According to a report published by The Sentencing Project on June 15, 2023, the federal government and 27 states incarcerated 96,370 people in private prisons in 2021, amounting to 8% of America’s prison population.

Private prisons are not used to house prisoners in the other 23 states. But private prisons also hold nearly 79% of those detained for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement nationwide, representing another 16,000 people. The largest private prison firms include GEO Group, Core Civic, LaSalle Corrections and Management and Training Corporation.

Among states that use them, private prisons hold the biggest share of state prisoners in Montana—about 50%. In Arizona, Hawaii, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Tennessee, between 21% and 45% of state prisoners are held in a for-profit prison.

Though the overall share of American prisoners in private lockups hasn’t changed much since 2000, it is down significantly from its 2012 peak. A big driver of this in recent years is the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), which ended use of private prisons to hold federal prisoners under an executive order issued by Pres. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D), moving about 21,565 prisoners out of private lockups since 2021.

But even with the BOP ban on ...

by Matt Clarke

A $7 million settlement reached in April 2023 marked the latest chapter in a sordid tale of mismanagement at Bi-State Jail (BSJ) in Texarkana, Texas, by former private operator LaSalle Corrections. But the family-owned prison profiteer, based in Ruston, Louisiana—which ended its contract to run BSJ in ...

How “Big Capital” Learned to Love Mass Incarceration

“Who is accountable for the imposition of punishment in our carceral system?” asked Laura I. Appleman, Professor of Law at Willamette University, in an article published on April 13, 2023. An answer is no longer simple, she notes, since responsibility for U.S. incarceration has increasingly been farmed out to private companies—some publicly held, others owned by private equity firms—all seeking to profit off those swept up in the U.S. criminal justice system.

“Where there is a flow of public money, there is always a rush of capital in to drink,” Appleman observes, using the term “Big Capital” to describe the interconnected web of companies exploiting the explosive growth of what are known as “correctional services.” The professor decries the involvement of Big Capital, saying it distorts American values regarding punishment and rehabilitation, creates conflicts of interest and corrupts administration of justice.

Such involvement includes operating prisons, jails, juvenile facilities and other detention centers; providing medical care, mental health care, food services, commissary services and transportation services for prisoners; as well as supplying correctional telecommunications, video visitation, electronic tablets and money transfer services.

While some private-sector involvement has long been a feature of ...

On November 14, 2023, the federal Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas approved a new mediator to oversee the dissolution of Corizon Health successor Tehum Care Services, Inc. Retired bankruptcy judge Christopher Sontchi replaced former Judge David Jones, who resigned after it was revealed that he shares a home with Liz Freeman, an attorney representing the other Corizon Health successor, YesCare, in settlement talks.

As PLN reported, Corizon Health moved its headquarters to Texas to take advantage of state law permitting a “divisional merger” that put most of the company’s liabilities into a new firm, Tehum, while its on-going—and profitable—business was transferred to another new firm called YesCare. [See: PLN, Aug. 2023, p.35.] Tehum promptly filed for bankruptcy in the Court, threatening nearly $1.2 billion in outstanding obligations inherited from Corizon Health, including $88 million in settlement payouts in 475 lawsuits alleging medical neglect and mistreatment.

Of those payments, 200 were owed by Corizon Health to prisoners and former prisoners before the company executed the “Texas Two-Step.” After that, Jones oversaw negotiations that were about to result in a settlement of just $8.5 million for all 200 claims, netting each prisoner as little as $5,000 after legal costs ...

by David M. Reutter

In June 8, 2023, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia held that the Medical Professional Liability Act (MPLA), W. Va. Code §§ 55-7B-1 to 12, does not apply to the state Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR).

Before the court was a motion by DCR to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the estate of state prisoner Deanna R. McDonald. That complaint, filed in Circuit Court for Cabell County, named DCR and its employees, as well as healthcare contractors PrimeCare Medical of West Virginia and PSIMed.

McDonald was diagnosed as suicidal and suffering from seizures upon intake as a pretrial detainee on August 20, 2017. She also exhibited fevers and vomiting, plus she admitted abusing opiates. McDonald disclosed that she had recent psychiatric issues and treatment. She was placed on “special management” status in a holding cell under full suicide watch and “detox” precautions “until cleared by a psychologist or psychiatrist.”

But follow up care or evaluation was never provided, not even a psychological or psychiatric referral. Wellness checks also were not conducted on McDonald after she was placed in a holding cell at 2:07 a.m. A fellow detainee, Heather Adkins, heard McDonald making ...

A “Provider Handbook” for “Physicians, Psychiatrists, Dentists, Nurse Practitioners, and Physician Assistants” employed in Illinois state prisons by Wexford Health Sources warns that “[i]nmates can be very manipulative,” so healthcare workers are advised to “[n]ever take anything from or bring anything to an inmate.”

“Do not authorize special privileges,” the handbook continues. “Anything that raises a question about inmate relationships should be discussed with your healthcare unit administrator, or the responsible assistant warden.”

The handbook would have remained hidden from public view if Wexford had its way, but the firm lost a 2021 motion to seal the handbook after it was admitted in evidence as part of a prisoner’s lawsuit filed in federal court for the Southern District of Illinois. See: Russell v. Wexford Health Sources, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6340 (S.D. Ill.).

Wexford holds the contract to provide healthcare to the state Department of Corrections (DOC) and the 29,245 people it held at the end of June 2023. After collecting over $1 billion in payments, the firm’s 10-year contract expired in 2021, but DOC continues to extend it, despite a federal class-action that led to a 2019 consent decree—amended in June 2022—mandating improvements in prisoner healthcare. [See: PLN, Jan. ...

On July 25, 2022, a settlement was reached between Corizon Health, Inc. and an Arizona prisoner to whom it allegedly denied eye care, resulting in partial vision loss. Under the agreement, the firm owes $100,000 to Kevin Campbell, inclusive of legal costs and fees.

One of the nation’s largest for-profit ...

by David M. Reutter

On May 1, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the grant of summary judgment to a NaphCare nurse accused of deliberate indifference to a pretrial detainee’s sickle cell disease that resulted in his death at Ohio’s Hamilton County Justice Center. But the Court affirmed the grant of judgment to all other defendants.

The case involved the death of Cornelius Pierre Howell, 33, who was booked into the jail on December 2, 2018. That placed him under the care of NaphCare, Inc., the jail’s medical contractor. Over the first week of his incarceration, nurses screened Howell twice and placed him on the “chronic care list” because of his charted diagnosis of sickle cell disease. Howell also informed them that he typically took Oxycodone for his sickle cell pain, which he stated had worsened during his incarceration.

Howell uncharacteristically started a fight with his cellmate on December 9, 2018, and he was taken to the medical unit. On the way, Howell was seen on video falling to the ground twice because he could not walk. Arriving in a wheelchair at the medical unit, Howell exclaimed that he was in pain. He yelled, moaned ...

In a three-minute meeting on May 31, 2023, the State Building Commission of Tennessee approved a request from the Department of Correction (DOC) for budget revision, funding, and amendment to the existing CoreCivic contract to operate South Central Correctional Facility (SCCF) in Wayne County.

The approval added two years to ­CoreCivic’s three-year contract at the prison, increasing the total payout from $118.18 million to $212.9 million, a jump of $8 million a year. State lawmakers took heat from critics who pointed to $18 million in fines CoreCivic has paid for “operational shortcomings” that have left prisoners dead and drawn multiple lawsuits.

The parents of three prisoners who died in CoreCivic-run prisons in 2021 are among those critics. The families of Chriteris Allen, Laeddie Coleman and Joshua Williams accused the company of “understaffing its four Tennessee prisons to increase shareholder profits by cutting costs, ignoring guards’ drug smuggling, refusing to get outside medical treatment for prisoners, and failing to provide a safe atmosphere for prisoners.” PLN also documented a complaint against CoreCivic for medical neglect in the 2020 suicide at SCCF of Addison Smith, 27. [See: PLN, Jan. 2021, p.28.]

State Rep. G. A. Hardaway (D-Memphis) says Tennessee’s relationship with the ...

by Douglas Ankney

“This appeal arises from the tragic death of Antonio May,” began the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on June 7, 2023. As longtime PLN readers know, “tragic” deaths are often those for which no one is held liable. Sure enough, the Eleventh Circuit had bad news for the dead man’s survivors, affirming a lower court’s decision not to blame May’s September 2018 death at Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail (FCJ) on officials there.

But the Court also reversed a grant of summary judgment to the jail’s privately contracted healthcare provider, Alabama-base NaphCare, Inc., whose expert had blamed May’s death on “excited delirium,” a diagnosis PLN has reported is widely considered “junk science.” [See: PLN, Apr. 2016, p.10.] 

May’s fate was sealed as he lay on the ground and spread his arms in front of Atlanta’s American Cancer Society building. To responding officers with the Atlanta Police Department (APD), security guards identified May as the person who had thrown rocks at the building and broken a window. May told cops he was not feeling well and wanted to go to jail. They took him to Grady Memorial Hospital for an examination by a ...