The Wal-Mart Model: Not Just for Retail, Now It’s for Private Prisons Too!

by Carl Takei

The nation’s biggest and baddest for-profit prison company suddenly cares about halfway houses – so much so, that they want in on the action.

About a year after acquiring a smaller firm that operates halfway houses and other community corrections facilities, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA)
CEO Damon Hininger announced  that “[r]eentry programs and reducing recidivism are 100 percent aligned with our business model.”

Wait, what?

High recidivism rates mean more people behind bars, and CCA depends on more and more incarceration to make its billions. Since when do they actually want people to do well after they get out, instead of being sucked back into the system?

It’s tempting to be hopeful. Is this a long-overdue acknowledgment that it’s morally bankrupt to make money off of imprisoning human beings? Is the nation’s largest for-profit prison company really admitting that mass incarceration has destroyed too many communities and that locking fewer people behind bars is a good thing?

Come on. It’s CCA. We can’t afford to be naïve. The motivation behind this announcement is where it always is for CCA: the bottom line.

If you read Hininger’s speech ...

The Spread of Electronic Monitoring: No Quick Fix for Mass Incarceration

by James Kilgore

In a troubled criminal justice system desperately looking for alternatives to incarceration, electronic monitoring is trending. North Carolina has tripled the use of electronic monitors since 2011. California has placed 7,500 people on GPS ankle bracelets as part of a realignment program aimed to reduce prison populations. SuperCom, an Israeli-based Smart ID and electronic monitor producer, announced in early July 2014 that they were jumping full force into the U.S. market, predicting this will be a $6 billion-a-year global industry by 2018.

The praise singers of electronic monitoring are also re-surfacing. In late June 2014, high-profile blogger Dylan Matthews posted a story on Vox Media, headlined “Prisons are terrible and there’s finally a way to get rid of them.” He enthusiastically argued that the most “promising” alternative “fits on an ankle.” Joshua Earnest, press secretary for the Obama White House, even suggested ankle bracelets as a solution to getting the 52,000 unaccompanied immigrant children out of border detention centers and military bases in the U.S. Southwest.

The reasons behind this popular surge of electronic monitoring are obvious: Prisons and jails (along with immigrant detention facilities) are overflowing from decades of mass ...

Third Circuit: No Supervisory Qualified Immunity for Prisoner Suicide

by Mark Wilson

On September 5, 2014, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of qualified immunity to supervisory prison officials for inadequate third-party medical care resulting in a prisoner’s suicide.

The Delaware Department of Corrections (DOC) operates the Howard R. Young Correctional Institution (HRYCI). On June 17, 2002, the DOC contracted with First Correctional Medical, Inc. (FCM), a for-profit company, to provide medical care to prisoners at HRYCI. The contract outlined FCM’s required standards of care, and specified that “[t]o the extent that the health care standards of the American Correctional Association and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (‘NCCHC’) differed, FCM was to adhere to the higher standard.”

In 1997, the NCCHC published intake screening standards for correctional facilities. Those standards were updated in 2003, but FCM violated its contract by failing to implement the NCCHC’s 2003 guidelines. It also did not properly implement the 1997 standards.

Then-DOC Commissioner Stanley Taylor and HRYCI Warden Ralph Williams were aware of the deteriorating quality of FCM’s medical services. Williams admitted he knew that 1) “FCM’s performance had degraded significantly”; 2) “FCM may not have been fulfilling its contractual ...

Doctor of Death: Former Jail Physician Leaves Trail of Prisoner Deaths, Injuries

by Matt Clarke

An Illinois doctor whose medical care – or lack thereof – was linked to the deaths of prisoners in multiple states has lost his license to practice medicine, has been fined at least $50,000 by ...

Pennsylvania: Wexford Settles Case Involving Death of Prisoner’s Baby

A federal civil rights complaint filed in March 2013 accused employees of Wexford Health Sources of failing to provide appropriate medical care to a pregnant prisoner at Pennsylvania’s Westmoreland County Prison (WCP), resulting in the death of her nearly 8-month-old unborn son.

The suit was filed by Tiffany Pollitt and her husband, Brian C. Camp, Sr. Pollitt learned she was pregnant in January 2012, and an ultrasound five months later showed a healthy baby with no abnormalities. Pollitt was in the custody of WCP on July 28, 2012 when she was exercising with a volleyball in an outdoor gym.

She was accosted by two other prisoners, Gabriella Wade and LeAnn Armstrong, who demanded that Pollitt give them the ball. As she argued with Wade, Armstrong tried to take the volleyball and hit Pollitt hard in the abdomen. Pollitt confronted Armstrong about hitting her when she was pregnant. A guard arrived, issued Pollitt a disciplinary report for creating a disturbance and placed her in solitary confinement.

Pollitt awoke the next day with uterine cramping, tightness in her lower back and vaginal spotting. Her requests for a sick call form or to see ...

$66,000 Jury Award in New Mexico CCA Sexual Abuse, Retaliation Case

by Matt Clarke

On November 15, 2012, a New Mexico federal jury awarded $66,000 to a woman formerly incarcerated at a prison operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) who alleged she had been sexually assaulted by a Correctional ...

Summary Judgment Denied in California Jail Excessive Force Death; $8.3 Million Settlement Plus Injunctive Relief

by Mark Wilson

In April 2014, a California federal district court denied summary judgment to jail guards and medical staff in a case involving the death of a detainee caused by Tasing and severe beating ...

Illinois Prisoner Receives $12 Million Jury Award in Medical Neglect Suit

by Matt Clarke

n January 18, 2013, an Illinois federal jury awarded a state prisoner $12 million against an Illinois Department of Corrections (DOC) certified medical technician (CMT) who failed to provide anti-seizure medication, which caused the prisoner to ...

GEO Group’s Florida Immigration Detention Center “Horrifying”

by David M. Reutter

Hundreds of undocumented immigrants are housed at the GEO Group-operated Broward Transitional Center (BTC) in Pompano Beach, Florida, and many are victims of mistreatment and policy violations according to a report issued by an immigrants’ rights group.

The 71-page report, released on April 29, 2013 by Americans for Immigrant Justice (AIJ), included stories told by detainees to AIJ attorneys over the previous two years.

The report described incidents of alleged substandard or callous medical care, such as the case of one woman who was taken for ovarian surgery and returned to BTC the same day; she was still bleeding when placed back in her cell. Then there was a male detainee who had been passing blood for days without seeing a doctor. The report also included examples of food poisoning, sexual assaults, refusal of access to legal resources and substandard pay for detainee labor.

“There are a lot of different problems there,” said AIJ policy director Susanna Barciela. “There are Dreamers who were detained there,” she stated, referring to the DREAM Act, which would provide conditional permanent residency to immigrants who meet certain requirements.

“There have been cases of ...

“Damning” Audit Sharply Criticizes Corizon in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

by Gregory Dober

In December 2014, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Controller Chelsa Wagner released an audit report on Corizon Health’s compliance with its contract to provide medical care at the county jail in Pittsburgh.

The audit cited 14 areas in which the company allegedly failed to perform contractually-required services, ranging from failure to maintain emergency equipment to long delays in providing prisoners with physical exams and medication. According to Marion Damick, a representative of the Pennsylvania Prison Society and past director of the Pittsburgh chapter of the ACLU, “None of the 14 allegations were a surprise to anyone who has been around the Allegheny County Jail this past year. The problem is how to correct the situation considering the contract.”

The jail holds approximately 2,700 prisoners on any given day. Allegheny Correctional Health Services (ACHS), a nonprofit organization affiliated with the county’s health department, previously provided medical services to prisoners before the county contracted with Corizon in September 2013. Like other jurisdictions that contract with private companies, Allegheny County was trying to find a better solution to manage and reduce costs at the jail.

Corizon’s contract with the county, for an initial ...