“We’re at a fork in the road,” Alabama state Senator Cam Ward, chairman of the Prison Reform Task Force, said in June 2014. “We have two paths to choose from and neither one is easy. Those of us on the task force can solve, it or federal courts can do it for us. It’s our choice.”

With the state’s prison system at around 192% of capacity, lawsuits pending over inadequate medical care and high levels of violence, and federal oversight due to pervasive staff-on-prisoner sexual abuse, Alabama has one of the nation’s most troubled Departments of Corrections. The state’s creation of the Task Force in early 2014 was a measure taken in an effort to avoid a federal court-appointed receiver or monitor over its prison system, as occurred in California.

PLN has been reporting for over two decades on deteriorating and abysmal conditions in Alabama’s correctional facilities. While prison systems in Southern states are typically at the forefront with respect to regressive policies and practices, the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) has been an outlier with its message of “incarceration means harsh and degrading punishment” – which may as well be its official motto.

Changes in criminal statutes resulted in ...

With the promise of saving taxpayer dollars to house a growing prisoner population during a cyclical crime wave in the early 1990s, Florida decided to experiment with private prisons. From the start, those involved in the push to privatize were tainted with ethical conflicts, and more than two decades later politics still rule the privatization issue while cost savings have proven elusive.

State lawmakers initially created the Correctional Privatization Commission (CPC) to push an initiative that the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) was reluctant to pursue: privatizing prisons. The CPC helped craft Florida’s 1993 statute that established the parameters for privatization.

Consulting for the CPC was Charles Thomas, a University of Florida criminology professor who was nationally known to specialize in prison issues. He contributed significantly to developing the law’s provisions. “I certainly had a fairly heavy hand in it,” he said.

He also had a heavy hand in the coffers of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest for-profit prison firm. At the same time he was consulting for the CPC, Thomas owned private prison stock and secured a $3 million fee from CCA in connection with Prison Realty Trust, a CCA spin-off company. While Florida’s Ethics Commission ...

In a positive sign of declining prison populations, on February 10, 2016, Idaho Department of Correction Director Kevin H. Kempf announced that all 173 state prisoners remaining at the Kit Carson Correctional Center, a Colorado facility operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), would be returned to Idaho and housed in government-run prisons.

The reduction in the state’s prison population has been surprising. In June 2015, Idaho had a total prison and jail population of 8,200 prisoners. Eight months later the state had 7,800 – an almost 5% decrease. The reduction was due to several factors, including changes in prison policies concerning parole and access to recidivism reduction programs.

According to Kempf, “Inmates are coming before the parole board prepared for parole.” This has enabled the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole to increase its rate of granting parole, according to the Commission’s executive director, Sandy Jones.

“[O]ur releases to parole in the last year literally have doubled,” she said.

Such factors have had a profound impact on the IDOC and the state, enabling the IDOC to return $1.2 million to the state’s general fund and leading Governor Butch Otter to reduce the IDOC’s proposed budget by $2.9 million for ...

In a case of alleged staff misconduct at a Delaware prison, nine prisoners filed suit in Sussex County Superior Court alleging that a former prison doctor sexually assaulted them on numerous occasions.

The prisoners’ lawsuit claims that Dr. Lawrence McDonald committed the assaults under the pretext of performing medical exams, and that his practices were so well known at Sussex Correctional Institution (SCI) that other employees referred to him as “Dr. Feelgood” and “the finger.”

McDonald is alleged to have performed unnecessary rectal exams, often without gloves, and “repeatedly touched, fondled, and digitally penetrated inmates ... for no legitimate medical reason.” One prisoner alleged he was fondled when he sought medical care for a rash on his face. Another prisoner said that Dr. McDonald made him say “thank you, doctor” after McDonald performed rectal exams on him. Another prisoner claimed McDonald stuck a needle in his groin for no apparent medical purpose.

The lawsuit states that prison officials ignored repeated complaints about McDonald’s misconduct and defended him against such allegations, retaliating against prisoners who complained. According to the suit, “Inmates complaining about the sexual abuse were often harassed, ridiculed or abused.”

Stephen Hampton, the attorney representing the prisoners, said all ...

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a warden who placed a double amputee prisoner with MRSA in a segregation unit without handicap accommodations was not entitled to qualified immunity.

When Martinique Stoudemire, 23 at the time, entered the Michigan Department of Corrections in 2002, she had a long ...

Jailhouse Medicine - A Private Contractor Flourishes Despite Controversy Over Prisoner Deaths

by Brian Joseph, FairWarning

In July 2011, a jailhouse nurse in Imperial County, California found prisoner Marsha Dau lying naked and dazed on the concrete floor. Charged with illegally transporting aliens, Dau, 58, recently had been exhibiting strange and aggressive behavior. For her own safety, the jail put her in an empty, beige cell with no clothes. Now, three days later, she was on her back, semi-conscious and pale.

The nurse who found her was Elisa Pacheco, an employee of the California Forensic Medical Group, a private company that provides correctional medical services to rural counties like Imperial, near the Mexico border. Pacheco later would testify Dau looked dehydrated. But she didn’t treat it as an emergency.

Rather than call an ambulance – which the company said would have cost several hundred dollars – Pacheco, in her testimony, acknowledged that she instructed guards to get Dau to a hospital in 30 to 40 minutes. Two guards dressed Dau in orange shorts, a yellow shirt and a yellow jumpsuit, then chained her to a wheelchair. As they wheeled her to a van, Dau’s head slumped forward. One of the guards later remembered her ...

A federal lawsuit alleges that officials at the Schuylkill County Prison in Pennsylvania were negligent in the 2013 death of a prisoner from an accidental drug overdose. The suit, filed on March 24, 2015, came almost a year after the findings of a coroner’s inquest which determined that negligence did, in fact, play a role in the death of Matthew Konscler, five days after his 21st birthday and four days after he reported to the facility to begin serving a three-to-18 month sentence for possession with intent to deliver and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Konscler’s mother, Sherry Konscler, filed the suit in U.S. District Court for the Middle District against Schuylkill County, the county prison board and warden Eugene Berdanier, as well as the prison’s private healthcare provider, PrimeCare Medical, nine medical assistants and nurses, three unidentified prison guards and guard Robert Murton, who discovered Konscler unresponsive in his cell. The suit seeks at least $150,000 in compensatory damages plus punitive damages, attorney fees and costs.

Konscler had reported to the county prison on March 27, 2013 to begin serving his sentence. During the intake screening, he admitted to prison medical personnel that he was a heavy user of alcohol ...

Despite years of controversy that included sitting vacant for months after it was built and staff members being arrested for smuggling contraband and having sexual relationships with prisoners, the Jack Harwell Detention Center in Waco, Texas has rebounded. It now houses more prisoners, obtained a lower interest rate on the bonds floated to build the jail, and has a recently-extended contract with private prison operator LaSalle Corrections, Inc.

McLennan County commissioners voted on June 2, 2015 to extend LaSalle’s contract for three years. The company’s prior agreement had been scheduled to expire at the end of June 2015.

“We’re glad to extend it with LaSalle because we trust them and they’re good business people,” said County Judge Scott Felton, a member of the McLennan County Public Facility Corporation’s board of directors. “They pay the note payment on the bonds to pay for the jail and they’ve never missed a payment, even without making money.”

Felton said the jail has been losing money steadily since it was built because the prisoner population has not met expectations. The facility has capacity for 816 prisoners, but has housed fewer than 700 at any one time. During November and December of 2014, the average ...

A federal jury awarded a former Jefferson County Detention Center prisoner more than $11 million against the sheriff and the jail’s privately-contracted medical provider, Correctional Healthcare Companies (CHC) – now Correct Care Solutions – after he was denied medical treatment for at least 16 hours despite obvious signs of a ...

On March 1, 2016, the Private Corrections Institute (PCI), a non-profit citizen watchdog organization, announced its 2015 awardees for individual activism, organizational advocacy and excellence in news reporting related to the private prison industry. PCI opposes the privatization of correctional services, including the operation of prisons, jails and other detention facilities by for-profit companies such as Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and The GEO Group, both of which trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

PCI’s 2015 award for excellence in news reporting on the private prison industry went to Jerry Mitchell, a reporter with The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi, for multiple articles regarding conditions, violence and abuses at for-profit prisons in Mississippi. He also covered the indictments filed against former MS DOC Commissioner Christopher Epps, who took bribes from private prison firms and their consultants. The recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant,” Jerry previously broke stories that resulted in the prosecution of Civil Rights era murders; he has received numerous other honors and was a Pulitzer finalist.

“This award belongs to the staff of The Clarion-Ledger and especially my boss, Assistant Managing Editor Debbie Skipper, who worked not only with our staff, but with freelancers as well, in producing ...