Opponents of mass incarceration have notched several small but significant victories by successfully pressuring backers of the private prison industry to divest almost $60 million from Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group, the two largest private prison companies in the United States. Both firms trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

Online civil rights organization Color of Change announced in April 2014 that a year-long campaign to push 150 companies to divest from private prisons had persuaded Scopia Capital Management, DSM North America and Amica Mutual Insurance to sell off their private prison stock in the final quarter of 2013.

“Companies that continue to stay with their investments in CCA and GEO Group are making a real decision about where they want their money and the ethical obligations they have to the greater society,” said Rashad Robinson, Color of Change’s executive director.

Scopia Capital, an asset management giant, dropped 1.5 million GEO Group shares, effectively decreasing its private prison stock by more than 25%. Scopia has shed 59% of its private prison holdings since December 2012 and, according to Color of Change, has committed to full divestment.

DSM, a Dutch chemical company, sold off all 73,000 of ...

GEO Group and Accurate Background, Inc. have been sued in federal court in New York for violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) when conducting criminal background checks on GEO job applicants. The suit, filed on October 30, 2015, seeks class-action status.

The FCRA requires employers taking an “adverse action” against a job applicant based on a background check to provide the applicant with a “pre-adverse action” notice that includes a copy of the report and a summary of their rights under the FCRA.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Eric Keels, who was later joined by co-plaintiff Sandra Inman, alleged GEO Group and Accurate Background failed to comply with the FCRA’s requirements before denying employment to prospective GEO job applicants. Accurate Background also allegedly failed to notify applicants it was providing GEO with background screening reports and did not follow procedures to ensure the accuracy and completeness of those reports.

Keels had a job offer from GEO Group, the nation’s second-largest for-profit prison company, but the offer was rescinded following a background screening. “I’m hoping to help ensure that GEO Group and Accurate Background, Inc., follow the law so that people who want to come work for GEO Group ...

The Kansas Federal Public Defenders’ Office has challenged a scheme whereby officials at a detention center in Leavenworth, Kansas operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) secretly video-recorded confidential attorney-client meetings. As a result, on August 10, 2016 a Kansas federal district court ordered the practice to “cease and desist” immediately. U.S. District Court Judge Julie A. Robinson also ordered that all originals and copies of such recordings be surrendered immediately to the court.

The previously-undisclosed surveillance practice came to light when a private attorney, Jacqueline Rokusek, was advised by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas that she had a conflict of interest in representing a client. She was allowed to inspect video recordings made at the CCA detention center and discovered that dozens of supposedly confidential meetings between other attorneys and their clients were on the same disks. She then alerted the Public Defenders’ Office and defense bar, igniting a firestorm of protest from criminal defense attorneys.

Experts noted that although the recordings of the meetings apparently did not include sound, the faces of the participants, documents and exhibits discussed were clearly visible. The words spoken could also be gleaned by lip-reading experts, they said. The ...

The Kentucky Court of Appeals held that a trial court improperly granted summary judgment to the defendants in a civil action alleging a prisoner received negligent medical care at the Hardin County Detention Center (HCDC).

HCDC contracts with Southern Health Partners, Inc. (SHP), a for-profit company, to provide medical care to its prisoners. SHP provides nursing and medical services to almost 200 jails nationwide. To fulfill its contract at HCDC, the company contracted with Dr. John Adams, who employed Elizabeth Walkup, an advanced registered nurse practitioner, to assist him. SHP employed nurses and other medical personnel at HCDC.

Mark Sietsema was booked into the jail in the fall of 2009. He advised medical staff that he suffered from diverticulitis and previously had 16 inches of his colon removed due to the disease.

On April 24, 2010, Sietsema filed a medical request indicating he had been vomiting and feverish for the last two days. The next day, a nurse documented abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, fever and constipation; she gave him nausea medication and prescribed a liquid diet. Nurse Heather Kennedy examined Sietsema on May 8, recording complaints of nausea and vomiting. Kennedy and Nurse Brenda Brown had him placed in observation ...

The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office’s (OPSO) administration of New Orleans’ Electronic Monitoring Program (EMP) was an almost “total failure,” according to the city’s Inspector General, Ed Quatrevaux, who found deficiencies in the program compromised public safety and wasted money.

OPSO Sheriff Marlin Gusman took control of the EMP in 2010 despite having submitted a higher bid during a competitive bidding process. Prior to OPSO’s administration of the program, from 2007 to 2009 defendants subject to electronic monitoring were overseen by a private contractor, Total Sentencing Alternatives Program (T-SAP). T-SAP lost its contract following criticism that it failed to timely respond to violations.

OPSO’s management of the monitoring program came under scrutiny in September 2014 following the murder of Richard “Chris” Yeager, a Domino’s Pizza driver. Authorities put two teens with ankle monitors at the scene; one had missed curfew the night before by 90 minutes, and during that time committed a carjacking. A deputy never followed up on the curfew violation.

The Inspector General’s Office examined the EMP and issued its report in two parts. The first determined that “neither the City nor OPSD implemented effective financial controls or ensured the program’s fiscal accountability.” Specifically, the report found that OPSO ...

Prison Legal News has long reported on the financial partnership between for-profit prison firm GEO Group and Florida politicians – a “legacy of corruption,” as detailed in PLN’s March 2011 cover story. GEO’s Political Action Committee (PAC) in Florida, where the company is headquartered, was disbanded in 2011 after a state audit found the PAC’s partisan contributions were in excess of the amount allowed by Florida law. [See: PLN, Feb. 2012, p.19]. More accusations of improper political influence were leveled against GEO in 2012 when the FBI looked into the relationship between the corporation and former Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom. [See: PLN, Feb 2012, p.34].

Despite this past scrutiny, on August 9, 2016 the Miami Herald reported that the GEO Group’s donations still continue to influence Florida policymakers. According to the newspaper, GEO has directed at least $288,000 to politically-connected committees operated by Rebecca and Joe Negron – a Congressional candidate and sitting state Senator known as a “power couple” in Florida politics. Another GEO Group political favorite is former presidential candidate Marco Rubio, to whom GEO donated $80,400 between July and August 2016 alone.

According to www.followthemoney.org, which tracks campaign contributions on the state level, from ...

PLN has opposed the private prison industry since we began publishing in 1990; back then the industry was in its infancy, having started in 1983 in its modern incarnation. Besides the political and moral implications of farming out correctional functions to for-profit corporations, there has been the well-documented reality that private prisons tend to be even worse than government-run facilities in such areas as safety, transparency and staffing levels. Nor has there been any evidence that they actually save the government money.

So it was a surprise when I heard the U.S. Department of Justice’s announcement in August 2016 that it planned to phase out its use of private prisons because, well, they were less safe and more violent than their Bureau of Prisons (BOP) counterparts and, by the way, there was no evidence they were any cheaper.

That it took the federal government a scant 33 years to realize this is a testament to the fact that they do not read Prison Legal News, or any other independent media outlet that has reported extensively on the private prison industry. This month’s cover story on private prison cost-shifting by PLN managing editor Alex Friedmann is a brief summary of the ...

By Eileen Townsend, Memphis Flyer

Nearly 200 undocumented Memphians wear GPS tracking bracelets as a part of a controversial immigration program.

Sofia Gonzales* had just gotten off a long shift at her weekend job when we met for coffee on a recent evening. The young woman, who carried herself with the confidence of a senior class president, was dressed in her work uniform: a T-shirt and black, bell-bottom pants. Despite being tired from work, Sofia introduced herself energetically, directing my attention to her feet. She explained, as she adjusted the fabric where it flared around her ankle, that she wore these pants for practical reasons. The loose fabric concealed a heavy, black device wrapped around her ankle. In Spanish, she called the device her grillete — or, in English, her "shackle."

"I feel embarrassed," Sofia told me through a translator, gesturing toward the plastic ankle bracelet. "This makes me feel like a delinquent. People look at me like I am a criminal."

Sofia has no criminal record, neither in America nor in her Central American home country. She is a recent immigrant to the United States and is currently seeking asylum from violence that has affected her family. She wears ...

Prison profiteer GEO Group was cited by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) in a June 2012 report with six safety and health violations—totaling $104,000 in fines—at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility, which the company formerly managed.

OSHA said that, based on a December 2011 inspection of the prison that stemmed from an internal complaint, GEO Group exposed PACT employees to workplace violence and failed to take action to reduce the risk. Though prisons are inherently dangerous workplace, OSHA said, GEO Group is nevertheless required to take every precaution to protect guards and other staff from safety hazards.

According to OSHA's report, GEO Group—which trails only Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) as the second-largest For-profit prison operator in the United States—also failed to provide an adequate level of staffing. to fix malfunctioning cell door locks, or to provide proper safety training, All were willful violations by GEO Group, OSHA said. meaning there was intentional knowing or voluntary disregard for the law's requirements,

When OSHA issued its report. it gave GEO Group 15 days to respond, After the report was released. GEO Group spokesman Pablo Paez declined to give an immediate response from the company.

Source: www.wtok.com

Arizona's Department of Corrections (ADC) disciplines private contractors like parents who banish teenagers to the cozy confines of their bedrooms.

Wexford Health Sources, which recently took over prisoner healthcare in Arizona after winning a three-year. $349-million contract, was lined a paltry $10.000 after—among other disturbing incidents—a prisoner at the Florence complex hanged himself on Aug, 23, 2012 after not receiving his psychotropic medication for an entire month.

According to ADC, Wexford's failure to deliver the medication to the prisoner, who was found hanging from a sheet in his cell. was a "significant, non-compliance issue.” State records don't indicate whether or not the prisoner survived.

Wexford was also slow to report a nurse who, on August 28, exposed the insulin supply at the state prison in Buckeye to the hepatitis-C virus. Nwadiuto Jane Nwaohia administered a routine dose of insulin to a diabetic prisoner who also has hepatitis-C and then inserted the same needle into another vial to draw more insulin for the same prisoner. The vial. according to ADC Director Charles Ryan, was then placed among other vials in a medication refrigerator and got mixed up with other vials of insulin used that day on 103 diabetic prisoners.

Nwaohia was ...