The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that private prison-management corporations and their employees may be sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

“Billy Rosborough is a prisoner of the Bradford State Jail, a Texas prison owned and operated by…Management and Training Corporation (MTC), a private prison-management corporation.”

Rosborough brought a § 1983 action against MTC and guard Chris Shirley, alleging that “Shirley maliciously slammed a door on Rosborough’s fingers, severing two fingertips” and that MTC failed to properly train and supervise Shirley.

“The district court sua sponte dismissed Rosborough’s action on the grounds that Shirley was an employee of MTC rather than…the State of Texas and, therefore, was not acting under color of state law for purposes of suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.” The court “did not address MTC’s potential liability for failing to train Shirley.”

The Fifth Circuit reversed, observing that “[t]he Supreme Court…has held that ‘to act “under color” of law does not require that the accused by an officer of the state.’ Addickes v. S.H. Kness & Co., 398 U.S. 144,152…90 S. Ct. 1598 (1970)…Under the Supreme Court’s ‘public function’ test, a private entity acts under color of state law ‘when that entity performs a ...

The Geo Group, Inc., Florida Correctional Finance Corporation, South Bay Correctional Facilities Financing Corporation and the Florida Department of Corrections paid $35,000 to settle a prisoner’s negligence claim. The settlement came in a lawsuit filed by prisoner Edward Milner.

In his amended complaint, Milner alleged that the Defendants created a ...

In the latest controversy surrounding the beleaguered Texas Office of Violent Sex Offender Management (OVSOM), the agency that oversees the approximately 300 civilly committed sex offenders in Texas, Avalon Correctional Services sent OVSOM a letter telling it to remove the 67 civilly committed sex offenders (CCSOs) residing in its halfway houses in Dallas, El Paso and Ft. Worth. That represents about half of the 140 CCSOs who reside outside of prison. Over half the CCSOs have been returned to prison for violating stringent civil commitment rules and none has ever been released from the program, prompting criticism that the program, which is supposed to provide treatment for sex offenders suffering from "a behavior abnormality," might not withstand a court challenge to its constitutionality.

Avalon contracts with OVSOM to house CCSOs for $44 per CCSO per day. It recently requested an increase to $61.81 per CCSO per day. As justification for the increased rate, Avalon cited increased litigation by CCSOs requiring its employees to travel from El Paso to the Texas court designated by statute to handle the CCSO cases in Montgomery County near Houston. The letter also complained of the agency’s "lack of communication, [lack of] support and secretiveness." The ...

The second death in six months of a pre-trial detainee at Pennsylvania’s Buck County prison has raised questions about its detox procedures. The scrutiny of such procedures should be a focal point for jail administrators throughout the nation because such deaths are occurring with increasing frequency.

In October 2013, Valene Karaharisis, 29, was found dead in her Buck County cell. She was going through a heroin detox for the month of her incarceration for credit card fraud charges. The day of her death, she had common withdrawal symptoms of a running fever. Her cause of death was “undetermined”.

Then, on March 22, 2014, Marlene Yarnall, 49, was found dead in her Bucks County cell. Just three hours before her death, she had been given the scheduled doses of medication to ease her withdrawal symptoms. Yet, no one checked her vital signs. An autopsy concluded she had a cardiac arrest during detox.

Bucks County illustrates a growing issue for jail officials from July 2013 to April 2014; about 6,700 people were booked into the Bucks County prison. Of them, nearly one-quarter, or 1,703, required detox, said Todd Haskins, vice president for operations of Prime Care, the prison’s private medical vendor.

The ...

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed a bill that would have expanded the powers of private probation companies and shrouded their activities in secrecy.

House Bill 837 was introduced shortly after lawsuits were filed in Richmond and counties to challenge the constitutionality of private companies carrying out judicial processes. It also sought to end relief in a 2013 ruling that prohibited private companies from extending probationary sentences without court action, which also meant they must pay back thousands of dollars to probationers they illegally extended.

According to Sarah Geraghty, an attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights HB 837 was “a gift to the private probation industry.” Gifts, however, come without an expectation of a return. This bill was sponsored by legislators who received campaign contributions and support for other offices.

Geraghty, nonetheless, has strong support for her position that HB 837 would have been a boon to private probation companies operating in Georgia. When state lawmakers turned the supervision of misdemeanor probationers over to local government in 2000, they created an industry. Local governments were ill-equipped to handle the task, and they were glad to hand the supervision over the companies who charged the government nothing in return for ...

An administrator for Armor Correction Health Services, Inc., was forced out of his position by Florida’s Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri.

The administrator, Lewis Hays, was involved in the death of Allen Hicks, Sr. 51, who died at the Hillsborough County Jail after languishing for days in his cell following a stroke. (See: PLN November 2014, p. 40). According to Hillsborough County officials, Hays “offered misleading information as to the existence of the notes” of Hick’s care. The review into Hicks’ May 2012 death also found Hays and his assistant “engaged in conduct that appeared to be intended to intimidate and coerce “the nurse who belatedly recognized Hicks’ stoke symptoms.

Pinellas County entered into a contract with Armor in 2013 for it to take over some medical care, including dental and mental health services, for its prisoners. Over the next two years, the deal is set to provide $6.5 million in revenue for Armor.

Hays was the chief administrator of the Hillsborough County contract. Rather than having his conduct there results in consequences for his career, it acted as a boom. He was promoted to regional vice president overseeing the Pinellas contract.

Armor CEO Bruce Teal rejected Hillsborough’s review of ...

Bernard Ammerman, the District Attorney of Willacy County, Texas believes that debt for privately-operated prisons may overwhelm the county's finances. In July 2012, he publicly complained that the county may not be able to repay the debt incurred for the construction and later renovation of a private "tent city" prison run by Management and Training Corporation.

Willacy County Judge John F. Gonzales, Jr. disagrees. He said that Ammerman simply does not understand the nature of the bonds used to finance the prisons. He, Ramon Vela of Velasco and Dan Rios of McAllen, attorneys who advise Willacy County, said that the county and its taxpayers are not responsible for repayment of the debt incurred in relation to the "tent city" prison near Raymondville.

Gonzales points to the fact that the debt incurred by the three public facilities corporations (PFCs) who built a U.S. Marshall's detention center, originally designed to house illegal immigrants, the "tent city" or "dome structures" and the county jail does not revert to the county should the PFCs fail to repay the debt. For instance, the county jail is financed and operated by the State of Texas, according to Gonzales.

Gonzales said that Ammerman also has his figures ...

The National Immigration Forum, a well-respected, non-partisan organization based in Washington, D.C., has published its most recent study of national immigration

enforcement policies, entitled, “The Math of Immigration Detention: Runaway Cost for Immigration Detention Do Not Add Up to Sensible Policies.”

The publication highlights what the organization calls the “exorbitant spending wasted on detaining hundreds of thousands of immigrants annually,” and the little-known fact that immigration enforcement in all of its forms now devours more federal money than all of the rest of the federal law enforcement community combined.  The principal question raised by the study is what the U.S. is getting for all of this money.

Like many other well-intended federal policies, immigration enforcement started off small.  Despite the fact that it was an open secret that millions of undocumented aliens worked in the United States, there was little pressure to rein in this human migration. American businesses need cheap labor to work in the fields, factories, and in other menial vocations. Deportations were rare, and confinement of the undocumented even rarer, except along the southern border with Mexico.  The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) charged with enforcing immigration policy at that time was the poor stepchild of the ...

The Nevada Supreme Court held a prisoner was entitled to the grant of a writ of mandamus to compel the Nevada's Chief Medical Officer to periodically examine and semi-annually report to the Board of State Prison Commissioners Board regarding the nutritional adequacy of the diet of prisoners.

Prisoner Robert Stockmeier sought mandamus and injunctive relief to compel Tracy Green, in her capacity as the Chief Medical Officer for the State of Nevada, to comply with NRS 209.382(1)(b). The district court denied the petition and an appeal ensued.

The appeal resulted in the Nevada Supreme Court reversing the denial with instructions to require Green to submit evidence to support her position that she was fulfilling her duty. On remand, she presented a report submitted to the board in 2011 and minutes from a December 2011 Board meeting where she informed she had found no nutritional deficiencies in her inspection of prisoner diets. The district court again denied the petition and another appeal ensued.

The Nevada Supreme Court pointed out that NRS 209.382(1) requires each prisoner be provided a “healthful diet.” Section (1)(b) requires the Chief Medical Officer “periodically examine” and report on a semi-annual basis to the board regarding the “nutritional ...

On October 3, 2012, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) announced that it had rejected a bid by the GEO Group, a private prison company, to operate the Kerrville State Hospital. GEO Care, a GEO Group subsidiary, was the only company to submit a bid after bid proposals for privatizing state hospitals were requested by DSHS early in 2012.

A requirement of the bid proposals was a 10% operational costs savings for at least four years. The method GEO used to accomplish this cost reduction is ultimately what sunk the proposal.

"The reason the proposal was rejected is telling of the problems with privatization--you make your money by cutting staff and paying them less while the care of your patients suffers," said Bob Libal, executive director of Grassroots Leadership, an organization which, along with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Public Policy Priorities and the United Methodist Church, stated their opposition to state hospital privatization in a letter to Texas Governor Rick Perry and the Legislative Budget Board (LBB).

The staffing cuts GEO proposed were radical--a 21% reduction in overall staffing from 542 to 428 and a reduction in psychiatric nursing ...