Privatized Prisoner Transportation Service Poses Problems
by David M. Reutter
Several lawsuits against the self-proclaimed “nation’s largest prisoner extradition company and one of the largest international transporters of detainees” have cast a harsh light on a contractor hired to fulfill the traditional government role of transporting prisoners from place to place. Critics say it’s an example of what can happen when public agencies turn to private-sector, profit-driven companies in an effort to trim budgets.
In a lawsuit filed on May 29, 2015 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, former prisoner Darren Richardson claims he was the victim of “outrageous conduct” at the hands of Nashville, Tennessee-based Prisoner Transportation Services of America, LLC (PTS). The suit alleges violations of his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, as well as negligence, assault and battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Richardson says he suffered possibly permanent damage as a result of the transport company’s failure to provide humane treatment and medical care.
According to his complaint, Richardson was arrested in his home state of Florida in May 2013 for failing to pay $250 to the Court of Common Pleas in Pike County, Pennsylvania after completing probation in that ...
Idaho: FBI Declines to Press Criminal Charges against CCA for Falsified Staffing Records
by Joe Watson and Mark Wilson
The FBI will not pursue criminal charges following a 15-month investigation into allegations that the nation’s largest for-profit prison company, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), understaffed the Idaho Correctional Center and falsified records to hide thousands of hours of vacant shifts, which resulted in increased levels of violence at the facility.
“The FBI’s detailed and thorough investigation did not produce evidence of a federal criminal violation,” U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson announced on May 22, 2015. “Rather, the evidence showed that the false entries and understaffing could be attributed only to relatively low-level CCA employees.”
“No evidence obtained during the investigation showed that any CCA employee at the assistant warden level or above participated in creating the falsified rosters, or affirmatively knew that rosters were falsified at the time they were falsified,” she continued. “Likewise, no evidence showed that the false entries were made by the low-level employees with the intent to defraud the state of Idaho of money or property, as is required under the federal criminal fraud statutes.”
Olson said the FBI probe also determined that no officials with ...
by James Kilgore and Brian Dolinar, Truthout
When authorities booked Richard Murphy into the jail in Monterey, California on January 18, 2013, the war veteran likely never envisioned ending up being back in court months later, not to face criminal charges, but to expose the abuse he would suffer at the hands of the jail’s private health-care provider.
His saga began when he complained to guards about his injured back. Before his arrest he managed the pain with prescribed medication and regular cortisone shots, neither of which he could get in jail. Despite his repeated pleas, it took several months to get even a cane. During this time, he could not get out of bed without serious pain, and his condition worsened.
In addition, Murphy had a severe mental illness. He received no attention from jail authorities even after claiming he heard demonic voices and felt suicidal. In a sick call note, he complained, “I’m a disabled vet who served my country with honorable discharge and should not be treated like trash over an officer’s attitude.”
On at least five occasions, the guards responded by putting him in a “rubber room,” where he was stripped naked and dressed in a ...
New Health Care Provider Picked for Oregon Jail after Audit Criticizes Corizon
by Mark Wilson
A Birmingham, Alabama health care company has taken over medical care at the Washington County jail in Hillsboro, Oregon in the wake of a scathing audit that led county officials to terminate a contract with Corizon Health two years early. The audit found that a lack of county oversight of the Corizon contract resulted in inadequate prisoner medical care and cost the county hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Birmingham-based NaphCare, Inc. assumed control over health care at the jail on June 1, 2015 under a contract to provide services to the approximately 570 prisoners at the facility.
“We are eager to embark on this partnership with NaphCare. They are an organization that shares our commitment to value-driven service while providing progressive medical care within our jail,” Sheriff Pat Garrett said in a statement.
In addition to selecting a new provider for jail health services, county officials stripped the Washington County Department of Health and Human Services of its responsibility for overseeing the contract, instead appointing the county Finance Department to do so.
A 34-page report issued by County Auditor John Hutzler in November 2014 deliberately ...
State Prison Systems Privatizing Prisoner Accounts for Commissions
by David M. Reutter
Three state prison systems have relinquished control of their prisoner trust accounts to a private company. The contracts provide for fees on deposits and “commissions” on each transaction for the prison systems.
JPay, a private company based in Miami, provides money transfers, video visits, music and games on electronic devices, and processes court ordered payments. According to is website, it operates in prisons and jails in over 30 states. New contracts add new services or expand JPay’s reach into prisons in Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
Florida has had a contract with JPay since 2005, which was limited to its receipt of prisoner fund deposits electronically. It shared space in this arena with Western Union. The contract that took effect on July 1, 2013, eliminated competition from Western Union and gave JPay full control over prison fund receipts.
Like the contracts in North Carolina and Tennessee, the Florida contract allows JPAY to receive all funds for prisoner accounts, funds can be transmitted, for a fee, in person (walk-up), over the phone, or on the internet. The fees vary by the amount transmitted and the method used.
In Florida, ...
United States District Court Magistrate Rules on Discovery Issues in Prison Gang Death
On November 21, 2013, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii, a magistrate judge denied in part and granted in part the plaintiff’s motion to compel CCA records of practices that were a moving force in Bronson Nunuha’s death. Bronson Nunuha was attacked and killed by two other Hawaiian prisoners in his cell in the Special Housing Incentive Program area of Saguaro Correctional Center (SCC) in Eloy, Arizona, per a correctional service agreement between Hawaii’s department of corrections and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), to address problems with Hawaiian prison gang members. The attack occurred on February 18, 2010, after Nunuha was threatened by United Samoan Organization (USO) members and after his request to be transferred to a safer housing area.
The plaintiffs, Nunuha’s family, filed suit against the State of Hawaii on February 15, 2012, asserting claims of wrongful death, negligence/gross negligence, cruel and unusual punishment, deprivation of substantive due process, and violation of Nunuha’s rights as expressed in the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
The plaintiffs sought four classes of documents:
- Disciplinary records of the 29 SCC prisoners. ...
Study Details States’ Abuses of Out-Of-State Prisoner Transfers to For-Profit Prisons
by Derek Gilna
The corrections industry maintains that one of its priorities is to help detainees maintain ties with their family and communities to assist them in reintegrating back into society after their release. However, a new study, by the non-partisan Grassroots Leadership Organization, has shown that the practice of interstate transfers to for-profit facilities is contrary to that goal. Currently over 10,500 state prisoners are confined from 450 to 3,000 miles from their home in for-profit institutions, according to the study, showing that making money trumps rehabilitation.
According to the report, “the interstate transfer of prisoners to for-profit private prisons across the U.S. impedes prisoner rehabilitation, diminishes prisoners’ ties to family and community, serves the interests of an industry that views prisoners as commodities, and perpetuates our nation’s mass incarceration crisis, compromising rather than enhancing the public good and public safety.” The study further notes that as incarceration has increased in the United States over the past few decades, the “for-profit prison industry (is) a significant, yet hidden, apparatus that perpetuates mass incarceration.”
Such out-of-state transfers of state prisoners are only one facet of the insidious influence of ...
Vermont Seeks to Improve Management of Prisoner Medical Costs
by Derek Gilna
Vermonters have a well-deserved reputation for fiscal responsibility, so it is no surprise that State Auditor Doug Hoffer’s 2013 audit report detailing spending on Vermont’s in-state prisoners was critical of a $4.2 million deficit, over the past three-year period, out of total budget of $49.1 million. With respect to outside contractor Correct Care Solutions (CCS), Hoffer noted that “cost monitoring was not robust during the earlier years of the contract, but has improved since late 2012.”
Vermont’s contract with the company calls for a “cost-plus management fee” method of reimbursement, which the auditor feels gives the contractor no incentive to reduce costs. He also pointed to several instances wherein state officials could have been more diligent in recovering medical reimbursement when prisoners were covered by other insurance programs or by Medicare or Medicaid. The audit turned up one example where CCS failed to bill Medicaid for a prisoner’s medical procedure which cost the state $84,000.
The report was noteworthy for another reason; it made clear that adequate medical care for prisoners was a priority for Vermont. Vermont Director of Corrections, Dr. Dee Burroughs Biron, said, “Maybe they have ...
Prison Health Services Must Indemnify Vermont against Wrongful Death Claims
by Mark Wilson
On December 20, 2013, the Vermont Supreme Court held that Corizon Health, Inc. – formerly Prison Health Services, Inc. (PHS) – was required to defend the State against a wrongful death action brought by a prisoner’s estate.
In January 2007, PHS entered into a $24 million contract with Vermont to provide prisoner medical care. The contract required PHS to defend the State against any claims arising from PHS’ acts or omissions.
On August 14, 2009, Ashley Ellis began serving a 30-day sentence. Due to an eating disorder, she weighed just 90 pounds and “suffered from hypokalemia, a life-threatening condition linked to dangerously low potassium levels.” Prior to admission, prison officials were alerted that Ellis “was taking a potassium supplement called K-Clor to treat the hypokalemia.” When Ellis entered the facility, PHS was short staffed, had no potassium supplement in stock and did not obtain any.
On the morning of August 16, 2009, a guard found Ellis “nonresponsive in her cell.” Neither PHS staff nor guards could “locate a cardiopulmonary-resuscitation (CPR) mouth guard, delaying resuscitation attempts.” Ellis died and the cause of death was found to be “a ...
Mississippi Private Prisons Have High Prisoner Assault Rates
by Matt Clarke
A report on the number of prisoners assaulted in Mississippi prisons shows that the assault rates in private prisons average two to three times the rate of assaults in state-run prisons. One extreme example, the Walnut Grove Correctional Facility (WCGF), had a prisoner assault rate of 27 per 100 prisoners while the highest prisoner assault rate in a state-run prison was 7 per 100. The GEO Group ran WGCF and two other Mississippi prisons until it left the state in 2012. Management and Training Corporation (MTC), which currently runs WGCF and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) continue to operate private prisons in Mississippi.
"On its face, that's a huge disparity [between violence rates at private prisons and state prisons]. If inmates in private prisons are not as safe as those in the state [prisons], something needs to be done about it," said prisoners’ rights attorney Ron Welch.
"The PEER (Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review) committee should investigate and come up with recommendations as to whether the [private prison] contracts need to be changed, whether there are performance requirements that ought to be included."
The use of private prisons in ...
