by Clifton Adcock, Oklahoma Watch*

Behind-the-scenes moves by Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin’s senior staff members helped lead to a severe weakening of a program designed to cut the state’s high incarceration rates and save taxpayers more than $200 million over a decade, according to interviews and records obtained by Oklahoma Watch.

The efforts by the governor’s staff, assisted by legislative leaders, to take control of the state’s Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI) took place during periods when staff members met with representatives of private prison companies, which stood to gain or lose depending on how the initiative was implemented, according to emails and logs of visitors to Fallin’s office.

During that time, private prison company representatives also made donations to Governor Fallin’s 2014 campaign as well as to legislators, Oklahoma Ethics Commission records indicate.

Steve Mullins, Fallin’s general counsel, said private prison groups and lobbyists played no role in the approach that he and other staff members took in regard to the initiative.

“I know for a fact I’ve never recommended a private prison as a JRI solution, so I know that it wouldn’t have influenced anything because it didn’t influence my recommendations,” Mullins said.

He also pointed out that the ...

On November 26, 2013, shareholder resolutions were filed with Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and The GEO Group, Inc. – the nation’s two largest for-profit prison companies; the resolutions seek to reduce the high cost of phone calls made by prisoners at CCA and GEO facilities nationwide.

Prison phone rates are typically much higher than non-prison rates, and a 15-minute call can cost up to $17.30. Such exorbitant costs make it difficult for prisoners to maintain regular contact with their families and children; an estimated 2.7 million children in the United States have an incarcerated parent.

In September 2013, the Federal Communications Commission issued an order capping the cost of interstate (long distance) prison phone calls. FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn observed that “Studies have shown that having meaningful contact beyond prison walls can make a real difference in maintaining community ties, promoting rehabilitation, and reducing recidivism. Making these calls more affordable can facilitate all of these objectives and more.” However, the FCC’s order has not yet gone into effect and does not apply to in-state prison phone rates. [See: PLN, Dec. 2013, p.1].

Therefore, Alex Friedmann, associate director of the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), PLN’s parent non-profit organization, filed ...

The National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC), which provides accreditation for medical services in prisons, jails and other correctional facilities, held its national conference in Nashville, Tennessee from October 28 to 30, 2013.

PLN managing editor Alex Friedmann attended the conference and sat in on several presentations that addressed the issue of telemedicine in the correctional setting. Telemedicine involves medical consultations over a remote connection, typically with a patient speaking with a physician or other medical practitioner on a video screen.

The first NCCHC conference session on telemedicine was conducted by Lawrence Mendel, a physician and acting medical director at the Leavenworth Detention Center, a facility operated by Corrections Corporation of America.

According to Mendel, the first prison telemedicine program began in 1978 at the South Florida Reception Center in conjunction with Jackson Memorial Hospital. The use of telemedicine expanded during the 1990s and it is now used in a variety of settings to provide long-distance medical evaluations and diagnoses.

One advantage of telemedicine in prisons and jails, according to Dr. Mendel, is the ability to provide specialty medical services at facilities located in rural areas where specialists may not be available locally. Additionally, telemedicine can result in a ...

With health care expenses for prisoners consuming more than $208 million of the biennial budget for the Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC) – a 67% increase since 2005 – prison officials are desperate to contain costs.

Correctional Health Partners (CHP), which provides medical services at ODOC facilities under a contract that lasts until 2015, is exploring how the state prison system can tap into federal Medicaid funding thanks to a rule that says Medicaid will pay the medical bills of prisoners who are otherwise eligible and are hospitalized outside a prison for more than one day.

“The rule has been around for almost 15 years now,” explained CHP CEO Jeff Archambeau. “While it seems straightforward, the mechanics of it are quite complicated.”

Currently, the federal government pays approximately 63% of Medicaid costs in Oregon; the program covers some of the state’s low-income adults, pregnant women, juveniles, people who are elderly, disabled or sight-impaired and those who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits.

In 2014, however, Medicaid will be expanded in 25 states to cover all U.S. citizens with an income less than 133% of the federal poverty guidelines under the Affordable Care Act (also known as “Obamacare”). For an ...

by David M. Reutter

Last year, the GEO Group – the nation’s second-largest for-profit prison company – announced that it was pulling out of its contracts to operate three Mississippi prisons. That development came shortly after a federal court announced sweeping changes at the GEO-run Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility (WGYCF) in Leake County, Mississippi following the settlement of a lawsuit.

U.S. District Court Judge Carlton W. Reeves wrote that WGYCF, a prison for youthful male offenders ages 13 to 22 convicted as adults, “has allowed a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate, the sum of which places the offenders at substantial ongoing risk.”

A March 20, 2012 report by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) found “systemic, egregious practices” at WGYCF, including “brazen” sexual activity between staff and offenders that was “among the worst that we’ve seen in any facility anywhere in the nation.” Poorly trained guards at WGYCF beat youths and used excessive pepper spray. Employees sold drugs at the facility. Prisoners were denied adequate medical care and not afforded “even the most basic education services.” There was a culture of “deliberate indifference” to possessing homemade knives used in gang fights and rapes. Finally, ...

According to documents produced by the Mississippi Department of Corrections pursuant to a public records request, a semi-automatic pistol and other contraband was found at the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility in Woodville on September 13, 2013. The prison is operated by Management & Training Corporation (MTC), a for-profit company.

According to emails from MTC officials, an anonymous phone call to the facility indicated that contraband was going to be “thrown over the fence on the south end of the prison which house [sic] Long Term Segregation offenders and there was to be a gun in the package.” The fence line was “walked twice” before a package with contraband was located, which contained three cell phones and tobacco but no firearm.

Based on the anonymous call, staff located a broken cell window in G Pod. A search of the cell resulted in the discovery of a semi-automatic Model MP .25 pistol in the possession of a prisoner. Other contraband found in the cell included tobacco, a cell phone charger and a “6 in. sharpened weapon made of the cell light fixture.”

There was no indication how the firearm ended up inside the segregation cell. The gun was found in the cell ...

A U.S. District Court in Florida has held that the denial of a prisoner’s access to a contraceptive pill to prevent pregnancy, based on a jail employee’s religious beliefs, states a cause of action.

The plaintiff in the case, identified only as R.W., was raped on January 27, 2007 by an unknown assailant. After she reported the crime to the Tampa Police Department, R.W. was taken to a Rape Crisis Center. There she was given two anti-conception pills following an examination. The first, at the doctor’s directions, was taken immediately; the second was to be taken twelve hours later.

A police officer then returned R.W. to the scene of the crime. During the investigation, it was discovered that she had an outstanding arrest warrant for failure to appear and failure to pay restitution. She was arrested and taken to the Hillsborough County Jail.

R.W. remained in jail overnight and the next morning advised Michele Spinelli, an employee with Armor Correctional Health Services, the jail’s private medical contractor, about the rape and her need to take the prescribed anti-conception pill to ensure she did not become pregnant. In response, “Spinelli told the Plaintiff that Spinelli would not give her the pill ...

On August 16, 2013, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter, sitting by designation, unsealed a number of court documents related to a contempt motion seeking sanctions against Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest for-profit prison company, for violating a settlement agreement in a lawsuit that alleged high levels of violence at the CCA-operated Idaho Correctional Center (ICC).

The unsealed documents revealed that current and former CCA employees had submitted sworn affidavits confirming CCA’s earlier acknowledgement that officials at ICC had falsified staffing records. The affidavits further indicated the understaffing may have far surpassed the company’s admission that ICC falsified almost 4,800 staff hours reported to state prison officials.

The district court had previously unsealed other documents related to the contempt motion on August 6, but the most recent unsealed records shed additional and unflattering light on CCA’s conduct relative to staffing discrepancies at ICC.

The underlying class-action lawsuit, litigated by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), alleged excessive levels of violence at ICC that were in large part due to understaffing. In fact, a study conducted by Idaho prison officials in 2008 found that ICC had “four times more prisoner-on-prisoner assaults than Idaho’s other seven publicly-operated prisons ...

by Matt Clarke

Against the backdrop of the recent hunger strike involving thousands of prisoners in California, the death last year of an Illinois jail prisoner who died after refusing to eat or drink is especially poignant.

Lyvita Gomes, 52, died in January 2012 following a 15-day hunger strike that began after the mentally ill woman was arrested and incarcerated at the Lake County Jail near Chicago.

Funeral home workers cleaning out a hotel room where Lyvita had lived found stacks of unopened mail. In one stack was the jury summons that initiated the series of events that led to her death. Ironically, Lyvita was not a U.S. citizen and thus ineligible to serve on a jury.

Born in India, Lyvita received a U.S. visa in 2004 and moved to Atlanta to work at the headquarters of Delta Airlines. The airline laid her off in 2007 and she relocated to Illinois using her still-valid visa to obtain a driver’s license.

It was her driver’s license that put Lyvita into the pool of potential jurors in Lake County. She received a summons to report for jury duty on July 5, 2011; the summons indicated that non-citizens were exempt but had to ...

The Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) in Ocilla, Georgia has been sold at auction after the facility’s owner, Municipal Corrections LLC, was forced into bankruptcy court by bondholders.

A 2007 agreement between Irwin County and Municipal Corrections demonstrates the risks that government agencies assume when they issue bonds to invest in prisons and jails. The agreement allowed the county to house up to 30 of its own prisoners at ICDC at no charge, excluding medical costs. In return, the county – which also hoped to create more jobs – issued $55 million in tax-exempt lease revenue bonds to pay off other bonds and finance a 512-bed expansion at ICDC, bringing the facility’s total capacity to 1,201.

The bonds were to be paid with revenue received from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Marshals Service, for holding detainees at ICDC. However, the facility failed to house enough prisoners to generate sufficient income to make the bond payments – a problem that has plagued a number of other detention centers built by cities and counties hoping to cash in on for-profit incarceration. [See previous article, “Declining prison populations leave towns with empty jails, debt”].

Consequently, in January 2012 an Irwin ...