Another Failed Experiment: Minnesota’s Private Prison Health Care Saves Money but Costs Lives

by David M. Reutter

Minnesota privatized its prison health care system in 1998 to achieve cost savings. While it has saved taxpayers money, it has exacted a toll of human suffering from prisoners subject to the profit-first motive of the private contractor. Since 2000, nine prisoners have died and another 21 have suffered serious or critical injury from the denial or delay of necessary medical care.

State officials have the ultimate responsibility for assuring prisoners receive medical care, but private contractors who deliver care make the day-to-day decision on who or if care is rendered. Minnesota has contracted with Corizon, the nation’s largest prison health care company. It has contracts with state prisons and local jails in 31 states. [See: PLN, March 2014, p.1].

Such contracts are for a fixed rate annually. The Minnesota contract pays Corizon $28 million each year, providing it with a strict incentive to cut costs. Cutting costs typically entail paying staff less and reducing the staff to the leanest levels possible.           

Corizon’s prison doctors end their shift at 4 P.M., and they do not work ...

Utah Democrat Defeated for Party Post Defeated After "Outing" as Private Prison Official

By Derek Gilna

Her position as Vice-Chairman of Management and Training Corporation (MTC), third largest private prison operator in the United States, proved to be the undoing of Jane Marquardt, who was seeking the vice-chair of the Utah Democratic Party's Central Committee. Despite her political record showing support for the organization "Human Rights Campaign and Equality Utah," and public support for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) causes, the documented abuses at MTC facilities derailed any chance she might have had to win that party position.

According to Counterpunch.org, "her company profits from the disproportionate caging and abuse of LGBT people, especially transgender women," citing studies that show that LGBT youth are more likely to be homeless, and therefore more likely to come onto law enforcement's radar. "Transgender people have their risk of incarceration further exacerbated by being profiled for prostitution charges and sometimes even locked up for using public restrooms," the organization stated.

It is well known that wherever private prisons make large donations to public officials, legislation to open new for-profit prisons generally soon follow. The recent debate surrounding Arizona's bill ...

Private Probation Firms Costing Georgia Taxpayers

After several probation companies operating in Georgia were sued last year, a TV news investigation on private probation yielded some persuasive perspectives.

Some probationers explained to WSB-TV that private probation firms–which account for about 40% of all probation services in Georgia–are causing more people to end up in jail for minor offenses like shoplifting, or running stop signs or driving on a suspended license because of exorbitant supervision fees.

Tomoria Wells spent 18 days in a Ware County Jail after stealing an outfit from JC Penney that cost $20. After her release, the bill from the private probation company contracted to supervise her was more than $1,300–much of it solely for supervision fees.

"It was horrible," she said.

Hills McGee, a disabled veteran who was arrested four years ago for public intoxication, spent 13 days in jail after he couldn't pay a $180 fee to a private probation company. McGee's attorney, John Bell, said his client is like so many who go to jail because they can't pay a debt.

"The only focus appears to be how can we make him pay some money, even if it means locking ...

Medical Neglect Killing Prisoners at CCA-Run Texas Prison?

by Matthew Clarke

Family members and former Dawson State Jail prisoners are alleging medical neglect led to the recent deaths of two prisoners at the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) run prison in Dallas, Texas.

The 10-story high rise Jesse R. Dawson State Jail was built near the Trinity River in downtown Dallas in 1997. CCA was to run the medium-security, co-gender facility, which was designed to house nonviolent prisoners with short sentences close to their homes. But many Dawson prisoners never saw the end of their sentences. Instead, they died at the facility which, with five prisoner deaths in 2008 alone, had the greatest number of prisoner deaths of any state facility in Texas.

Pam Weatherby, 45, was serving a one-year sentence for drug possession when she died at Dawson on July 14, 2012. Anne Roderick, who was serving a sentence at Dawson at the time and was housed in the same dormitory as her, said Weatherby was very ill, but prison staff refused to move her from her cell to the prison infirmary for medical treatment. She and the other prisoners on the dorm desperately tried ...

Arizona Fines Wexford $10,000 for Neglect, Hepatitis C Exposure

The Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) disciplined its former prison healthcare provider like a parent who banishes a teenager to the cozy confines of his bedroom.

Wexford Health Sources, which took over prisoner medical care in Arizona in July 2012 after winning a three-year, $349 million contract, was fined a paltry $10,000 after – among other disturbing incidents – a prisoner at the Florence complex hanged himself on August 23, 2012, He had not received his psychotropic medication for an entire month.

According to the ADC, Wexford's failure to provide the medication to the prisoner was a “significant non-compliance issue.” The state accused Wexford of showing a “lack of urgency” to correct medication problems, and ADC staff had “to identify inmates in need of medication renewals.”

Wexford was also slow to report a nurse who, on August 28, 2012, exposed prisoners in Buckeye to hepatitis C through contaminated insulin injections. Nwadiuto Jane Nwaohia administered a routine dose of insulin to a diabetic prisoner with hepatitis C, according to ADC Director Charles Ryan. She then inserted the same needle into another vial to draw more insulin for the ...

Recidivism Performance Measures for Private Halfway Houses in Pennsylvania

by Alex Friedmann

In 2013, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) officials announced they would provide financial incentives to privately-operated community corrections facilities – halfway houses – that reduce the recidivism rates of offenders released from those facilities.

The unique initiative followed a DOC report that found high recidivism rates in the state, with prisoners released from halfway houses (most of which are privately-operated) having higher rates than those released directly from prison. For example, for 2010-11 releasees, the one-year overall recidivism rate was 40.5% for those paroled to a community corrections facility but only 32.7% for those released from prison.

An average recidivism rate based on data from the report was established as a baseline, and privately-operated community corrections facilities are required to meet the baseline rate within a certain range or risk losing their contracts. Those that achieve rates at least 10% lower than the baseline will receive a financial bonus of one percent of the contract amount.

“It’s not unreasonable for us to expect them to have an impact on crime, because that’s what we’re paying them to do,” said Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Secretary John E. Wetzel.

“We ...

Former New Mexico State Senator Released from Prison

Manny Aragon, 66, a former New Mexico state Senate leader, was released from federal prison on December 5, 2013. Although most federal prisoners are sent to a halfway house to complete the remainder of their sentence, Aragon was released to home confinement at his house in Albuquerque.

“He’s still subject to our rules and regulations and accountability monitoring,” said Bureau of Prisons spokesman Chris Burke.

Aragon served three decades in the state legislature, rising to the position of Senate President Pro Tem, and was one of New Mexico’s most powerful Democrats. However, his lengthy political career was eclipsed by the sordid details of his downfall: A scandal that involved skimming $4.4 million from a project to build the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Courthouse. Aragon, who admitted taking $600,000 from the courthouse project, was one of several defendants prosecuted in the scandal.

He pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy and fraud charges in 2008 and was sentenced to 67 months in prison, plus a $750,000 fine and $649,000 in restitution. He served around 4½ years before being released.

Aragon was also known for flip-flopping on the issue of prison privatization. Initially opposed to private prisons, ...

BOP Criticized for Failing to Oversee Healthcare Administrator at FCC Butner

by Derek Gilna

The federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is facing criticism for its apparent failure to adequately oversee a Florida-based company responsible for coordinating the payment of BOP bills for prisoner medical care in North Carolina.

Before it went into receivership, MDI Holdings, Inc. of Ponte Verde Beach, Florida was a health care technology and analysis company that administered medical care for some 5,000 prisoners at the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, North Carolina. The BOP’s contract with MDI was the company’s largest; the actual medical care at Butner was subcontracted to Duke University Health Center and a number of private practitioners.

MDI was successful for a number of years. Sales in 2009 reached $97 million, for example. But shortly thereafter the firm experienced a series of events that culminated in the expiration of its contract with the BOP in July 2012. When that contract was not renewed, the financial house of cards holding the company together collapsed.

The court-appointed receiver tasked with cleaning up the mess was Ronald Winters, a managing director with the Alvarez & Marsal Healthcare Industry Group in New York. The main challenge that Winters ...

CCA Has Long History of Wage Violations, Poor Treatment of Employees

On August 20, 2014, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest for-profit prison operator, issued a press release that attempted to put a positive spin on over $8 million in back wages the company had agreed to pay to employees at one of its facilities.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), CCA had paid 30 to 40 percent less than required under rules for federal contractors to workers at the company’s California City Correctional Center. CCA was also accused of failing to make required payments to employees’ retirement and health and life insurance accounts, as well as violations related to “inaccurate recording of breaks, lunches and overall hours worked,” according to the Associated Press. Some employees will receive more than $30,000 in back pay.

“The people that get these federal monies from a federal agency to get one of these contracts have to abide by the wage rates,” stated Eduardo Huerta, assistant director of the DOL’s wage and hour division.

CCA claimed the $8 million payment for back wages was due to a “retroactive contract modification” by federal officials, and said it had “diligently” and in “good ...

Private Prison Contractor Not Subject to New Jersey’s Open Records Act

On October 12, 2012, a New Jersey state superior court held that Community Education Centers (CEC), a private prison contractor, was not required to disclose its records under the state’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA), N.J.S.A. § 47:1A-1 to -13. The decision was affirmed on appeal.

CEC operates Delaney Hall, a prison-like facility, for Essex County. The company contracts with Education and Health Centers of America (EHCA), a private non-profit entity, and EHCA contracts separately with the county to manage the facility.

John Paff filed an application in state court to require CEC to comply with his OPRA request for disclosure of records, including attorney billing records and personnel files for three CEC employees. The company opposed his request, arguing it was not subject to OPRA because it was not a “public entity.”

The court held that records subject to OPRA are limited to those kept or filed by any officer, commission, agency or authority of the state or political subdivision thereof in the course of the government’s official business. “OPRA defines ‘public agency’ to include ‘any of the principal departments in the Executive Branch of the State Government ...