Officials in Delaware County, Pennsylvania have been tight-lipped about the recent suicides of two prisoners at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility, fearing wrongful death lawsuits.

On May 26, 2015, Janene Wallace, 35, hung herself using her bra while serving time for a probation violation. Just weeks later, 46-year-old Richard Dandrea committed suicide by hanging himself with the rope from a laundry bag. Both prisoners had histories of mental illness.

Philadelphia-based attorney David Inscho said on July 17, 2015 that he had been retained by both families to review and investigate the cases for potential legal action. “A serious investigation is warranted to determine whether or not those [suicide prevention] guidelines in place are adequate and the training of their personnel is adequate,” he said.

The George W. Hill Correctional Facility is operated by Community Education Centers (CEC), a private company that took over operation of the prison after the sudden departure of the previous contractor, The GEO Group, in 2008. Following the suicides, CEC issued a statement saying that it took the matter “very seriously” and that “appropriate actions” were taken after an investigation.

Records from the Delaware County medical examiner’s office indicate that at least six suicides have ...

PLN’s intervention in a federal lawsuit alleging Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) had improperly classified supervisors at two Kentucky prisons as being exempt from overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Kentucky’s Wage and Hour Act resulted in the court unsealing the settlement in the case.

The lawsuit included allegations that CCA had misclassified and wrongfully withheld overtime pay from current and former supervisory employees at the Otter Creek Correctional Center and Marion Adjustment Center, both of which have since closed. The parties reached a settlement agreement on November 21, 2013. In approving the settlement, the district court also granted the parties’ joint motion to seal two exhibits that contained “information concerning the amount that will be paid to each plaintiff if the settlement is approved” and “information pertaining to the plaintiff’s counsel’s attorney fees and costs.”

Prison Legal News moved to intervene on February 4, 2014 for the purpose of unsealing the exhibits related to the settlement. The court found that PLN met the conditions to intervene, as its motion was timely, its challenge to the order sealing the settlement exhibits presented “a question of law or fact in common” with the underlying action, and there ...

Why are Alameda County Jails Forcing Women to Take Pregnancy Tests?

by Susie Cagle, RH Reality Check

For pregnant women in Alameda County, California jails in the 1980s, the daily realities of life included shackled limbs, denial of prescribed medication, and, in the case of full-term miscarriage, at least one health-care worker who insisted a woman and her baby would be “better off” if the child died. During that time, rates of female incarceration spiked, and a troubled prison system attempted to make do. Women at the jail faced rates of miscarriage 50 times higher than the California average.

In 1986, advocates sued for a litany of offenses. And in 1989, they won. Policies changed. But their attempts at reforming women’s health unexpectedly opened the door for another form of abuse.

For at least several years, Alameda County sheriffs and medical personnel have routinely conducted pregnancy tests on thousands of prisoners, old and young, fertile and sterile, willing or not. It’s a practice that isn’t shared by any other jails in California. No one can say for exactly how long Alameda County jails have been forcing arrested women to take pregnancy tests, and no one can really explain why.

“It’s ironic that they’ve ...

Georgia: $453,000 Jury Verdict against Private Jail Medical Contractor

by David Reutter

A Georgia federal jury awarded $452,917.50 to a former detainee for injuries that resulted from inadequate medical care at the Hart County Jail.

Monica Robinson was on probation for a criminal offense on April 20, 2012 when she ...

Study Finds Private Prisons Keep Prisoners Longer, Without Reducing Future Crime

by Peter Kerwin

A new study finds that prisoners in private prisons are likely to serve as many as two to three more months behind bars than those assigned to public prisons and are equally likely to commit more crimes after release, despite industry claims to lower recidivism rates through high-quality and innovative rehabilitation programs.

The study is believed to be the first effort to compare time served in public and private prisons. Anita Mukherjee, an assistant professor of actuarial science, risk management and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin School of Business, sought to compare public and private prisons in terms of two key outcomes: time served and recidivism. With private prisons being paid on the basis of each occupied bed, there may be a financial incentive for the operators of those facilities to maximize the number of days served for each prisoner, which may not be in the best interests of the state.

“There is a basic fairness issue here – should prisoners be serving more time simply because they were randomly assigned to a private prison instead of a public one?” says Mukherjee. “The number of days ...

Seventh Circuit Rejects Prisoner’s 1983 Claim but Criticizes Controlling Precedent

by Derek Gilna

It’s not often that a federal appellate court criticizes the precedent that it feels obligated to follow, but that is what happened in a civil rights lawsuit filed by Illinois state prisoner Earnest Shields.

Shields sued prison medical staff and the Illinois DOC’s private medical contractor, Wexford Health Sources, which he alleged had bungled his treatment for a torn tendon he suffered while lifting weights, causing him permanent injuries. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court’s dismissal of Shields’ constitutional claims, finding that while there was negligence by Wexford, Shields had failed to prove the necessary elements of “deliberate indifference” by individual defendants.

The controlling precedent criticized by the appellate court was Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), which held that “respondeat superior is not a basis for rendering municipalities liable under § 1983 for the constitutional torts of their employees.” Instead, the Monell court said, § 1983 liability can be found only if “the government’s own policy or custom had caused the violation.” The Monell standard has been extended to private companies acting under color of state law, although ...

Michigan: Private Prison More Costly than State-Run Prison, Attracts Out-of-State Contracts

by David Reutter

The GEO Group, one of the nation’s largest for-profit prison companies, has signed contracts with Vermont and Washington State to house prisoners at a GEO prison in Michigan, after a review by Michigan officials determined it would be more costly for GEO to run the facility than to house prisoners in a facility operated by the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC). That conclusion prompted the MDOC to shelve a proposal to move prisoners from three other prisons to the GEO-owned North Lake Correctional Facility in Baldwin.

Michigan lawmakers cleared the way for the contracts with Vermont and Washington by passing legislation to allow maximum-security prisoners to be held at the 1,740-bed North Lake facility. The GEO Group prison served as the Michigan Youth Correctional Facility until 2005 and later briefly held prisoners from California until it closed in 2011.

Vermont signed a two-year contract with GEO in May 2015 to provide “comprehensive correctional management services,” including offender rehabilitation programs. By June 30, 2015, the North Lake facility held 280 Vermont prisoners who previously had been incarcerated at the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA)-owned Lee Adjustment Center ...

Aramark’s Correctional Food Services: Meals, Maggots and Misconduct

by Christopher Zoukis and Rod L. Bower

Prison food service vendor Aramark was included among 132 businesses in 21 countries that were named the World’s Most Ethical Companies in 2015 by Ethisphere Institute, a self-described “global leader” in defining standards for ethical corporate practices. According to the Institute’s website, the designation bestowed upon Aramark “recognizes companies that truly go beyond making statements about doing business ‘ethically’ and translate those words into action.”

“Honorees not only promote ethical business standards and practices internally, they exceed legal compliance minimums and shape future industry standards by introducing best practices today,” the Institute said. The 2015 designation marked the sixth straight year that Aramark has been included on the World’s Most Ethical Companies list.

Aramark Correctional Services, the arm of the Philadelphia-based company that caters to prisons and jails, boasts that it “provides a wide range of food, facility and other customized support solutions to over 600 correctional facilities across North America,” preparing “well over 1,000,000 meals a day for state and municipal facilities, partnering with our clients to meet the unique challenges of the corrections environment.”

Moreover, Aramark’s website says that it “endeavors to go ...

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 ...