On Sept. 17, 1999, Colorado Dept. of Corrections officials confirmed that they are investigating allegations of brutality, sexual misconduct and drug trafficking involving guards at the CCA-operated Kit Carson Corr. Facility in Burlington, which houses around 650 state prisoners. The investigation began in July but was not disclosed until it was almost complete.

Ron Alford, warden at the CCA prison, was suspended; kitchen manager Rocky Stewart was fired for undisclosed reasons: and CCA guard Shanna Turpin, 29, was charged with introducing contraband into the facility. According to a court affidavit, Turpin was also accused of engaging in a sexual affair with prisoner Moses Martinez.

"I don't know that I would characterize [the alleged misconduct] as isolated," stated Colorado DOC spokeswoman Liz McDonough, "but I don't know that I wouldn't characterize it as isolated. We're talking about multiple allegations involving multiple people." McDonough said "a number" of the 200-person staff at the private prison had quit or been fired. CCA spokesperson Susan Hart declined to comment.

Up to fifteen female employees, including guards and nurses, are suspected of having affairs with prisoners since the Kit Carson facility opened in November 1998. Former guard Shanna Turpin said some employees sought relationships with ...

In October, 1999, a federal jury returned acquittals and a minor conviction against private prison guards charged with beating and abusing Missouri prisoners. As previously reported in PLN, some 100 Missouri prisoners were sent to the Brazoria county jail in Texas to relieve overcrowding in the Missouri prison system. The jail was operated by the Bobby Ross Group, a private prison company.

In 1997 a video surfaced, which was shown on national television, in which jail guards were shown beating and abusing prisoners. The incident led to several civil rights suits seeking money damages as well as a federal criminal prosecution.

In 1999 the U.S. government charged Brazoria jail guards Robert Percival, David Cisneros and Wilton Wallace with federal civil rights charges stemming from the videotaped beating of prisoner Toby Hawthorne.

Percival was acquitted of all charges, despite being on video kicking Hawthorne in the groin. The jury deadlocked in Cisnero's case and convicted Wallace on misdemeanor charges for kicking Hawthorne in the head. Wallace has previous federal civil rights convictions stemming from abusing prisoners at the Brazoria county jail.

Brazoria county district attorney Jeri Yenne was critical of the federal prosecution. Yenne accused the FBI of covering up its ...

A federal court in Missouri has held that Missouri prisoners whose incarceration was contracted to Brazoria County, Texas, could sue Brazoria County in Missouri.

This is a lawsuit filed in Missouri federal district court by Missouri state prisoners who were abused while incarcerated in Brazoria County pursuant to its contract with Missouri. Both the beatings and the legal proceedings in Texas were previously reported in PLN. [See: "No Qualified Immunity for Texas Sheriff and CCRI Guards Who Abused Missouri Prisoners," PLN, August, 1999.]

The prisoners invoked jurisdiction under the Missouri long-arm statute, Mo.Rev.Stat. §506.500, to claim that they were third-party beneficiaries of the contract and Brazoria County had breached the contract. The prisoners also asserted an Eighth Amendment cruel and unusual punishment claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Brazoria County filed a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court held that, pursuant to State ex rel. Deere & Company v. Pinnell, 454 S.W.2d 899, 892 (Mo. bane 1970) and State ex rel. Newport v. Wiesman, 627 S.W.2d 874 (Mo. banc 1982), the long-arm statute extended jurisdiction of the Missouri courts to nonresident defendants to the extent allowable under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

"To ...

The court of appeals for the Seventh circuit held that habeas corpus was not the proper means to challenge a state statute allowing states to confine their prisoners in private prisons in other states. The court also held that a lawsuit challenging prisoners' confinement in private prisons in other states is frivolous.

Several Wisconsin state prisoners filed habeas corpus petitions in federal court challenging the constitutionality of Wis.Stat.Ann. § 301.21(2m). This law authorizes Wisconsin prison officials to contract the captivity of Wisconsin prisoners to private prisons in other states. As previously reported in PLN, Wisconsin has over 4,000 of its prisoners being held in private prisons operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) in Tennessee and Oklahoma. [PLN, Mar. 1999] The petitioners claimed that § 301.21(2m) violates the Thirteenth amendment to the US constitution. The district court dismissed the habeas petition. The appeals court affirmed.

As a preliminary matter, the court of appeals held that 42 U.S.C. § 1983, not habeas corpus, is the proper means by which to challenge a state statute. Simply put, habeas can be used only if a prisoner is seeking to "'get out' of custody in a meaningful sense." Habeas cannot, as a general rule, ...

The U.S. court of appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that a forum selection clause in an indemnity agreement between the Sheriff of Polk Co., Florida and Prison Health Services (PHS), which allowed contract disputes to be brought in the state circuit court, was mandatory rather than permissive.

This case offers a classic example of the privatization of prisoner health care. Cutting costs to increase profits frequently leads to tragic consequences, and in the long run costs are increased, while prisoner health care declines.

In this instance, PHS entered into a contract with the Sheriff to provide medical services to prisoners in the county's jails. Four years later, a county jail prisoner suffered a head injury, which required immediate hospitalization. However, PHS failed to render the necessary treatment and the prisoner lapsed into a vegetative state.

As a result of the prisoner's chronic condition, his guardian brought suit against the Sheriff. Since the contract between the Sheriff and PHS contained an indemnity clause holding the Sheriff harmless from such claims, the Sheriff's insurer asked PHS to intervene. Contrary to the terms of the contract, PHS refused.

The Sheriff's insurer then informed PHS that the prisoner's claim exceeded the Sheriff's $1 ...

Nashville-based Prison Realty Trust, the parent company of Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), has hired a leading public relations firm to improve its image.

In Sept. 1999 Prison Realty retained Los Angeles-based Sitrick & Co., which specializes in crisis management. Sitrick will handle Prison Realty's media relations and communications with investors and stock analysts.

Prison Realty has faced negative media attention due to escapes and riots at CCA facilities, and is presently facing almost a dozen shareholder suits for allegedly withholding financial information [PLN, Nov. 1999].

Sitrick & Co. was founded by Michael Sitrick, author of Spin: How to Turn the Power of the Press to Your Advantage, and has handled high-profile PR problems for other large corporations.

Source: The Tennessean

A federal district court in Maine held that a miscarriage is a serious medical condition, but dismissed a state law medical negligence claim for failure to comply with the pre-suit screening requirements of the Maine Tort Claims Act (MTC).

On June 13, 1996, Melissa Ferris was booked into the Kennebec County (Maine) Jail. The following evening Ferris complained to jail nurse Sprowl that she was having a miscarriage. Sprowl, who was employed by Allied Resources for Correctional Health (ARCH), failed to provide meaningful treatment, and within hours Ferris miscarried.

Initially, Ferris brought suit in state court against the county, ARCH, Sprowl and two jail g uards, but the action was promptly removed to the federal forum. In her amended complaint, Ferris asserted three counts: (1) a civil rights violation, (2) medical negligence, and (3) negligent infliction of emotional distress. This opinion is limited to Sprowl's motion to dismiss.

The court easily rejected Sprowl's defense of failure to state a claim, finding that Ferris's medical condition "was plainly serious," and noting that "Sprowl apparently made no effort to assess or treat" Ferris, beyond some cursory maneuvers. The court recognized that "clearly inadequate" treatment is tantamount "to a refusal to provide essential ...

Previously, PLN has reported problems at the Lea County Corr. Facility in Hobbs, New Mexico, one of two prisons in the state operated by Wackenhut Corrections Corp. Violent incidents at the Hobbs facility have included at least 9 stabbings, two of them fatal [PLN, June 1999], and an April 6, 1999 riot in which 13 guards and a prisoner were injured [PLN, Sep 1999]. The prison experienced another murder on June 17, 1999 when Richard Garcia, 47, was stabbed to death in his cell.

Last August the violence spilled over to Wackenhut's other New Mexico prison, the Guadalupe County Corr. Facility in Santa Rosa, 110 miles east of Albuquerque. Wackenhut receives $25 million a year to house 1,500 prisoners -­about 30 percent of the state's prison population -- in the Hobbs and Santa Rosa facilities.



"An All-Out Riot"


Orlando Gabaldon, 51, serving a life sentence, was killed by another prisoner at the Santa Rosa facility on August 22, 1999; he was beaten to death with a bag of rocks. Gabaldon's murder was the fourth in 9 months at the Wackenhut facilities -- the highest number of deaths in New Mexico prisons since the 1980 Santa Fe uprising that claimed 33 ...

Correctional Services Corp. (CSC) announced Aug. 23, 1999 that it was withdrawing from an $8.7 million-a-year contract to operate the Pahokee Youth Development Center, a 350 bed Florida juvenile facility, 8 months before the contract is due to expire.

The announcement came six weeks after the Pahokee facility failed a major state inspection and one week before a court hearing on safety concerns at the privately-operated youth center. State inspectors had criticized the facility's counseling services, poor physical condition, education programs, disruptive atmosphere and continued complaints of physical abuse by staff members.

After reviewing the inspection report Juvenile Court Judge Ron Alvarez compared the CSC-run youth center to a "third-world country that is controlled by ... some type of evil power," and gave the company 7 weeks to make improvements. "Treatment of these children, so far, based upon this report, comes dangerously close to being inhumane," Alvarez said.

The Pahokee youth center has gone through five administrators since it opened in 1997, and has been criticized by state monitors and child-welfare advocates for poor manageme nt and excessive use of force. The Washington-based Youth Law Center has condemned conditions at the facility as a "denial of basic constitutional rights." There ...

In Nov. 1998 Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) opened the Diamondback Corr. Facility in Watonga, OK and filled it with prisoners from Indiana and Hawaii. According to a prisoner housed at the facility there was a great deal of tension between the two groups, which resulted in numerous fights.

CCA reportedly did not separate the Hawaiian and Indiana prisoners until early June 1999, and then still allowed them to co-mingle at meal times when they were fed in the same dining area. On June 22 a brawl between Indiana and Hawaiian prisoners broke out as lunch as being served; the disturbance escalated until it involved about 80 prisoners and lasted an hour. At least two prisoners were injured and guards had to use-tear gas to regain control. Afterwards, the prison was placed on lockdown for several weeks.

Less than two months later, on August 15, 1999, another riot erupted at the Diamondback facility, which had since started housing Oklahoma and federal prisoners in addition to those from Indiana and Hawaii. A prisoner who was present during the riot said a group of Hawaiian convicts staged a fight in a recreation yard, then attacked and severely beat guards who arrived to ...