk County jail in Massachusetts were rushed to a nearby hospital after receiving the wrong medication. Jail guards found the five prisoners unconscious on the morning of September 23, 2001, after other prisoners alerted the guards by raising a commotion in their cells. Thomas Burke, Shawn Fitzpatrick, and Benjamin Neal were hospitalized after consuming Elavil, (an antidepressant with sedative effects) instead of their prescribed Viracept, (an antiviral medication for HIV treatment). The other two prisoners' complications weren't severe enough to warrant hospitalization.

St. Louis Missouri, based Corectional Medical Services (CMS) is the nation's largest private for profit prisoner health care service, which has applied for a medical service contract with the Mass. Dept. of Corrections, but MA DOC spokesman Justin Latinia said that their decision was still pending. The medical staff that distributed the wrong medication work for this firm. CMS was only a quarter of the way through a threeyear, $12 million contract which provides medical attention within the jail itself says Richard Lombardi who is Suffolk County Sheriff Richard J. Rouse's spokesman.

Jail officials commented that they were not sure how long it took for these prisoners to receive proper medical attention. They had ...

On February 26, 2002, the family of a prisoner who died as a result of medical neglect at the privately-run Bay County jail in Florida filed formal notice that they intend to sue the jail, as well as the Bay Medical Center where the prisoner was treated, for failure to properly care for him when he became violently ill in a jail holding cell on Feb. 15, 2002.

The story began when Justin Sturgis, 21, was booked into the jail, which is operated by the Corrections Corporation of America of Nashville (CCA), and charged with driving under the influence. When Sturgis was pulled over he reportedly swallowed 10 hits of Ecstasy to avoid police finding the drug on him when he was arrested. Sturgis arrived at the jail and repeatedly told guards that he had swallowed the drugs and that he needed medical treatment.

However, according to former Bay County jail nurse Jerry Militich, the jail's medical staff was under constant pressure from jail custody staff to avoid sending sick prisoners to the hospital. This inhumane cost-cutting venture eventually led Militich to resign in protest over this practice. Sturgis was brought to see a jail nurse who did call a ...

Boot Camp Or Boot Hill? Troubled Teens Suffer From Too Much Tough Love

by Roger Hummel

On February 15, 2002, Charles Long II was arrested on murder and child abuse charges growing from the death of Anthony Haynes. On July 1, 2001 the 14 year old Haynes died while attending an Arizona boot camp operated by America's Buffalo Soldiers ReEnactors Association. Long, 56, was the camp's director. He was also charged with marijuana possession and aggravated assault for allegedly pulling a knife on a young camper.

The medical examiner's office said Haynes died from the unlikely combination of dehydration and near drowning. Without benefit of shade from the summer sun, the teenager had been made to stand in the 114degree desert heat for 5 hours. When Haynes began hallucinating and eating dirt, he was left face down in a bathtub filled with water.

Haynes was not the first teenager to die in a correctional boot camp, the nation's increasingly popular nontraditional sentencing option for juvenile offenders. Since 1980, at least 31 youngsters have perished in these camps under diverse and often suspicious circumstances.

Boot camp programs are modeled after military basic training. Juveniles often enter the program in groups referred ...

Alaska: On April 11, 2002, Cynthia Cooper, the head prosecutor in the state attorney general's office, resigned after being judicially admonished for pursuing felony charges against a public defender who crashed his car into a light pole. Anchorage prosecutors had agreed to a misdemeanor plea bargain with Wally Tetlow, the public defender, when Cooper stepped into the case and demanded a guilty plea to a felony. Judge Jonathan Link found Cooper was motivated by animus against Tetlow because he was a public defender, not because of any crime he may have committed. Federal judge H. Russell Holland had recently found that Cooper made an "untrue statement" in responding to a contempt motion after she refused to abide by a court decision striking down the state's sex offender registration law.

Connecticut: In March 12, 2002, Anthony Tortorella, 41, a guard at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, pleaded guilty to charges of unlawfully harboring an illegal alien and engaging in sexual acts with female prisoners at the facility. Tortorella admitted to having sex with six different female prisoners while employed at the prison. He also lived for ten months with a former female prisoner who was an illegal alien from Ecuador ...

A private company, MgtGP Inc., was awarded a $1.5 Million contract in 1997, and a four-year renewal in January 1997 worth $615,000 for that year alone, to run Kansas's Reno County Jail Annex. In May 2001, Reno's Sheriff, Larry Leslie, pled innocent to 34 counts of bribery. Also pleading innocent to bribing Leslie was MgtGP's co-founder and treasurer, Gerald Hertach. MgtGP was named as a defendant. Leslie and Hertach are free on a $300,000 bond.

Hertach had previously received a fee for renting and operating a dormitory at the State Fairgrounds where non-violent prisoners served their sentences. When the agreement with the fairgrounds ended, the county renovated a building next to the courthouse to serve as an annex to the jail. Leslie recommended MgtGP to county commissioners saying it would be cheaper than hiring more county employees.

According to state records, MgtGP was incorporated just 13 days before the county awarded the 1997 contract. MgtGP's annual report to the Kansas State Secretary states the company function is operating "a minimum security jail for the Sheriff of Reno County." Leslie, who earns $59,672 a year as Sheriff, accepted more than $280,000 from Hertach. Both maintain they did nothing wrong.

County commissioners ...

Judge Awards $2.8 million to Victims of CSC Texas Boot Camp Sexual Abuse

On March 5, 2001, State District Court Judge Paul Enlow found Correctional Services Corporation (CSC) criminally liable for the actions of two former employees who sexually harassed three women while they were confined in a CSC-operated boot ...