The Wackenhut Corrections Corporation completed an agreement with South African government to build and operate a 3,024 bed maximum security prison in that country. The prison, expected to be opened in early 2002, is the first venture in Africa for the Floridabased company, which operates forprofit gulags across the United States as well as in Great Britain,Australia, New Zealand and the Caribbean.

The 25 year contract, which is valued by the South African government at about $245 million, including $45 million in construction costs, was signed August 12, 2000 in Pretoria. The cost of construction is to be financed by a consortium of South African banks. The prison will be located in the far northern town of Louis Trichardt.

South African prisons are desperately overcrowded, so in 1997, the government began soliciting bids to build and manage four private prisons.

Wackenhut and its local partners, incorporated as South African Custodial Services, bid for the right to build and operate three of the prisons and won two-of the bids, including the planned prison at Louis Trichardt.

Three weeks after signing this contract, the South African government announced it would release 18,000 prisoners to relieve overcrowding of a prison system built to ...

The short, stout eighth grader Gina Score, was never much of an athlete. But that didn't matter to the staff at South Dakota's Plankinton boot camp for girls, where militarystyle discipline and calisthenics were the modus operandi and, as staff put it, "quitting is not an option." On her first day in boot camp Gina _ sentenced for stealing a beanie baby _ was excoriated and ordered about in an official induction process that, according to one former staff member, "isn't successful unless someone pukes or pisses their pants."

The second day, July 21 1999, began with a sweltering 2.7mile morning run. Immediately Gina, at 5' 4" and 226 pounds, fell behind the rest of the pack and was showing signs of heat stroke. By the end, she was lying in a pool of her own urine, frothing at the mouth, gasping for breath, twitching, and begging for "mommy."

Staff denied the girl water, but did administer a full course of ridicule: calling her a faker, laughing at her, dragging her, dropping Gina's limp hand onto her own face and finally threatening to video tape the girl to prove "what a pathetic and uncooperative child she was." When other girls ...

A minor riot on July 15 2000, left fifteen guards and one prisoner injured at the North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayre, Oklahoma. Six guards were sent to area hospitals where they were treated for minor cuts and bruises. One guard suffered a broken nose.

The incident began when a guard observed two prisoners passing a paper bag on the recreation yard and went to investigate. When a second guard intervened a scuffle ensued. The situation escalated as more prisoners and guards got involved. Nineteen prisoners were implicated and segregated from the rest of the population. No weapons were involved in the incident.

All of the 1,434 prisoners in the privately owned Oklahoma prison are from Wisconsin. John Litscher, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, sent two prison investigators to Sayre the next day to interview guards and prisoners. The contents of the bag was not determined but it was verified that prison response teams used tear gas to bring the situation under control.

The North Fork facility is a private prison ooperated by Corrections Corporation of America. Susan Hart, spokeswoman for CCA, said "our staff has been interviewing people all day" and are "still trying to determine what ...

On July 11, 2000, Rodney "Rocky" Eickstadt began serving a 175day jail term at the Franklin County (Ohio) Jail for drunken driving. Ten weeks later he was dead _ from complications related to untreated diabetes.

Eickstadt didn't know he was diabetic when he started his jail sentence. But by August 23, 2000 he was sure he suffered from some kind of serious medical problem, and he requested in writing to be seen by a doctor.

The jail has a $210,000/month contract with EMSA Correctional Care to provide 24hour medical services. It specifies that prisoners requesting medical treatment be examined by a qualified health care provider within 24 hours.

Eickstadt's request for treatment went unanswered for 18 days, while his symptoms worsened. Finally, on September 10, he was examined at sick call by an EMSA nurse. At that time, he complained of vomiting, shortness of breath, bleeding gums, and constant urination. The nurse put him on a liquid diet, ordered a urinalysis, which was never performed, and sent him back to his cell.

The next day, Eickstadt told jailers he wasn't feeling well but received no medical attention until hours later when deputies found him unconscious in his cell. A doctor ...

In October 2000, the Ohio prison system decided to abandon its controversial two-year pilot project to privatize the food service at the Nobel Correctional Institution (NCI).

In October, 1998, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DORC) awarded a two-year contract to ARAMARK Correctional Services, a private company in Oakbrook, Illinois, to prepare and serve meals to NCI's 2,500 captive consumers. The contract was plagued with problems from the outset [See: "Ohio Prison Food Contract Sparks Controversy," PLN, Oct. '00]. The meals served by ARAMARK were of such poor quality and small portion sizes DORC officials feared a riot at NCI.

In February, 1999, state officials met behind closed doors with ARAMARK executives and secretly amended the contract to allow the company to charge more than 60 percent higher rates in exchange for providing more and better food, resulting in cost overruns of nearly $2 million over the original contract.

When the state solicited bids for a new contract in 2000, ARAMARK and two other private food service companies submitted proposals. Another bid was submitted by Local 11 of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association; AFSCME, the union representing state workers. Each bidder the union and the three companies submitted ...

A report published by the Western Prison Project and the Western States Center. The report concludes that private prison corporations exert increasing political influence at the state level. Private Prisons are also playing a key role in the Grafting of harsh criminal justice legislation that is designed to improve their long-term business prospects by increasing the number of Americans incarcerated. To get a copy send $15 to:


Westren Prison Project

PO Box 40085

Porland, Oregon 97240-0085

(or) 503-335-8449

North Carolina, Georgia, Utah and Louisiana are among states that experimented with private prisons and because of problems encountered have eliminated them altogether or scaled back plans for future privatization.

North Carolina officials converted both of the state's private prisons to public operation, and banned future "spec" prison development and the importation of prisoners from other states.

Two private prisons were built in North Carolina by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) in 1998 under five-year contracts with the state to house prisoners on a "pilot" basis. But the Pamlico and Mountain View Correctional Facilities were beset with problems from the day they opened. CCA was repeatedly cited by state monitors for chronic understaffing and inadequate service delivery in many vital areas: prison security and safety; prisoner work assignments; medical and mental health care; education programs; and substance abuse treatment. As a consequence of CCA's failure to live up to contract specifications, the DOC withheld $1 million in payments to the company. And on June 23, 2000, DOC Secretary Theotis Beck announced the state would terminate the CCA contracts and resume operational control of both prisons. CCA will continue to own the prisons, leasing them back to the state.

A week ...

Five weeks after it opened, the Idaho Correctional Center (ICC), went on lockdown following a non-violent protest by prisoners there. Corrections Corporation of America operates the $50 million 1,250-bed prison.

In early July 2000, CCA began moving Idaho prisoners from its New Mexico facilities. According to prison officials, the prisoners objected to more stringent rules at the new CCA prison south of Boise, including a prohibition on beards and higher telephone call charges.

The work-stoppage prompted an immediate response from state prison officials, who issued an "open letter" to ICC prisoners reminding them that, "refusing to work will not be tolerated.. and could result in placement in Administrative Segregation for an extended period of time."

PLN doesn't know how long the protest and lockdown lasted.


Source: The Associated Press

Two hundred prisoners filed a class action suit against the New Jersey Department of Corrections (NJDOC) in 1996. A court order issued as a result of that suit mandated an investigation to "assess the mental health services in the... NJDOC with emphasis on those institutions and housing units where the mentally ill were congregated." Inspections were conducted in 1996 and 1997 in Northern State Prison, New Jersey State Prison, and the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women and East Jersey State Prison. Dr. Dennis F. Koson, who conducted the investigation and prepared the report, also visited the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital where mentally ill prisoners in crisis are held.

The report was issued in 1998 and the court case was settled in July 1999. See: D.M. v. Terhune, 67 F.Supp. 2d 401 (DNJ 1999) [PLN, Nov., 2000]. When no information appeared subsequently indicating changes had been made, Human Rights Watch sued to have Koson's report released. When the state still refused to indicate what changes had been made, HRW issued a copy of the report. With this they hoped to pressure the NJDOC and then Governor Christine Whitman to show that conditions had improved. Following are some of the highlights of ...

The state of Louisiana agreed to a settlement in federal court September 7, 2000 designed to radically alter the way it operates its juvenile prisons. The agreement was intended to settle several lawsuits against the state, including one by the U.S. Dept. of Justice, which charged that teenage detainees were routinely brutalized by guards and deprived of food, clothing and medical care.





Former mayor of Houston, Fred Hofheinz, faces charges of conspiracy, extortion and bribery... Brown is alleged to have funneled $845,000 from Hofheinz to Gov. Edwards to serve the lucrative contract.





The settlement agreement effectively ends Louisiana's experiment with privately run juvenile prisons, where the worst abuses had occurred. The state had tried to privatize its juvenile lockups to cut costs, but the effort raised questions about whether for-profit corporations could operate prisons more efficiently than the government without skimping on essential services and training. Richard Sthadler, the secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, said the state had been forced to expand juvenile prisons but that its "efforts to provide some of these services through privately operated facilities were a disappointment."

Under the settlement, the state is prohibited from placing any more juveniles in a prison ...